Programme
Stefan Rummel
Germany
UNDERGROUND GHOSTS
installation in public space
19 April - 15 May 2008
stations:
Goethe-Institut, Bana J. Jelacica Square, Kvatric market, Paromlinska street, Ivana Lucica street 
Goethe-Institut Kroatien and UrbanFestival
curator: Carsten Seiffarth
In Zagreb there is currently much talk about the underground: underground tunnels and garages should namely solve the parking space problem in the city. There is even an intention to drill a tunnel through the mountain that this city so picturesquely leans on. 
Berlin artist Stefan Rummel has decided to provide help to his European neighbours within the framework of UrbanFestival 2008: he will construct five 'underground stations', in spaces central, as well as those seemingly remote. All the 'stations' bear the rough character of a construction site. The materials used are earth, steel and wood, and, beside these, speakers and cables. And the sounds and the noise from the imagined construction sites, and the roar of subway trains. Of course, the 'stations' are not real stations, but point to intentions, plans and utopias. In terms of urbanism, they can also be understood as failed constructions.
"The subway clatters, thunders and roars through big cities. It's not a place of communication, but a place where a mass of people pass each other by, passing through tubes, all the while not exchanging a single word. Mothers, daughters, sons, fathers, dogs, sometimes cats. A metropolis is "big" when it possesses a well-developed subway network. Assuming that the city can afford it, and that its underground allows for it. 
Then, people start drilling, into earth, into stone. The subway runs mainly underground, but sometimes it catches some air and emerges from its abyss."
This first ascending is takes place precisely in front of the Goethe-Institut, within, and alongside what was once the informational show-case. With this unearthing, on the 19th of April, 2008, Stefan Rummel will begin his work. The following 'stations' will be built on the 5th of May, 2008, on the main square, on the new market, at the rear of the train station, and in an underground passage on the 'University Alley'.
Carsten Seiffarth
Stefan Rummel studied free painting at the Art Academy of Nürnberg. Ever since 1996, sound has become a significant artistic material in his installation surroundings. He consciously develops his works for specific places, that is, situations. This is always preceded by an intense preoccupation with real spaces from a historic, social and architectural viewpoint. Stefan Rummel lives and works in Berlin.