The opening weekend is marked by wide diversity: alongside the Austrian premiere of Marta Górnicka’s “Hymn to Love” and an exclusive concert by the band Kreisky, a parcours for the opening invites visitors to get to know the festival projects.
200 artists, players from 26 countries, including many people from Marchtrenk, will be involved in the FESTIVAL OF THE REGIONS 2017. The whole focus is on the participation of as many people as possible, open dialogue and the connection of art and everyday culture: “Together with artists, creators of culture, and good forces from the area, a great deal of creative energy will be released. We can already see this in the preparatory work and we are looking forward to a multifaceted programme both in terms of its content and disciplines. Numerous projects are based on participation and directly incorporate people and the location – a process that will now reach its high point in the festival – we are looking forward to it!” says the artistic director Gottfried Hattinger.
Barbara Mitterlehner, business manager of the FESTIVAL OF THE REGIONS, is convinced of the long-lasting effect of this lively artistic dialogue with Marchtrenk: “Marchtrenkers’ interest is already noticeable. Informing, exciting people’s curiosity and in this way encouraging a dialogue with forms of contemporary art and cultural work – we see this as an essential part of our work. We are very confident that this togetherness will also offer a sustainable impulse for Marchtrenk.”
The town of Marchtrenk, for its part, is looking forward to an inspiring exchange: The essential theme of the 13th FESTIVAL OF THE REGIONS strikes a chord in Marchtrenk’s town history. We look forward to being able to play host to and to mentor and experience a creative and stimulating process. The opportunity to gain new perspectives on our town, on our history and society through this has something dynamic about it and in any case arouses curiosity,” says Paul Mahr, Mayor of Marchtrenk.
“Since its inception the FESTIVAL OF THE REGIONS has positioned itself as an innovative and discursive format. In the context of participative and contemporary arts praxis, the linking of socially important questions to regional particularities can touch on existing circumstances and put them up for discussion. We are curious as to the place the people of Marchtrenk will give the FESTIVAL OF THE REGIONS”, say Dagmar Höss and Gerald Priewasser-Höller of the managing committee of the FESTIVAL OF THE REGIONS.
Colourful opening round on the first weekend
The tone for the opening of the FESTIVAL OF THE REGIONS on Friday 30 June is set by the Austrian premiere of Marta Górnicka’s “Hymn to Love”, “a work about a Europe that closes ranks.” From 14:00 a grand opening parcours invites visitors to get to know the festival projects. The opening ceremony in the presence of federal minister Thomas Drozda, of the provincial governor Thomas Stelzer with an opening speech by the political scientist and journalist Sibylle Hamann, music from “Klingenden Haus” by Götz Bury and a “Making of” by dorf.tv. on the development of the festival takes place from 20:30 in the festival centre in Welser Straße.
A highlight of the opening weekend is Willi Dorner’s “Zugezogen”, which with the participation of numerous Marchtrenkers will take place as a “choreographic walk” through the town and will be presented as a photo exhibition. With recourse to the dynamic population development of Marchtrenk after the Second World War, Dorner links regional history with the elements and aesthetics of his choreographic concept.
The exclusive concert by Kreisky (the first regular concert with new songs by the band this year) and Simon Mayer’s performance “Sons of Sissy” are further highpoints of this festival weekend.
Public space as political art space
“Should art come, or stay where the pepper grows? The people of Marchtrenk have already been confronted with this provocative question by the artist duo Ingke Günther and Jörg Wagner in the run-up to the FESTIVAL OF THE REGIONS and asked for “Good Reasons” for or against art. While in “Good Reasons” political space starts outside our front door, Anja Westerfrölke addresses the “Zwischenraum” [In-between space] that appears in transit and waiting. With “Gartenpolitik” the Berlin artists’ group Club Real declares the garden as political terrain, and with “Die Unbekannte”[The Unknown] Amina Handke takes up profoundly sociocritical issues and raises the approach to them for discussion in an interactive “hitchhiking performance”.
