CONTAIN
An Artwork Made by Many
CONTAIN is an art project by data artist Lisa Lechner and ceramic artist Andrea Baumann. It translates data on housing, land consumption and soil sealing into a physical installation made from ceramics, crocheted textiles, photographs and conversations.
But CONTAIN is not created in a studio and presented to the public only once it is finished. The artwork grows through encounters with different people—through their hands, experiences, images and ideas.
Together with the RAIKA team, we created the installation’s large ceramic cup. Children at Tiroler Soziale Dienste made the many smaller cups that will surround it. Each cup is an everyday object, but also a small architecture: it contains, protects and provides a sense of belonging. Together, the cups speak about the space every person needs—and about how differently a home can be imagined.
On 10 August 2026, we will gather in Waltherpark, Innsbruck, for a public crochet event. Using recycled textile yarn, we will collectively create the structures that spread through the installation. While our hands are working, we will talk: about housing, belonging, Innsbruck, the places we miss, the places we need—and everything else that emerges when people sit down together.
No previous crochet experience is needed. You can stay for five minutes or an entire afternoon.
CONTAIN is a participatory data-art project about housing, soil sealing and the question of how we want to live in Tyrol in the future.
Everyone needs a home. Yet the ground on which we build is not simply empty space. It absorbs rainwater, cools our surroundings and sustains plants, animals and human life. Once it is sealed, these capacities disappear—usually unnoticed, one square metre at a time.
CONTAIN begins within this tension. It does not simply position housing and nature as opposites. Both needs are real. But how can we create places to live without continually consuming more living soil? And what do we fail to see when land is treated merely as available space?
cc Nina Allmooslechner
cc Nina Allmooslechner
cc Nina Allmooslechner
cc Nina Allmooslechner