tranzit 20+

All contributors and those in the making of the publication, in alphabetical order:
Larissa Agel, Karin Akai, Judit Angel, Zbyněk Baladrán, Megan Bedell, Anca Benera & Arnold Estefán, Florin Bobu, Aleksei Borisionok, Esther Brandl, Anetta Mona Chişa, Eduard Constantin, Nolan Oswald Dennis, Max Dvořák, ex-artists collective (Tamás Kaszás & Anikó Loránt), František Fekete, Maja Fowkes & Reuben Fowkes, Flóra Gadó, Ines Gebetsroither, Michaela Geboltsberger, Dóra Hegyi, Hollow (Gyula Muskovics, Tamás Páll, Viktor Szeri), Oto Hudec, Phil Jones, Jana Kapelová, Július Koller, Iva Kovač, Isabella Kresse, Júlia Laki, Renan Laru-an, Zsuzsa László, Paula Malinowska, József Mélyi, Ina Mertens, Ian Mikyska, Helena Mustakallio, OMARA (Mara Oláh), Livia Pancu, Mirjam Paninski, Lia Perjovschi, Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez, Nela Pietrová, Marlies Pillhofer, Raluca Popa, Emília Rigová, Ivana Rumanová, Save As Team, Georg Schöllhammer, The School of Dissolving – Expanding – Reconnecting Imagination (Tereza Čajková, Barbora Kleinhamplová, Eva Koťátková), Olga Shparaga, Renata Šikoronja, Dániel Sipos, Borbála Soós, Tereza Stejskalová, Andrea Szekeres, Jennifer Taylor, Ovidiu Țichindeleanu, Attila Tordai-S., Raluca Voinea, Brian D. Vondrak, Andreas Wesle, Aleksandrina Yordanova.

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Of course we cannot return to the old habits of Institutional Critique to find fairness and to execute honesty; so what if we rewrite honesty again like writing in wildfire where art is a vision burning? (Renan Laru-an, p. 79)

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tranzit.org is a network of autonomous initiatives for contemporary art based in Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia. Each tranzit operates under its own conditions and in its own local sociocultural contexts, using different formats and methods to contextualize, generate, or host theoretical, artistic, and activist debates around urgent topics. tranzit.org turned twenty years old in 2022. The aim of this publication is to take stock and reflect on both this history and ongoing conversations.

The five main chapters are centered around key concerns—institutional critique, radical education, ecology, the legacies of neo-avant-garde art, and the future—that each tranzit has addressed extensively over the years, while also offering a critical rethinking of these shared topics’ relevance going forward. Accordingly, the chapters unfold not only through existing texts but also through newly commissioned contributions and updated/re-edited essays. Through a variety of formats ranging from academic writing to interviews, letters, diagrams, drawings, photographs, and film stills, they create generative, open-ended conversations. The book opens with an interview the editors conducted with the current tranzit leaders and concludes with a timeline of each tranzit in their own chosen format.

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A series of tranzit 20+ publication launch events will take place throughout 2026

> Budapest (April 29, 14.00 – 20.00pm)

Józsefváros Museum, József krt.70., H-1085, Budapest
As part of 20 years of tranzit.hu, the event will include an international seminar, performance, keynote lecture and the book launch of tranzit 20+ publication. The anniversary event brings together internationally active artists, art practitioners, curators, and scholars from Central and Eastern Europe to share their views, projects and research, and to celebrate independent artistic and institutional practices.

14.00-14.30 Dóra Hegyi (tranzit.hu) – The Political Instrumentalisation of Public Space and Counter Actions Since 2010 in Hungary
14.30-14.50 Judit Árva (tranzit.hu) – Public (Space) Experiment: Urban Camp, an Initiative of the Space of Opportunity
14.50-15.10 Judit Angel (tranzit.sk) – Eliška Mazalanová & Peter Szalay (Bratislava) – The City is Not the Antithesis of Nature. Lido in Bratislava: Between Terrain Vague and Downtown Expansion
15.10-15.20 Q&A
15.20-15.40 Coffee break
15.40-16.00 Florin Bobu & Livia Pancu (tranzit.ro / Iași) – Curating the Museum of Real Estate Development
16.00-16.20 Jelena Vesić (Belgrade) – Durational Performance Against Exhaustion: The Struggle for Liveable Life on the Ruins of Capitalist Necropolis
16.20-16.40 Oksana Briukhovetska (Kyiv) – Grief in Public Spaces in Wartime Ukraine
16.40-16.50 Q&A
17.00-17.30 break
17.30–17.45 Participatory performance by artist Dorottya Szonja Koltay
18.00-18.30 Lecture by Tímea Junghaus (Budapest): Care Under Pressure: Feminist Strategies Against the Politics of Anxiety in Central, Eastern, and South-Eastern Europe
18.30-20.00 Book launch: tranzit 20+. The publication gathers experiments, alliances, methods, and solidarities that have sustained independent artistic practice across changing political conditions over the past two decades. Introduction: Katrin Klingan (Vienna), ERSTE Foundation Participants: Flóra Gadó (Brussels) and Borbála Soós (UK), editors of the book, Judit Angel, Florin Bobu – Livia Pancu (Iasi) and Dóra Hegyi (Budapest), representatives of a tranzit.org.

> Venice (Saturday 9 May, 12.30 – 14.30pm)

In Paradiso Restaurant located in the Giardini della Biennale in Venice, Italy. The publication launch will take place during the opening weekend of the 61st Venice Biennale. This daytime event will feature a performance by acclaimed Austrian artist Doris Uhlich and a discussion between philosopher and author Paul B. Preciado, Georg Schöllhammer – head of tranzit.at and Tereza Stejskalová – director of tranzit.cz.
12:30 Doors open
13:00 tranzit 20+ book launch
13:15 Paul B. Preciado in conversation with Tereza Stejskalová and Georg Schöllhammer
14:00 La/goo/n – performance by Doris Uhlich
14:30 Doors close

> Prague (June 12)

The book launch will take place during the opening of the fourth edition of the Biennale Matter of Art  (June 12 to September 13, 2026, in Prague and Pardubice). The event will include contributions by the editors of the book Flóra Gadó (Brussels) and Borbála Soós (UK),  Tereza Stejskalová – director of tranzit.cz, other members of tranzit.cz as well as contributing artists and writers (TBC).

> Bratislava (October 16)
TBC

> Bucharest, Iași (July 22–27)
TBC

> Vienna (December 4)
TBC