Image: Konschthal Esch, Luxembourg
The Project Room featuring Marta Dyachenko is scheduled to run from 24 October 2026 to 14 February 2027. Its opening is scheduled for 23 October, with speeches, a performance reading based on Erich Nossack’s 1943 autobiographical essay ‘Der Untergang’, and a DJ set.
Dyachenko’s project, ‘Graue Strömung (Hydro)’, begins with the speculative question: what if the river reappeared? It addresses Esch’s industrial history, in which iron dictated the city’s urban planning, work rhythms and collective memory while the river disappeared beneath development, channelled, covered over and erased from the heart of the city. Today, the water survives as a vestige: a caged watercourse and a silent witness to an era that sought to dominate it.
Within the project, water is described as a condition of life whose scarcity and fragility are underscored by climate change. It is also treated as a place of gathering and encounter, where social life is invented at the water’s edge as much as by the water itself.
Moving from Esch’s industrial past through the present of its contained river toward a hypothetical future, the exhibition invites viewers to imagine what a city reconciled with its elements might look like and calls for observation. Dyachenko’s practice examines relationships between architecture, collective memory and contemporary sociopolitical issues through imaginary landscapes composed of models, sculptures and installations, observing how the built environment shapes historical and cultural understanding.
Born in 1990 in Kyiv, Ukraine, Dyachenko studied architecture and fine arts, specializing in sculpture, at the Berlin University of the Arts. Charlotte Masse is credited as the exhibition’s curator.
