TEH member spotlight: BASIS Vinschgau Venosta (2026)

Hannes: There was, and still is, a significant amount of resistance towards the project. People simply don’t understand what we do or how we do it. But in many ways, that is also part of the role we have chosen to take.

We want to challenge the system. We want to be an inconvenience — to question established structures and point out what is missing. That has been our role from the beginning, and it remains our role today.

From the very beginning, we also challenged the original plans for the site. The area had primarily been perceived as a conventional property development project. Our vision was fundamentally different. We wanted to give the space back to the community, make it accessible to a much broader public, and ensure that the people living in the town could actually use and benefit from it.

Of course, there is still a lot of misunderstanding around what we do. Some people simply don't understand the purpose of BASIS or don't yet see the benefits and potential it offers. Others don't necessarily feel that there is a need for this kind of space or this kind of input in the first place.

But I think this is also part of what it means to take on this role. If you are trying to introduce new ideas, new forms of collaboration, and new ways of thinking into an established system, there will inevitably be some resistance.

Anna: Of course, the center has evolved over the years. We are in a constant process of development, and we believe this is essential for a hybrid hub located in a rural area.

We often use the expression "permanent provisionality" to describe our approach: a space that is continuously evolving, agile, and multifunctional, and therefore capable of responding to emerging needs and changing circumstances.

Not everything is intentionally left unfinished, but certain aspects are deliberately kept open and adaptable. This flexibility is crucial because it reflects the needs of the local community. People need a space that they can shape and use according to their own ideas, projects, and changing situations.

Our community is incredibly diverse. We welcome people from the local area and the wider region, as well as international visitors. We bring together different generations, backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. Naturally, each person also brings different expectations and needs.

To create an environment in which everyone feels welcome, we have to remain flexible and adaptable. I would say that the most important lesson is to embrace change rather than resist it. We need to anticipate it, plan for it, and incorporate it into our long-term thinking.

Anna: Our biggest dream for the future is, of course, greater autonomy.

Maybe one day, we will receive unexpected financial support from an yet unknown suprise angel investor that would allow us to acquire the barracks ourselves. That could open up the possibility of creating a cooperative, developing a new form of social governance, and establishing a model of shared ownership for the entire site.

Beyond the question of ownership, we dream of a place that can truly operate autonomously — a place where people support one another, share resources, and build a culture of mutual aid and collaboration.

And, of course, if we allow ourselves to dream about a better future, we have to dream big. So, we dream of world peace and a healthy planet.

First of all, we are located in a former military barracks. This means that we are closely connected to a complex historical and cultural heritage that we not only have to acknowledge but also actively engage with in our daily work.

At the same time, we are located in a border region, close to both Switzerland and Austria, in a very narrow Alpine valley. The nearest larger city is more than an hour away, which means that we are clearly operating within a rural setting.

However, Silandro also serves as the centre of the valley. It is home to important infrastructure, including schools, a hospital, and many other public and social services. This creates an interesting dynamic: we are geographically remote, yet we are also embedded in a local hub that plays a central role in the region.

The geographical characteristics of the valley also influence the social and cultural environment. We are part of a region that is traditionally more conservative, with agriculture playing a significant role in both the economy and everyday life. Historically, there has been less exchange and fewer opportunities for international interaction.

Politically, we also operate in a rather conservative environment, both at the municipal and regional levels. Naturally, this influences how our work is perceived. Fortunately, however, it has not affected our funding. We are in the privileged position of still receiving strong financial support from local institutions, which allows us to continue developing our projects and pursuing our mission.

From a social perspective, our goal is to create a more open and inclusive environment. As a social innovation hub, collaboration is at the heart of everything we do. We want to be a place that is accessible to everyone and where different people, ideas, and perspectives can come together. We often speak about positive friction and its potential.

In many ways, BASIS lives and breathes through its community. Our work depends on people: their participation, their ideas, and their willingness to collaborate. As an organisation, we can only continue to grow and evolve if people actively engage with us and share their needs, expectations, and aspirations.

Ultimately, our aim is to work together to create a better and, hopefully, more positive future for the region and the people who live here.

Anna: One of our main target groups is, of course, the people who live and work in the valley, particularly in Silandro. BASIS operates on land that was originally expropriated for the construction of the military barracks, so for us, it is especially important to give the building and its infrastructure back to the local community.

That is why we actively seek to collaborate with local people, involve them in our activities, and create opportunities for them to shape and use the space themselves.

More broadly, the idea of circularity is also very important to us. Of course, everyone is talking about the circular economy, but we understand circularity in a much broader sense. We believe that whatever you invest — whether that is energy, resources, knowledge, or relationships — can come back in different forms. This is why we try to remain open and create connections between different people, sectors, and communities.

At the same time, as a social innovation and creative hub, one of our key target groups is people and organisations working in, or interested in, the cultural and creative industries. This is perhaps best represented by the people working in our co-working spaces, but also by the many projects and initiatives that we develop together.

For us, everything is interconnected. We see social activation, culture, the economy, and ecology as different parts of the same system. We believe they can only have a meaningful and lasting impact when they are considered together.

So, in a way, our target group is as broad as our programming and our work. We operate on a local, regional, national, and international level. And we are interested in involving anyone who is curious about what we do, wants to contribute, wants to become part of the community, or simply enjoys collaborating and spending time with us.

