Open Call for Performances Activation of the Solar Structure | Deadline 21.06.2026
Genereal Information
The Center for Spatial Cosmology (CSC) is a transdisciplinary platform operating across art, architecture, and anthropology. It examines the relationship between spaces — buildings, places, landscapes, and environments — and the cosmologies that shape them and are, in turn, constructed through them: worldviews, belief systems, myths, and ideologies.
More than a celestial body, the Sun is a condition for life. It affects us biologically, spatially, culturally, and symbolically. It provides light, warmth, and energy; enables photosynthesis; influences climate and ecosystems; and structures circadian rhythms, day and night, activity and rest. Despite technological systems and abstract orders of time, our bodies, our perception, and our everyday lives remain shaped by the Sun’s cycles. The Sun has also long been central to cultural and cosmological imagination. It has been revered, feared, interpreted, and ritualized in myths and belief systems. Sunrise and sunset mark charged moments between visibility and darkness, presence and change, often associated with ritual and transformation. The Sun also plays a central role in architecture: it shapes orientation, atmosphere, lighting, materiality, and the use of space. From historical buildings to current questions of climate, heat, and energy, the Sun appears both as a resource and as a challenge. Engaging with the Sun therefore opens a field of inquiry across art, architecture, and anthropology, touching on questions of space, perception, culture, and ecological urgency.
Students of architecture at HCU are designing and constructing a Solar Structure for the public space at Oberhafen in Hamburg. Its spatial arrangement suggests a solar ritual, while remaining open to new interpretations. From July 21–26, the structure will be activated through a solar ritual, performances, and a tavolata — a generous shared meal. We invite students of HFBK Hamburg to contribute to the activation of the Solar Structure with their own performative interpretations. We welcome proposals for performances, lectures, readings, as well as olfactory, sonic, and multisensory activations of the architecture. Contributions will be selected by the CSC team according to feasibility and artistic quality. Selected artists will be invited to collaborate closely with the architecture students and the CSC curatorial team. Proposals may be original works or adaptations of previously shown performances.
Students of architecture at HCU are designing and constructing a Solar Structure for the public space at Oberhafen in Hamburg. Its spatial arrangement suggests a solar ritual, while remaining open to new interpretations. From July 21–26, the structure will be activated through a solar ritual, performances, and a tavolata — a generous shared meal. We invite students of HFBK Hamburg to contribute to the activation of the Solar Structure with their own performative interpretations. We welcome proposals for performances, lectures, readings, as well as olfactory, sonic, and multisensory activations of the architecture.
Recommended Reading:
- Wynter, Sylvia. “The Ceremony Must Be Found: After Humanism.” Boundary 2 12/13
(1984): 19–70. JSTOR. https://doi.org/10.2307/302808.
How to apply
Interested candidates are invited to send their application in a single PDF-file by June 21 to:
mateo.chaconpino@hcu-hamburg.de
Applications should include a short description of the proposal, maximum 250 words, as well as a list of required materials and relevant sketches or images. For proposed adaptations of existing works, links to documentation of previous presentations may also be included. Questions may be addressed to Mateo Chacón Pino:
mateo.chaconpino@hcu-hamburg.de