Garages: creative spaces where culture takes shape
As European Capital of Culture, Chemnitz is celebrating how garages are places for encounters and artistic activity.
Luca Rehse-Knauf ,
09.01.2025 
Careers in the skilled crafts and trades come from a rich and ancient heritage, but DIY (known in German as “Heimwerken”) is also a hugely popular hobby in Germany. In Chemnitz in Saxony, over 30,000 garages from the period of communist East Germany bear witness to the country’s love of DIY. Many of the garages are self-built, but they were rarely just a parking space (usually for a “Trabbi”). They were somewhere to tinker with a project, create works of art or rehearse with your band, and in this way they became an emblem of creativity. The #3000Garages project in Chemnitz presents the Capital of Culture’s garages and yards in a new light. Art installations tell the story of how these garages were used, while workshops and festivals will fill the spaces with life.
The Storeroom
Culture is everywhere. The architect and photographer Martin Maleschka focuses on everyday objects in his work to document the cultural heritage of former East Germany. In an exhibition in the vehicle lift in the historic multi-storey carpark at the Museum for Saxon Vehicles, Maleschka is presenting artefacts which have been lent to him from garages and homes in Chemnitz. The exhibits include home-made roof racks, old newspapers and industrial products such as brake fluid manufactured in Chemnitz during the period of Communist rule. The installation becomes a living archive so visitors can see and experience everyday culture in the former GDR.
Video installation
The artist Klaus Pobitzer has also been on a tour of the region’s garages and photographing what he found. The structures are often packed with objects of all kinds, from domestic appliances to wooden pallets and personal memorabilia. Pobitzer has digitised his photos and used AI to transform them into a video exhibition. Through the many and varied objects they contain, the garages tell the stories of people and families and document the history of real-life everyday culture. Where can you see this art installation? In a garage, obviously.
