Looking for CultureNauts
The Festival of Regions is one of the most
distinguished festivals of contemporary art and culture in Austria. It
has been taking place every two years since 1993 in locations outside of
the urban centers and cultural hubs in Upper Austria. By confronting
social issues and everyday living conditions with contemporary art, the
Festival aims to establish a dialog between the local population and
local, regional, and international artists. Participation is therefore
at the heart of the Festival, which aims to leave distinct traces,
stimulate discourse, initiate or strengthen desires for change, take
citizens and their needs seriously, and collaboratively develop visions
for the future.
In 2021, the 15th Festival of Regions will focus on the Upper
Austrian part of the historical Salzkammergut –between Bad Ischl and
Hallstatt.
With the topic Underground / Unter Tag, the Festival adopts a term
that reflects the living realities of the people that worked in the salt
mines of Salzkammergut. With working underground we associate heavy
manual labor under extreme conditions and eminent danger. While at the
same time the work in the mines also brings out something valuable to
the surface.
This historical reference to the Salzkammergut region serves as a
point of departure for the projects of the Festival of Regions. The term
“underground” is expanded to incorporate dimensions that go well beyond
the context of mining. Possible other associations include:
- Forms of resistance;
- Opportunities for improving living and working conditions;
- Unspoken conflicts or topics;
- People’s concrete needs and dreams regarding their region;
- “Daytime tourism” and “night-time tourism”;
- Impacts of climate change on the region;
- Presentation and strengthening of local underground culture,
alternative scenes, counter-cultures, subcultures or protest movements.
The Festival of Regions is searching for contemporary and historical
traces of events and conditions from the Salzkammergut region in order
to give them a reality check. International, national, regional, and
local cultural workers and artists from all disciplines will work
together to develop projects that unearth the needs, dreams, and ideas
of different groups of people in order to develop and present future
visions for the region.
Festival of Regions and Salzkammergut European Capital of Culture 2024
Holding the festival in the region three years before the European
Capital of Culture in 2024 should enable a strengthening and deepening
of the development of cultural work in the region.
Important work processes such as capacity building, combined with the
professionalization and internationalization of local cultural workers
and artists in the run-up to the Capital of Culture, will strengthen
future projects. The Festival of Regions will simultaneously benefit
from the networking activities in the region resulting from the
application for the Capital of Culture.
Looking for CultureNauts
The Festival of Regions is looking for local and international
cultural workers and artists, working in all disciplines, such as visual
and performing arts, land art, literature, media art, music, film, …
These CultureNauts will explore the region and co-create the festival
program with the artistic director.
The CultureNauts will – as mentioned below – develop their own
projects and participate in collaborative projects with other
CultureNauts through a series of joint research and project development
phases. They will research and/or work with the local population,
cultural initiatives and artists to identify:
- Narratives that need to be told,
- Taboos that should be discussed,
- Invisible stories that need to be made visible,
- Needs that must be addressed,
- Dreams that need to be fulfilled.
The outcomes – exhibitions, installations, theater or dance
performances, concerts, art in public space, etc. – will be presented in
the context of the Festival from June 25th to July 4th 2021. The
budgets of the projects are to be developed in close collaboration with
the General manager of the Festival.
Selected CultureNauts will take part in collaborative research and
development phases from October 9–18th, 2020 (kick off and exchange
between participants, initial development of project ideas), from
January 18th to 31st, 2021 (presentation and project planning), and from
May 10th, 2021 to the end of the festival (concrete preparation and
execution of the projects). Additional individual project related stays
could also be scheduled when necessary.
Application
The Festival of Regions invites cultural workers and artists, with
experience or an interest in collaborative and participatory working
methods, to send us a proposal, which should include the following:
- a detailed resume with active links to representative works (max. 2 pages);
- a letter of motivation addressing the scope of work, and the
interest or experience in collaborative and participatory working
methods (max. 3.000 characters);
- a short description of the interest in the region and the approach to the festival topic (max. 3.000 characters)
- a declaration of availability for the time frames of the joint working periods and the festival itself.
- a good command of German and/or English is necessary.
Applications, in English or German, will be accepted by March 23rd, 2020.
For questions regarding the call, please contact opencall@fdr.at
Please fill out this form!
Conditions
The Festival of Regions will cover travel and accommodation costs and
will provide a stipend of 3,500 € for the research and development
phases of the projects. It will also cover fees involved in the
execution of the projects.
Selection process
The festival management and board will make a shortlist of selected
applicants with the help of the independent advisory board. A final
selection of the advisory board’s recommendations will be made by the
artistic director. All decisions are made without legal prejudice.
Shortlisted CultureNauts will be contacted for individual interviews
by mid-June 2020. The final list of CultureNauts will be informed by the
end of June 2020.
More Information about the Festival of Regions
More Information about the region 2021
Application form
