The #3000Garagen festival begins on 6 June 2025 in the Garagenhof at Harthweg 7-9 in Chemnitz. The three-day festival is part of the European Capital of Culture Chemnitz 2025 programme and is dedicated to the city’s diverse garage culture. The programme includes music theatre, concerts, workshops and readings, including the premiere of Songs of (In)Security by Tanja Krone, a garage talk show with author Lukas Rietzschel and contributions from artists such as Klaus Pobitzer and Cosima Terrasse.
Image avobe: Garagenparcours © Peter Rossner
The venue for the #3000Garagen festival in the European Capital of Culture Chemnitz is a meadow at Garagenhof Harthweg. From 6 June to 8 June 2025, garage culture will be the theme there, including music theatre by Tanja Krone, a garage talk show with author Lukas Rietzschel (‘Mit der Faust in die Welt schlagen’), concerts, workshops, a 30-kilo mustard bet, a literary garage and other programme items. The approximately 30,000 garages in Chemnitz, most of which were built during the GDR era as a collective or individual effort, form the basis for the Capital of Culture project #3000Garages. These garages were and are not only used as storage rooms, but also as places of retreat and spaces for creative activities. As part of the project, people who are connected to these places will be made visible in 2025. Their stories will be presented in artistic works, records, documents and artefacts. Even though the garage doors will remain closed to visitors to the Capital of Culture, the artistic works created in collaboration with garage owners will convey aspects of the cultural significance of these places, which are widespread in Eastern European cities.
The contributions created as part of the project will be documented in the continuously growing #3000Garagen exhibition, which will be shown until 29 November 2025 in the Garagen-Campus – a renovated former tram depot that is being used as part of Chemnitz 2025. The exhibition is the result of a three-year participatory work process by the team led by curator Agnieszka Kubicka-Dzieduszycka. Among other things, it is currently showing the photo exhibition Mitgliederversammlung, for which the Berlin photographer Maria Sturm portrayed 164 garage users, as well as initial insights and fragments of works that are exhibited decentrally in Chemnitz.
3000Garages is one of the main projects in the European Capital of Culture Chemnitz 2025 programme. Curator Agnieszka Kubicka-Dzieduszycka and her team have developed an extensive participation concept and have been inviting various artists since 2023 to get in touch with Chemnitz garage users and actively involve them in the development process.
For example, the artist Klaus Pobitzer from South Tyrol asked garage users to send him photographs of their garages. From several hundred images that provide insights into otherwise inaccessible garages, he created digital drawings, edited them with the help of AI and put them together to create the video installation Innenlandschaften. This will be shown from 24 May (opening at 20:00) until 15 June in the garage courtyard in Ahornstraße. The contents of the garages will be combined with recurring motifs from Pobitzer’s work, including depictions of aliens, pop stars, politicians and celebrities. Pobitzer’s works are shown internationally in public spaces and museums.
Location: Chemnitz, Ahornstraße car park (in front of house no. 29)
The interactive art installation Fischelant is the result of almost two years of work by the French-Austrian artist Cosima Terrasse with garage users from Chemnitz. The work will be opened on Saturday, 24 May at 2 pm in the garage courtyard at Theaterstraße 70. An object called ‘Fischelant’ (Saxon for ‘clever, on the ball, smart’) will be presented in an empty garage. The object can be explored by visitors who are granted access until October 2025. Cosima Terrasse has so far mainly worked as part of the artist collective Laokoon, which focuses on new forms of hybrid storytelling. Together with Laokoon, she has been involved in projects such as the documentary film The Cleaners (2018), the data experiment Made to Measure (2021, Pact Zollverein) and the performance Wie Du mich findest (2022, Münchner Kammerspiele).
Location: Chemnitz, Garagenhof Theaterstraße 70
Based on the original French meaning of the word ‘garage’ – ‘to bring something to safety’ – director, musician and performance artist Tanja Krone has spent the past few months asking numerous garage owners (and other Chemnitz residents) how they feel about personal safety in uncertain times. The music theatre Songs of (In)Security emerged from these conversations and will be premiered as part of the Garage Festival from 6 to 8 June. Krone uses documentary elements as the basis for her performances, often remaining close to real experiences. She has previously returned to Chemnitz with the projects MIT ECHTEN REDEN and MIT ECHTEN SINGEN to reflect on stories from the period of social change together with former classmates, teachers and acquaintances.
Last year, artist and architect Martin Maleschka collected found objects from garages, which he is presenting on loan in the installation Ersatzteillager (Sächsisches Fahrzeugmuseum, until the end of November 2025). Students from Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle developed design elements for a garage trail in Chemnitz, and Finnish artist Kati Hyyppä and Sabine Hochmuth from Chemnitz regularly organise textile workshops in which a carpet is felted from a bird’s eye view. In August, experts from the fields of art and science open the Chemnitz Garage School. In the summer months, concerts and smaller events are also organised in several garage courtyards.
WHEN?
Opening: Friday, 6 June 2025, 6 – 9 pm
Festival dates: Friday, 6 June – Sunday, 8 June 2025
Programme times: daily from 2 pm, individual programme items until the evening hours
WHERE?
Garage courtyard Harthweg 7-9
09116 Chemnitz
