A coalition of seven Zurich-based artist-run collectives, led by Peter Baracchi and his nomadic platform 6½, has taken over the former Museum Haus Konstruktiv building in Zurich's Selnau district. The project, titled "Oceans Flow Upwards," occupies 1,200 square meters across five floors and expands into over 2,000 square meters by activating the cellar, offices, storage, shop, café, and rooftop. Participating collectives include Hotel Tiger, Die Diele, Papillarya, MATERIAL, volumes, and zwischentext. Baracchi, who previously worked at Haus Konstruktiv as a technician and photographer, initiated the takeover after the museum relocated to Areal Löwenbräukunst, securing temporary cultural use from the City of Zurich in March. Rather than dividing the space into separate zones, the exhibition presents a single, integrated show where artists were invited by the collectives, not selected by open call.
This takeover matters because it reclaims a former institutional space for Zurich's independent art scene, directly addressing the city's chronic shortage of affordable exhibition venues. By transforming a vacant museum into a collaborative, non-competitive platform, the project challenges the art-fair model and offers an alternative vision for artistic production and visibility. It demonstrates how artist-run initiatives can leverage temporary vacancies to create meaningful cultural interventions, potentially serving as a model for other cities facing similar pressures on their creative infrastructure.