Season Program
Under Creation. The Show goes on.
Kampnagel is embarking on a three-year redevelopment and renovation process. This transformation will prepare Kampnagel architecturally, structurally, and technically for the future as a production house, while also providing an opportunity to rethink the working and production conditions of the independent performing arts. The show goes on!
From the outset, one thing was clear: Kampnagel will remain open throughout the construction period. Rather than pausing our programme or relocating to a temporary venue, we understand the building process as part of our artistic practice. The construction site becomes a performance site − a space where art, architecture, and everyday life intersect and are reconfigured. In short, this period is not one of interruption but of artistic transformation. We have therefore chosen the title Under Creation to describe this exciting chapter. It reflects the creative quality of a process of becoming − the artistic practice of remaining unfinished, of staying in motion. Or, to put it another way: you will experience art while it is taking shape, and you will witness the act of making as it becomes art. In a sense, you are invited to look directly into our open heart.
PERFORMATIVE CONSTRUCTION SITE
The construction site itself will become a place of artistic production: a PERFORMATIVE CONSTRUCTION SITE where the building process is understood as an intervention and interpreted through artistic practice. Under the title “Architecture in the Making”, the renovation of Kampnagel will be accompanied by raumlabor berlin and Migrantpolitan, transforming construction into a performative event. The site becomes an experimental space in which questions of use and authorship are renegotiated − a condition of instability that also opens up new possibilities. During the first construction season, Phase 1, the building site will be explored through the lens of queer desire. Inspired by Gordon Matta-Clark's artistic practice, the act of “perforating” becomes a queer-feminist method for engaging with architecture. At the same time, artists from Hamburg's independent scene will develop site-specific projects that respond to a place in transition, engaging with memory and history as much as with materiality and the unfolding events of construction. At the same time, our perspective shifts beyond Kampnagel itself. Together with local and international artspaces the protagonists of our programme.
[K] AND THE CITY
With [K] AND THE CITY, the city itself becomes the stage. Through site-specific works, collaborations with Hamburg's cultural institutions, and artistic interventions in public space, Kampnagel expands into the urban landscape, forging new alliances and bringing art to places where it may not be expected. The programme engages directly with the questions and possibilities that emerge from the city itself.
BIG STAGE
Throughout the first phase of construction, the BIG STAGE remains in operation. K6 will continue to host major international productions and guest performances, serving as an anchor throughout this period of transformation and as a space for shared artistic experiences. The foyer will move to the former k6 foyer, while Peacetanbul will relocate to the box office area.
The result is a season unfolding in three movements: between continuity and new beginnings, between inside and
outside, between planning and experimentation. Rather than concealing the transformation, this is a season that makes the process itself visible – and invites audiences to experience it as it happens.
The show goes on!
