Michael Hieslmair
Michael Hieslmair, born 1974 in Linz lives and works in Vienna. He studied architecture at the Graz University of Technology and Delft University of Technology. He was fellow at Künstlerhaus Büchsenhausen Innsbruck and architect in residence at the MAK Center for Art and Architecture Los Angeles, taught at various universities, e.g. University for Art and Design Burg Giebichenstein Halle an der Saale, Innsbruck University, Graz and Vienna Technical University. He collaborated on the research project "Crossing Munich, Places, Representations and Debates on Migration in Munich" (with Sabine Hess) which culminated in an exhibition at the Rathausgalerie. From 2014 to 2016 he was research associate at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and co-head of research of "Stop and Go: Nodes of Transformation and Transition" investigating the production of space along pan-European Traffic Corridors in East Europe.
In 2012 he co-founded (with Michael Zinganel) the independent research institute Tracing Spaces. In the field of urban curating, Tracing Spaces activates interactions in social space through medium- to long-term on-site projects and spatial interventions (including 2007 Exit St. Pankraz, 2014–2016 Stop and Go, 2020 Graz Backstage, 2023 Cargo Vienna, 2025–26 Habitat Hybrid).
Since summer 2015, Tracing Spaces has been operating a project space at Nordwestbahnhof, Vienna's last inner-city logistics hub—since 2020 as Museum Nordwestbahnhof—where, embedded in the then still active social milieu of the logistics landscape, a multi-layered multimedia cartography of the migration and mobility experiences of the actors working here has gradually emerged.
EDUCATION
Graz University of Technology
Graz, Austria
Delft University of Technology
Delft, Netherlands
JURY
Sabeth Buchmann
Selva Gürdoğan
Friedemann Malsch
Simon Starling
Christoph Thun-Hohenstein
FINAL PROJECT
