Trafostacja

TRAFOSTATION // Joanna Rajkowska

Trafostation is an attempt to re-naturalize the ecosystem at Niskie Łąki in Wrocław, Poland. The project was a part of the ‘Wrocław – Backyard Door’ visual arts programme within the framework of the European Cultural Capital Wrocław 2016.

A defunct transformer station building from 1930 became a scaffold for a living sculpture initiated by running a biological ‘machine’ of vegetation. The modernist architecture is covered by various species of plant, and water flows from three windows, recalling the 1997 flood that devastated Wrocław. Direct human intervention for this small habitat involved planting ferns, ivy, geraniums, mosses, euonymus and seeding ruderal plants.

– „Trafostation is created for a future when non-human organisms will take possession of the building completely and turn it into a new habitat. Water and plants are understood as agents and the driving force of the project, hence the form and future of the project is up to them. The vegetation cycle will be a spectacle of non-human forces playing out on a stage created by architecture. And, although the performance is intended for humans, the actors of Trafostation are the organisms resident in the ecosystem. Trafostation is therefore a gesture of offering the human phenomena of architecture to other species.” – Joanna Rajkowska

Project Production

Architectural cooperation: Paweł Karpa
Structural engineer: Mateusz Bilski
Horticultural consultant: dr inż. Marta Weber-Siwirska, Magdalena Zelek, Jagoda Podgórska (SKN AK sekcja Ambasadorzy Zieleni) Uniwersytet Przyrodniczy we Wrocławiu
Production: Marta Krasnopiórko, Patryk Szelawa / Technika w ogrodzie
Cooperation: Anna Pluta, Krystian Pryłowski, Aleksandra Jach
Coordinators: Festival Office Impart 2016 – Natalia Romaszkan, Maciej Tymorek, Bartosz Zubik, Kaja Górska

Special thanks to Zarząd Zieleni Miejskiej in Wrocław for help in project implementation and the Polish Association “Dachy Zielone “, which covered the project patronage.



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