“Just around the corner” is an expression that describes something very close in time, space, or possibility. In 2025, we chose to return almost entirely to our immediate surroundings. The initial impulse was simple: to knock on the doors of our nearest neighbours. We imagined openspace literally knocking next door, to the people with whom we share a wall, a parking lot, and a garden, and asking: Hello, would you like to take part in our project?
It sounds simple. Yet in many contemporary societies people live side by side, greeting one another politely, while rarely sharing deeper moments of exchange. At a time when much of our daily life is shaped by screens, work routines, and movement through the city within personal bubbles, we often arrive and leave places without engaging with what surrounds us. This observation became the core motivation of the project: to begin by getting to know the people, stories, organisations, practices, and themes that exist just around the corner and that are, paradoxically, often worlds away.
Throughout summer, autumn, and winter 2025, a creative carpet unfolded across Wilten, forming a fabric of voices, gestures, and stories that connected cultures and shaped the neighbourhood. Just Around the Corner reimagined the local community as a stage, a laboratory, and a space for encounters and possibilities. Over several months, workshops, performances, installations, and participatory interventions emerged in close collaboration with residents and local initiatives.
The invited artists Boris Bare from Zagreb, Katharina Löffler from Innsbruck, the architecture collective Krater Fajan from Innsbruck, and Michelle Schmollgruber from Innsbruck worked across different media but shared a common focus. Each approached art as a tool for connection, collective creation, neighbourhood building, and social reflection. A temporary space for learning and production was established, linking international perspectives with local knowledge. At its centre stood dialogue between artists, initiatives, residents, and the urban environment. The project explored proximity and invisibility, making visible what is immediately present while opening spaces for what lies beyond view. The idea of the “corner” functioned both as metaphor and perspective shifter, drawing attention to the diversity of viewpoints within the neighbourhood and within artistic approaches.
Street artist Boris Bare is known for large scale murals and socially engaged projects such as Pimp My Pump and Art Park in Croatia. His works transform public space into open galleries and address political and social realities through intense use of colour. In Innsbruck he created ground and wall murals inspired by urban textures and the local context. Collaborations were realised with the Ilse Brühl Secondary School, the Underbridge Festival, and actors from the local street art scene. A large scale mural titled Magic Carpets was created in the courtyard of Mentlgasse. Another mural followed at the intersection of Franz Fischer Straße and Tempelstraße, developed together with students through a street art workshop. During the neighbourhood festival these works were presented alongside Bare’s interventions. In addition, the group exhibition Conflict of Interest by Boris Bare and Ema Marković Imbrija was presented at openspace Innsbruck. Through the juxtaposition of the two artistic positions, questions of identity, migration, political transformation, and everyday life in post Yugoslav contexts became visible. The residency was realised in cooperation with the Croatian Magic Carpets partner organisation Lab 852.
Krater Fajan, represented by Christoph Schwarz and Jonas Längenfelder, works at the intersection of architecture, design, and artistic practice. Their contribution focused on participatory processes and micro architectures that activate social space. The project World Wide Wilten operated on several interconnected levels. The Instagram platform @worldwidewilten highlighted local associations and initiatives and created a digital layer of visibility and networking. In public space, mobile seating elements functioned as meeting points and starting locations for neighbourhood walks. Because of their mobility they appeared in changing locations, drawing attention to overlooked sites and encouraging new perspectives. During the neighbourhood festival the collective hosted an open studio with an architecture workshop where visitors could participate in producing street furniture. A ceramics station for children further expanded participation and intergenerational exchange.
Michelle Schmollgruber works interdisciplinarily with photography, textile techniques, performance, and visual art. Her practice combines handcrafted methods with conceptually multilayered and socially reflective approaches from a feminist sensitive perspective. During her residency she developed a textile work in collaboration with the Documentation Archive Migration Tyrol at ZeMiT. The team contributed personal materials such as wool, yarns, and fabrics. Each carried traces of its origin and movement. Knot by knot the textile grew into a polyphonic fabric that evokes driftwood washed ashore. Within this interweaving an image of migration emerges as transformation, separation, and the coming together of many individual threads into a new pattern. The work is accompanied by an audio excerpt from a multi hour interview with Ameer from HINIDBA, who shares parts of his life story and migration experience. The artwork We, in the Middle travelled through the neighbourhood and the city, presented at ZeMiT’s 40th anniversary, at openspace Innsbruck, at the Documentation Archive Migration Tyrol, and finally at the Tyrolean Folk Art Museum. In this way it carried stories about migration and strengthened a shared sense of “we” as the foundation of coexistence.
Katharina Löffler works internationally as a dancer, performer, and facilitator. Her practice explores embodiment, collective movement, and inclusive dance pedagogy. In Wilten she created a body centred process directed towards FLINTA participants of different generations. From 15 September to 4 October 2025 an intensive collective process unfolded in Stadtteiltreff Wilten, openspace Innsbruck, and public space. Through contemporary dance, improvisation, and reflection, a group of more than fifteen women and FLINTA participants explored intimacy, encounter, and the visible and invisible threads connecting communities. The process culminated in a collective public performance that addressed feminist urban practice, access to art, and shared embodiment.
Collaboration with local organisations remained essential. Key partners included Stadtteiltreff Wilten, the Documentation Archive Migration Tyrol, Ilse Brühl Secondary School, the Underbridge Festival, local artisans, and neighbourhood initiatives. Together, projects were realised that were deeply rooted in the district and reflected its stories. This collaboration culminated in a neighbourhood festival under the motto Shaping the Neighbourhood Together on 4 October, presented in the passage courtyard at Mentlgasse 12 as well as at openspace Innsbruck and its surroundings.
In parallel, three local artists participated in international residencies within the Magic Carpets network: Gina Disobey in Sweden, Nicole Weniger in Portugal, and Kristina Kapeljuh in České Budějovice. The idea of the corner also functioned as a perspective shifter, offering artists the opportunity to experience different environments, rhythms, communities, and challenges, thereby broadening their artistic horizons.
This approach will continue to shape our work in the third Magic Carpets cycle.
Main Curator: Danijela Oberhofer Tonkovic
Curatorial text by Danijela Oberhofer Tonkovic