The Vienna Project

Ephemeral art is fleeting. It has a beginning and an ending. The Vienna Project, conceived as a social action memorial project situated on the streets of Vienna, opened on 23. October 2013 and concluded on 18. October 2014. While the project has officially ended, the ideas contained in The Vienna Project remain active. In addition, a number of new documentation initiatives are under development, extending the project’s goals and timeline.

The Vienna Project was the first public art memorial of its kind in Europe and the first public naming memorial in Vienna to represent the multiple groups of persecuted Austrian victims and dissidents of National Socialism at the same moment, in a differentiated format, murdered between 1938-1945. A multi-dimensional, interactive, interdisciplinary project, The Vienna Project forged a dynamic relationship between performance art, video and new technologies, typography and street art, web design, history, archival research, and Holocaust education. Occurring in the public space, the project joined history with memory, and collaboration with participation. More…

“The Vienna Project: Overview.” 10 minute video. Videographer: Mathias Janko

Director, producer, and project’s lead artist, Karen Frostig, narrated the film. Bärbel Janko created a German recording of the narration.

Ab Ende Oktober wird in ganz Wien ein neues Gedenkprojekt für ein Jahr an die Opfer des Nationalsozialismus erinnern. Ins Leben gerufen wurde The Vienna Project von Karin Frostig, Künstlerin, Autorin, Professorin und Enkelin österreichischer Holocaust-Opfer anlässlich des 75. Jahrestags des Anschlusses 1938. Das Projekt ist das erste öffentliche Mahnmal, das die verschiedenen Gruppen von Opfern des Nationalsozialismus in einem differenzierten Format darstellt und ihrer gedenkt. Diese Gruppen umfassen Juden, Roma und Sinti, Opfer der NS-„Euthanasie“, Homosexuelle, politisch Verfolgte und Dissidenten, Slowenische Partisanen und Zeugen Jehovas. The Vienna Project wird – basierend auf dem Konzept der Partizipation und dem sozialen Handeln – von Studierenden, KünstlerInnen, ProfessorInnen, HistorikerInnen und PädagogInnen inhaltlich und künstlerisch umgesetzt. So entsteht eine dynamische Beziehung zwischen unterschiedlichen Disziplinen wie Kunst, Video, neuen Technologien, Typografie, Webdesign, Straßentheater, Tonkunst, Geschichte und Archivforschung. –Translation by George Traska

The Naming Memorial, the project’s culminating event, projected 91,780 names of murdered Austrian victims onto the walls of buildings surrounding Josefsplatz. The seven different victim groups included Jews, Roma and Sinti, mentally ill and physically and mentally handicapped, homosexuals, persons persecuted on political grounds, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Carinthian Slovenians. To watch a short video of just the Naming Memorial, click here.

Projekt team

Prof. Dr. Karen Frostig, President and Artistic Director
Dr. Rubina Möhring, Moderator/Closing Ceremony
Dr. Jérôme Segal, Lead Historian for 38 sites and conducting video interviews of survivors
Dr. Georg Traska, Master of Ceremonies/Opening Events and Oral Historian
Univ.-Ass. MMag.Art Elisabeth Wildling, Video Artist for Naming Memorial and Facilitator of Parcours des Erinnerns
Univ.-Lekt.Mag.Art Nikolaus Gansterer, Memory Map
Kabren Levinson, Chief Technology Officer
Dr. Ildiko Meny, Curator for Performance
Univ.-Lekt.Mag.Art Waltraud Jungwirth, Sidewalk Stencil Designer
Johanna Taufner, Social Media Manager
Kate Melchior, Tour Researcher and Guide
Liza Schluder & Rosa Czemin, Stencil Sprayers
Axel Wolf Bierbaum, Videographer and photographer
Mathias Janko, Videographer
Christian Wind, Photographer
Peter Mlczoch, Consultant, translator and tour guide
Mag.phil. Alexander Matthias Kosnopfl, Grant reporter
Margot Landl, Assistant Blogger
Shachar Brenner, Database developer
Sonja Danner, Education coordinator fro archival letters
Marianne Windsperger, Organizing archival letters for “Reading Mar-a-thon”
Veronika Bezinsky
Bärbel Janko, German translation of project video