banale potenziale

In the fall of 2024, the banale potenziale was devoted—nonstop for 48 hours—to issues related to public space, especially streets. Based on 38 submitted contributions, alternative uses of the streetscapes around Graz’s Annenviertel were once again researched collaboratively.

From April 11 to May 23, 2025, these explorations culminated in the exhibition “banale potenziale – Labor zur Erforschung der Straße” at Haus der Architektur (HDA). A sequence of rooms provided insights into the history of the student show Banale since 1993, and presented the results of the 48 hours from the fall of 2024, including new contributions that shed light on the potentials of the street for protest and appropriation in various formats, including images, sound, film, installations, and workshops, among others. In a space-encompassing intervention, conventional scaffolding served to blur the boundaries between exhibition room and street, turning both indoor and outdoor areas into a vibrant site, a meeting point, and a place for discourse. A publication with index brought the exhibition and the interventions together and continued to develop them conceptually. Compiled in the volume are texts and (photographic) works that approach the pertinent explorative questions from different vantage points. The result is a reader that is meant to serve as a guide, a basis for action, and a point of departure for interdisciplinary networking—yet not as an end point, thus eschewing any claim to completeness.

Contributors to the exhibition and publication: Architects4Future, Adna Babahmetović, Ajna Babahmetović, Maja Bajević, Naomi Baumann, Valentin Böhm, Fabio Bucolo, Jonah Burgsteiner, Das letzte Ma(h)l, Muhammed Dumanli, Elisabeth Färber, Sonja Gaedicke, Gabu Heindl, Institut Vierzehn, Kollektiv Raumstation, Robin Klengel (Total Refusal), Judith Laister, Christine Lederer, Emanuel Licha, Leonhard Müllner (Total Refusal), Zara Pfeifer, Norbert Radermacher, Radio Helsinki, raum*f, Lale Rodgarkia-Dara, Johanna Rolshoven, Sarah Schilliger, Klara Schmidt, Theresa Schütz, spaxMama, Sabrina Stranzl, Sebastian Stubenrauch, Jakob Übleis, Natalia Vasadze, Anna Weberberger, Wittrich, Hannah Wohofsky, Cedric Zellweger.

Jonah Burgsteiner, Momo Francesca Canzian, Fabian Fazio, Lena Flora Maierhofer, Max Benjamin Spamer