A public installation by Oliver Ressler
The five lightboxes installed in Trenčín’s underground pedestrian passage form Austrian artist Oliver Ressler’s contribution to “Green Line”, curated by Oto Hudec for the European Capital of Culture Trenčín 2026.
The underpass linking the old town to the river is typical of local urban infrastructure: a low, dim tunnel forcing pedestrians underground so that cars can move freely above. With only stairs and no elevator, it excludes the elderly and wheelchair users.
Although the most polluting and loudest mode of transport grossly overuses the limited space in our cities, it is allowed to flow unrestricted under the sky. Meanwhile pedestrians are forced into dark, unsafe underground enclosures. The passage was built in the 1980s under a notionally classless society. Today such architecture separates the classes of people forced below from those permitted to flow freely overhead.
“Act as if it were possible to radically transform the world,” reads a yellow barrier tape in one photographic work, quoting Angela Davis. The US philosopher acknowledges that we have yet to build a just, egalitarian, radically democratic and liberated society, and insists there is no alternative to struggle.
“Under their wheels but unbroken,” reads another barrier tape, while cars roar above our heads and under the shadow of Trenčín Castle. “Unbroken” recalls the Breaking Wheel, a medieval torture device that was used to destroy bodies in public executions as a warning to others. The mangled bicycle beneath the heavy wheel is more than a symbol of an oppressive system: it transforms a scene of destruction into one of endurance. Individuals can be killed, but our collective defiance persists.
Other photographic works foreshadow a future beyond the age of fossil capitalism: a time when the domination of cars and the brutal architectural forms that grew along with them will finally be left behind. In this imagined future, value lies not in the ownership of cars but in freedom to move safely, easily, and sustainably without them. Affluence appears here as an abundance of public space, of fresh air, of reliable and well-designed public transportation and bike lanes.
“Out of the Passage to Seize Back the Sky” asserts the need to strive for the stars and the right to move in the city without being terrorized by car traffic. Private car ownership is more than just a local catastrophe. As a major source of carbon emissions and subsequent global heating, its worldwide impact is enormous and constantly worsening. Ever-increasing global heat is now globally killing one person a minute, a major report on the health impact of the climate breakdown has revealed.[1] This work insists on the urgent need to overcome a reality which is both deadening and deadly.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/29/rising-heat-kills-one-person-a-minute-worldwide-lancet-countdown [accessed November 1, 2025]
Photomontages: Mateusz Niechoda