Welcome to Gammél City oder: Ich will sehen, dass zwei Seelöwen einander umarmen – Drei wären natürlich besser. (Frei nach Dilek Mayatürk)
2025

A project by Ina Römling, Charlotte Pfeifer, Pascal Fuhlbrügge, Annika Dorau, Torben Körschkes.

Gammél City begins with the question of what a city would look like if it were designed for doing nothing. The term Gammél is an updated version of Gammler, a subculture of the 1960s, that followed the beat generation. The installation was set up for two weeks in Hamburg’s city center, right at the fountain called Mönckebergbrunnen. On the fountain one can see two sculptures of sea lions, Eve and Adam on top, loafing around. Below the fountain we multiplied the sea lions in the form of comfortable beanbags including an audio piece one could listen to, when lying on one of those sea lions. Sometimes the peace and quiet was disturbed by a sudden burst of sea lion activity, which was the performance. We also invited authors for public readings. But mostly we were loafing around. A short trailer of the project here.

The project was a Pilotprojekt and part of the Hamburg program “Verborgene Potenziale – Gemeinschaftliche Entwicklung der Nutzungsvielfalt für eine lebendige und resiliente Hamburger Innenstadt” and funded by “Zukunftsfähige Innenstädte und Zentren” of the Federal Ministry for Housing, Urban Development and Building.

Photo: Tanja Bächlein

Photo: Tanja Bächlein

Photo: Tanja Bächlein

Photo: Tanja Bächlein

Photo: Tanja Bächlein

Photo: Tanja Bächlein

Photo: Tanja Bächlein

Photo: Tanja Bächlein

Zukunftswerkstatt
2025

A project by studio lose (Ina Römling, Frieder Bohaumilitzky, Torben Körschkes).

An important step towards modernising the Museum der Arbeit (Museum of Work) in Hamburg began in January 2022 with the renovation of the Torhaus (former gatehouse). Part of the renovation involved setting up the Zukunftswerkstatt (Future Workshop). The concept of the Zukunftswerkstatt is based on the guiding principle of the museum, which documents and examines changes in the world of work and their impact on people, using Hamburg as an example. In this context, the Museum der Arbeit sees itself as a platform for current social and political discussions. It aims to gain knowledge about the past in order to understand the complexity of the present and shape the future.

Our design, which was selected in a competition and has been realised in 2025, is a workshop for working together on the future. Various modules are based on classic workshop trolleys, which we have redesigned into independent tools. Through this transformation, the exhibition modules themselves refer to both the past and the future. The various trolleys can be rearranged again and again to suit different exhibition, workshop and event formats.

Photo: Anne Linke

Photo: Anne Linke

Photo: Anne Linke

Photo: Jérome Gerull

Photo: Jérome Gerull

Treppenhaus (Staircase)
2024

With Ina Römling / HEFT.

Mobile meeting point for various groups, all moving around the artist’s run ensemble Herbsthausen and through the Wendland, Germany. The design allows for various set-ups: The steps are held together by the vertical bars of the roof, but can also be laid out individually, as islands.

On the one hand, we wanted to build a lantern that stands out from the rural landscape and marks a meeting point. We also wanted to bring the staircase, which as an architectural element stands for moments of transition and tends to appear in urban spaces, into the countryside so that it can be appropriated. And it was appropirated: as a stage, podium, dance floor, DJ booth; with crossbars, banners and carpet; stationary and wandering through the city of Gartow.

We would like to thank Camillo Ritter and Chenxi Zhong for the invitation, Eva Nalbach for the support in making the fabric roof and the participants of ArtCamp Tangente for bringing the installation to life.

Explosion of the different parts of Treppenhaus.
Set up as a staircase.
On the trailer of a tractor; art parade through the city of Gartow. Image: Ramtin Zanjani @schuppen.studio
Set up as a stage for a musical performance.

Der Wind des Viertels (The Wind of the Neighbourhood)
2024

With Ina Römling / HEFT.
As part of "Space Games – Spielfeld Mitte Altona", a cooperation between Kulturagent*innen Hamburg e.V. and Stadtteilschule Altona.

The installation Der Wind des Viertels was created in the context of the Space Games - Spielfeld Mitte Altona. The performance artist Charlotte Pfeiffer has developed various stories with pupils from the Mitte Altona district school in which aliens and earthlings, especially residents of Mitte Altona, organize intergalactic games together.
Our installation wanders through the neighborhood and marks the place where the games take place. The flags and benches will be carried through the streets and ceremoniously brought together, inspired by major sporting events. However, unlike at these major events, the flags do not refer to national affiliations, but show abstract motifs from the stories and everyday lives of the pupils. They refer to symbolic or emotional places in the neighborhood: the shopping cart containers of a nearby supermarket, which can be played on; the "portal"; a pigeon inspector who is out and about in the neighborhood; the donut store, whose logo is reminiscent of the smoke curls of the teachers smoking in front of it, etc.
The two-part, round bench offers space to linger, discuss and watch. It has been infested with audio tubes from which the stories recorded by Pfeiffer and the pupils can be heard.

We would like to thank Kulturangent*innen Hamburg e.V. for the invitation.

Pupils' parade with flags and benches. Photo: Miguel Ferraz Araújo.

Audio tubes have infested the bench. Stories from the neighborhood are played. Photo: Miguel Ferraz Araújo.

Pupils' parade with flags and benches. Photo: Miguel Ferraz Araújo.

Audio tubes have infested the bench. Stories from the neighborhood are played. Photo: Miguel Ferraz Araújo.