Anna: We are actually located in a trilingual region. The three official languages are Italian, German, and Ladin, which is a Reto-Roman language with its own distinct cultural and linguistic heritage.

I think there is a real strength in being able to move between languages. At least in my experience, certain things are sometimes better expressed in one language than in another. We might use a particular word or expression in Italian, another in German, and something else in English, depending on what we are trying to express.

So, we shift between languages quite naturally, and this creates a very dynamic way of speaking, thinking, and understanding. Even when two words or expressions appear to mean the same thing, they can carry very different connotations depending on the language and the cultural context behind them.

Being able to access these different linguistic and cultural perspectives,or simply being aware that such differences exist, helps us to understand ourselves better, but also to understand the people around us.

For us, multilingualism is therefore more than simply being able to communicate in different languages. It is a lived practice and also a way of opening up different perspectives and becoming more aware of how language shapes the way we think and interact with one another.

Anna: As I’ve mentioned before, everything we do is somehow connected to broader societal and ecological transformation. For us, circularity is not something separate or isolated, but something fundamentally interconnected.

We need culture to drive sustainable development. We need social participation to make economic transformation possible. And we need education to provide people with the knowledge and tools to shape and support these changes.

So, for us, everything is connected — and we actively try to connect these different fields in our work. It works both ways: each area influences the others, and meaningful change can only happen when we consider them as part of the same system.

In terms of what we are currently working on, we have a wide variety of projects. They range across the fields of culture, economic and ecological development, social impact, technical prototyping, and education.

Hannes: From the beginning, it was important to us to create a shared space where the corporate economy and the cultural and creative industries could meet, interact, and learn from one another.

Today, our work is structured around three main pillars: services, spaces, and events. Across all three pillars, the underlying idea is the same: to create a space where different people, sectors, and ideas can come together, experiment, and develop something new.

A specific example for us is the way cultural and creative industries can act as an engine for economic and social diversification while also creating space for local skills and competences.

One example is our Kreativwerkstatt, our creative workshop, which we are continuously developing and expanding. The existing structure is relatively simple, but it has a lot of potential.

We also have publicly accessible workshops, such as our ceramics and printing workshops. These create a connection between private and public space and provide opportunities for cultural production and development.

The communal spaces in between are equally important. They give people opportunities to meet, collaborate, exchange knowledge, and experiment together. This combination of individual workspaces, shared infrastructure, and communal areas creates a very productive environment for creative work.

Another important example is the KASINO, our cultural club. We see it as a kind of magic-box hybrid: a space where we can support the development of the local cultural scene and the next generation of cultural entrepreneurs.

One of our formats, FAIKasino (Make chaos), is specifically aimed at young subculture activist. We give them the opportunity to curate and activate a high-quality club venue themselves. They receive a small budget to design and organize an evening, and they can use the space free of charge. This is a relatively simple format, but it gives young people real responsibility and the opportunity to experiment. It helps empower them and supports the development of the next generation of cultural entrepreneurs in the region.

So, for us, as Anna said, cultural development, entrepreneurship, community building, and ecological transformation are all interconnected.

Hannes: BASIS joined the Trans Europe Halles network in October 2021, at the conference in Bratislava. I had already heard about it quite a few times, and I was immediately drawn to the network. I felt there was a strong positive energy, activism, and solidarity.

At that point, those were exactly the kinds of things I needed. Developing and growing a project like BASIS is challenging, especially when you are working in a peripheral and rural context. In the early stages, our development was very much driven by relational networking — building connections with people and organisations and learning through those relationships.

With Trans Europe Halles, however, I felt that I had found a network that I could connect with not only on a professional or organisational level, but also on a deeper level of shared content, interests, and ways of working. There were rituals, a sense of fun, activism, and a set of shared values that enriched our experience as an organisation, but also enriched me personally.

One of the most valuable things was the feeling of being understood. It was incredibly reassuring to realize that other people had already experienced many of the challenges we were going through. Having those experiences reflected back to us showed us that what we were experiencing was not unusual, that we were on the right track, and that the difficulties were part of a process that others had also gone through.

Feeling understood is incredibly important. It makes you feel empowered and gives you the confidence to keep moving forward. It also made us feel part of something much bigger. We realised that what we were doing, what we were thinking about, and what we were dreaming of was relevant beyond our immediate local context.

And that is perhaps one of the most important things Trans Europe Halles has given us: not only did we feel understood as people and as an organisation, but we also felt that our work itself was understood and valued. Having that kind of reflection and recognition from a wider community has been incredibly empowering.

Hannes: It is a real highlight for us to be able to host the Trans Europe Halles network here in South Tyrol, at BASIS.

For us, it is an opportunity to bring the community to us. It is a great honor, but also something that is simply very beautiful and meaningful. We are able to share what we have, give something back to the network and its community, and show people who we are and what we are doing here. We hope to give everyone an inspiring and memorable experience, while also creating opportunities for the community to come together, exchange ideas, and connect.

After participating in so many Trans Europe Halles conferences over the years, it is really special to be able to host one ourselves for a change. We are looking forward to welcoming everyone here, sharing our place and our perspective, and creating new connections.

Ultimately, it is about bringing people together and growing together — as a network, as a community, and as BASIS.