Europastrasse

A trace of ourselves

Most of us have heard of one, fewer know what an ›Europastrasse‹ or European Route exactly is. Whatever the precise answer, they stretch all over our continent.

Implementing such an ›Europastrasse‹ requires a huge effort – an effort in willpower, in budget, in planning as well as in engineering. There must be a strong determination, otherwise they simply would not exist. Nevertheless, whose determination is it? Ultimately it is the determination of ourselves, the European society!

Europastrasse E75


it's an interactive map, zoom and move as you like

Long and winding road

For his observation Hainzl picked the E75 ›Europastrasse‹. Nine countries will be crossed by this road, from Vardø, the most northeastern point of Norway, all the way to Sitia on the Greek Island of Crete, also leading through Slovakia. He rode along the E75 in its entirety in nearly a quarter of a year. Throughout this journey, he reflected and documented on »us« Europeans and »our« europeanness in image, video, sound and more.

Making of

For this Project I was on the road in one stretch for a quarter of a year. Here is one of the blog-posts I wrote while being on the road:

Otto Hainzl Europastrasse 09

Where does it actually begin?

Heute sind die ersten schwerwiegenden Probleme aufgetaucht. Wo beginnt die E75 und wie verlauft sie??? Ich befrage openstreetmap.org, here.com und natürlich auch google maps. Drei Mapping Dienste – 3 Antworten …

Video

»Crossing Europe« film festival showed the video which is also a result of this project. It’s an 83 hour loop, here you can see some 0,001% of it:

Exhibitions

Right now Europastrasse is shown along the E75 only as a touring exhibition. Here are the stations where it was shown so far:

__ Belgrad _ Helsinki _ Bratislava _ Vardø

One Day Residencies:

__ Finnish Museum of Photography, Helsinki

__ Vardø Kommune

Crossing Europe, Festival for European Film