Dialogical Structures
2018–2023

With Ina Römling / HEFT.
Initiated during a residency at PACT Zollverein.

The Dialogical Structures are a toolbox for the spatial testing of discussion formats. In experimental settings, spatialized hierarchies are examined in order to develop new typologies and negotiation formats. The mobile architecture has been shown at the following locations, among others, and has thus developed further in each case: at the choreographic center NRW, PACT Zollverein, as a dialogical format for the exchange of the artists in residence present; as a framework for various workshops to develop the idea of a neighborhood parliament (e.g. at the Innovative Citizen Festival in Dortmund and at the conference of the German Society for Design Theory and Research at the HfG Karlsruhe); as a mobile festival center as part of the Hamburg theater festival Hauptsache frei 2021, 2022 and 2023 at Kampnagel, Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof, Lichthoftheater, Monsun, Sprechwerk and Kraftwerk Bille, among others.

Dialogical Structures at Sprechwerk during the theater festival Hauptsache frei 2022. Photo: Juha Hansen.

Dialogical Structures at Lichthof Theater during the theater festival Hauptsache frei 2022. Photo: Juha Hansen.

Dialogical Structures at Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof during the theater festival Hauptsache frei 2021. Photo: Torben Körschkes.

Impossible Library
2020–2022

With Ina Römling / HEFT, Die Brueder, Annika Dorau, Nina Prader.
Funded by Elbkulturfonds, Ministry for Culture and Media, Hamburg.

→ https://www.impossiblelibrary.com/de

Conversion of a former butcher‘s shop into a space for cultural events and discussions. The new “balcony” houses a magazine library with over 1000 publications and a reading corner. The ground-level area remains deliberately flexible: for two years, we have invited artists, theorists, and bookmakers for events and residencies. The focus was on questions about the relationship between publishing and society and the role of libraries and archives in the digital age. In collaboration with the guests, numerous new approaches to organizing the magazine library were developed. The events were open to the public and free of charge. The practice of publishing, which for us is explicitly a practice of exchange, was also taken up in terms of space organization: With weekly opening hours and the offer to the neighbors to use the space as a reading room outside of the events. All invited artists were asked to create a hand-held device that enabled an individual entry into the collection. The hand-held devices were exhibited separately for several weeks in specially designed displays.

Guests and artists in residence, amoung others: Abdul Dube, Anne König, Caroline Kapp, Claudia de la Torre, Enrico Floriddia, Julia Nitschke, Leonhard Hieronymi, Loulou João, Si-Ying Fung.

Soft Opening of Impossible Library. Photo: Malte Spindler.

Work space of the Impossible Library. Photo: Torben Körschkes.

Aron Rossman-Kiss at Impossible Library. Photo: Torben Körschkes.

Anne König of Spector Books at Impossible Library. Photo: Ina Römling.

Denken des Dazwischen, Poetik des Medialen
2022

With Frieder Bohaumilitzky and Petja Ivanova.
Conference design for Germany Society for Media Science, German Society for Aesthetics, HAW Hamburg.

A conversation between me and Frieder Bohaumilitzky on the in-between has been published in the publication Denken des Medialen – Zur Bedeutung des “Dazwischen” (transcript 2024).

In contrast to the conventional setting for lectures and symposia, the space here consists of five islands and the spaces between them. Visitors are assigned an island at the entrance where they can take a seat. The distribution is random and takes place anew on both days of the conference. Speakers and moderators are also assigned a place so that listeners and speakers are mixed. There will be approximately 15-minute breaks between the presentations, providing plenty of opportunity for internal exchange. The islands are provided with drinks (coffee, water) during these breaks so that nobody has to leave their island. (Of course, people have resisted this strictness and have exchanged ideas between the islands). On the central island, a circular gray carpet and a standing or sitting table is available for the presentations and panels - depending on your needs. Speakers can take a seat here for individual presentations and a whole group for discussions. Snacks are available in the lobby during a longer lunch break.

Floorplan for the conference Denken des Dazwischen, Poetik des Medialen.

One of the islands of the conference setting, made of logs and garbage bags. Photo: Stephan Kraus.

Audience sitting within the banners marking the sea-island. Photo: Stephan Kraus.

Mikropol
2017–2019

With a collective of varying members.
Funded by Kunst im öffentlichen Raum (Ministry for Culture and Media, Hamburg), SAGA Stiftung Nachbarschaft, 1. Jury Price of Spiegel Online Social Design Award, Kantensprungstiftung.

→ https://mikropol.de/

In response to the demolition of the former neighborhood center, Mikropol opened in summer 2019. An about 50m2 brick building in the middle of a traffic island in Hamburg Rothenburgsort. Mikropol's program evolves from two approaches: ongoing events "by neighbors for neighbors" and the program of the curatorial team. The team's main task is to regularly situate activities in and around Mikropol in order to engage with urban political discourses and to put these discourses into practice. In doing so, the building is an argument, a test site and an exhibition space all in one.

A former public toilet transformed into an open space for the neighborhood.

HEFT Archive
2018–2025

Active Archive including around 100 independent magazines and zines dealing with the city. The archive could be borrowed for free and send via Hermes delivery for 9,90 EUR including 30 magazines and a display.

HEFT Karolinenstraße
2016–2018

Project space dedicated to the city. Over the course of almost three years we organised exhibitions, dinners, talks and presentations, discussions and magazine releases. Part of the project space was a small shop with a collection of independent magazines and zines, all concerned with the city in the broadest sense.

Torben Körschkes Performance / Exhibition Spatial Design Writing About Email Instagram Imprint

Torben Körschkes

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