tranzit is a network working independently in Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia since 2002.
The network has a polycentric structure as a collective of autonomous local units cooperating across various borderlines – between nations, languages, media, mentalities and histories.
Each tranzit works under its own conditions in a variety of local contexts, using different formats and methods such as critical platforms, exhibitions and other artistic settings (musical, poetical, literary, performative …), lectures, discussions, publications, research, mediation and non-conformist education.
tranzit generates deep experience in the local artistic and intellectual biotopes in relation with continuity, a re-assessment of contemporary history (arising chiefly from the artistic catharsis of the 1960s and ’70s) and in challenging the canons, geographies and master narratives of postwar European (art) histories. The aim of tranzit is to act translocally, i.e. in constant dialectics between local and global cultural narratives.
tranzit’s experience with self-organized activities in progressive cultures dates back to the totalitarian society of the 1970s and ’80s and has continued through the hypertransformational period and the comprehensive reform of all strata of society in the 1990s and up to the present.
tranzit is engaged in numerous side projects, such as Monument to Transformation in Prague, the Július Koller Society in Bratislava and Vienna and The Free School for Art Theory and Practice in Budapest.
tranzit’s main financial support comes from the Erste Foundation.