Reinhabiting the infrastructure through post-natural archives
2025
Installation, sound and workshops
With AWOL (absent without leave)
Produced for the Begehungen Festival 2025, “Everything is interaction”, Chemnitz - More
The outcome takes shape in a counter-archive of the site, produced through exercises of hosting, co-making, and storytelling, which activate the plant as a “third place” and access collective knowledge as a means of resisting and counteracting systems of extraction.
Through a process of situated practices, data collection, and material foraging, an embodied research of the plant was developed in collaboration with workers of the site and with Hot Super, a cultural space on Brühl Boulevard, one of the first areas in the city to be connected to the heat produced by the HKW Nord. By cataloging the data in three steps — extraction, byproduct or tool, and questioning production by shifting it into resonances — we imagine different ways in which closer relations with these processes are possible.
Merging uprooted materials, remains gathered in dust, absent thermal paths, and fish-inhabited waterways; with resonances of cyclical anecdotes, songs of displaced birds, and scrap metal music; past and future are woven in fluid temporality. The plant and our homes are brought closer, and only in this vicinity can we truly understand our interaction with the environments we exploit.
Furthermore, through a series of workshops, the exhibition space gets activated and the archive gets expanded collaboratively.
"Letters to the Archive" / "Briefe an das Archiv"
How can memory be preserved through climate collapse? What is the work of an archive and how does archiving look when it is done collectively? By blending personal narrative with collective history we will question how to archive the present through auto-ethnographic means and material repurposing. We invite Chemnitz inhabitants to write letters to a fictional archive with ink extracted from the dust of the HKW-Nord, these letters become written landscapes. The archive will collect their thoughts, and through correspondence, each participant will receive a letter with a response, creating an ongoing dialogue between temporalities and imaginaries.
"Byproducts" / "Nebenprodukten"
What gets left behind by the energy production industry and how can it be repurposed? Reflecting on the relevance of gypsum as a byproduct of coal burning, we discuss the current implications of energy shifts while explaining how to cast with this material, commonly used to build affordable housing. Through these gypsum molds, we produce together a copy of the infrastructure of the plant in the shape of an alternative way to create warmth.
"Sounds of the Future" / "Läuten der Zukunft"
How does a power plant sound in our imagination? This workshop invites children to explore the potential of repurposed materials left behind at the HKW Nord before its imminent dismantling. With guidance, young participants will transform discarded objects into devices that make sound, discovering the power of creativity in upcycling while reflecting on the sounds of the future. This workshop encourages imaginative thinking and environmental awareness, offering a playful approach to sustainability.
AWOL Collective (Absent without Leave) is an artistic collective committed to democratizing climate knowledge and research, active since 2024. AWOL engages in collaborative practices that challenge imperial frameworks and reimagine relationships with the environment as part of a shared struggle for liberation. Through interdisciplinary projects, ranging from workshops to on-site research and performative actions, the collective merges memory, archives, and history with data and spatial analysis, crafting new narratives that bridge personal displacement with ecological crisis. Currently composed by Belén Arellano Cañizares, Stefan Ralevic, and Giuliana Marmo. They have been part of the Free Radicals Residency at Floating University Berlin (2024) and the Begehungen Art Festival in Chemnitz (2025), and are currently part of the 2025 cohort of the School of Commons at ZHdK in Zurich.