TRACES | Michael Zinganel: Tracing Spaces

Michael Zinganel: Tracing Spaces
Tracing Spaces, founded in 2012 by Michael Hieslmair and Michael Zinganel as an independent interdisciplinary research platform in Vienna, conceives and produces projects, exhibitions, publications and mediation formats on the topics of urban history and urban research, mobility, tourism and migration, as well as research-based art and artistic research projects, primarily in public space.
Starting from the mobility routes and rhythms of migrant workers in the highly touristy Alpine valleys in Tyrol, the research locations were extended from the end stations of commuter movements to stops along the transport axes: highway rest stops, informal markets, border crossings, bus stations, ferry ports, etc. Mobile methods of research and techniques of representation were successively developed, combining cartography and narratives to convey both the micropolitical mobility experiences of individuals and the overarching macro-political goals of (supra)-state institutions and private companies.
Since summer 2015, Tracing Spaces has been running a project space at Vienna's Nordwestbahnhof, one of the last inner-city logistics hubs, where a multi-layered multimedia cartography of the migration and mobility experiences of those working here has been successively created, embedded in the social milieu of the logistics landscape, which also includes several installations on the wasteland dedicated to specific topics, including the role of the station during the Nazi era.

The Transdisciplinary Research Center for Exhibition Studies (TRACES) brings together interdisciplinary research approaches on the history and present of exhibitions at the School of Art and Design Kassel and various Faculties at the University of Kassel. The research station on Lutherplatz was built by students at the University of Kassel in summer 2021, based on a design by Bauhaus teacher Ludwig Hilberseimer, and serves to promote dialog between urban society and the university. Here, students and lecturers provide insights into their work with talks, lectures, workshops, seminars and exhibitions and involve the public in research in the sense of "citizen science". more about TRACES

TRACES lecture series summer 2026