ABOUT 

The artist Rainer Prohaska has been experimenting with various mobility concepts on the Danube river since 2000.
As part of these trips, a wide variety of art projects were realized together with a large number of guest artists. 

In 2006, the first type of "Inland Navigation Vessel" was developed, of which two prototypes Z-BOATS (2007-2008) and MS-CARGO (2014) were successfully built and operated. The revised and perfected version of the last prototype was launched in 2020 and is called MS-FUSION.

Optimized for inland navigation, the MS-FUSION offers a platform to artists and scientists for trips on rivers to carry out research in this cultural area and to implement projects in the context of artistic research. It works as a floating studio, as a tool for research, field studies and to realize art projects on rivers.

Furthermore, the MS-FUSION functions as a floating medium, because the extraordinary aesthetics attract attention and thereby establish its own form of communication. This creates serendipity and opens an alternative access to hidden river cultures. On board there will be creative people from the visual arts, performance, media arts, authors and scientists. In this way the river becomes a connecting stream and not a dividing boundary.



Rainer Prohaska on his way, (c) Carola Schmidt

Travel as an artistic practice

Travelling with the MS-FUSION, passengers are experiencing a change of perspective, when looking at the river cultures. This change in perspective arises from the artist's differentiated perception and through the specific form of approaching selected places on the river banks.
Built especially for investigations and artistic projects, the ship offers a maximum of flexibility and a floating studio right on the river. In addition, it is a living space for the artists and a platform for content exchange during the trips.


Trailer Boring River, a film by Rainer Prohaska and Carola Schmidt, 52min, 2014

About looking past the Danube cultures: The Danube stream and its shore-regions are one of the most exciting cultural areas in Europe.
Due to an often too wide definition of the Danube culture in connection with unsuitable mobility concepts, past projects mostly have no connection to the Danube river itself.
When traveling with larger ships, the passengers have no influence on the route and no opportunities to approach spontaneously discovered situations. Also attempts have often been made to get closer to the river by land. There are rarely trafficable roads, so this kind of access to many river sections is not possible.
In order to be able to artistically research the actual Danube culture with its inhabitants and phenomena, the project and the research ship MS-FUSION was developed, which will be available to artists and scientists as a floating studio.



Impressions from the MS-CARGO, (c) Carola Schmidt, Lena Appl, Volker Schmidt, 2014

Rainer Prohaska / Initiator, project management, funding, shipbuilding and ship command
Hanna Priemetzhofer /  Shipbuilding, ship command and A.I.R. program coordinator
Florian Sorgo / Shipbuilding, ship command and A.I.R. program support
Gerardo Montes de Oca Valadez / Research

Federal Chancellery of Austria
Arts & Culture - Dep. 6


Federal Government of Lower Austria
Arts & Culture


Artist In Residence - Steiermark


Adam Mickiewicz University
Institute of Cultural Studies / Poznań / Polen


Schallaburg & NÖ Kulturwirtschaft GmbH

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Please contact Studio Rainer Prohaska for further information on co-operations or becoming a supporting partner of MS FUSION.