With “Es irrt der Mensch” [People Are Wrong], using large tape-drawing facade images Lena Lapschina turns Linzer Straße and Eichenstraße into a large-format “galerie d’art”. Leonhard Müllner and Georg Ritter also target houses in “Sag zum Abschied leise Servus” [Say a Quiet Servus When You Go], but in jumping out of windows offering them as a “springboard out of confinement into the wide world, or just into the town of Marchtrenk.”
The bench by the artist duo Torsten Grosch and Haike Rausch from 431art can also be used for a break or a rest, but it is just a “Verschnaufen auf Zeit” [Pause for Breath]: under strict time rules those lingering there will be rudely encouraged to be on their way.
Portraits and and character studies of Marchtrenk
The projects “Museum für ungebetene Gastgeschenke” [The Museum of Uninvited Presents], “Wanderuni in Marchtrenk” [Travelling Uni in Marchtrenk], “Magic Moments in Marchtrenk” and “Dinge die bleiben” [Things that Remain] present case studies of Marchtrenk from various, sometimes unusual parameters: thus Corina Forthuber and David Six go in search of unwanted presents and would like to paint a portrait of Marchtrenk through its rejected gifts. For the duration of the festival Marchtrenk will also become a location for the Linz University of Art: students from the KunstWanderUni [Travelling Art Uni] conduct performative urban research and put the town and its inhabitants under the microscope. In “Magic Moments in Marchtrenk”, Fabian Faltin and Team would like to entice visitors with all the methods of location marketing. For the project “Dinge die bleiben”, Leonhard Müllner and Susanna Flock consulted the online sales platform willhaben.at and purchased things from Marchtrenk that now return there again as scanned 3-D objects.
Marchtrenk’s history as a multifaceted reference point
Interesting explorations of history in general and Marchtrenk’s history in particular are the basis of numerous other festival projects: while in “Map Series (Russia)” Ana Mendes is on the trail of real and fictional boundaries of ancient world empires, and in her performance puts cards from the Russian empire under her sewing machine, a shrill Grande Dame who achieved regional fame in Marchtrenk provides the name for “auprinzessin” [riverine-forest princess]: it plays with the changing of values and devaluations by which discarded and disposed of objects return to the town as art.
Katarina Matiasek’s sound installation “Angezählt / Counted out” returns an archive finding of eight voice recordings by Italian prisoners of war in Marchtrenk of 1918 to the place where they were recorded and gives back a voice to those who were then examined under compulsion in the prisoner-of-war camp in Marchtrenk in the then Habsburg empire.
In Miriam Hamann’s light sculpture “Running Light” Marchtrenk’s 28-metre-high landmark, the water tower, becomes a lighthouse and an abstracted symbol for orientation and navigation.
With the installation “Was war . . .” [What Was . . .] Astrid Benzer takes a walk through Marchtrenk’s town history: presented in the Old Cinema, which for many Marchtrenkers has long faded into oblivion, Astrid Benzer traces the mechanisms of collective and selective remembering and forgetting.
In the video and photo installation “Streitross Meister der Kurve” [Charger, Masters of the Curve] Charles Kaltenbacher connects flashy costumes, contemporary power-dressing and testosterone-fuelled heroic pathos and powerplay with Marchtrenk’s eponymous chargers (“Marchtrenk”: a combination of Old High German Marah (charger) and Trenka (drinking trough)). He mercilessly transforms these into a motorised present day, among other things on the Austrian ÖAMTC driving association driving-technique site.
Performances, literature, discourse, choir & concerts
Great stage performances also star at this year’s FESTIVAL OF THE REGIONS: alongside the opening choral work “Hymn to Love” by Marta Górnicka, the performance “Fruits of Labour” by the Belgian artist Miet Warlop will also be presented at the FESTIVAL OF THE REGIONS: a “crossover of performance, concert and visual art”.
Simon Mayer’s “crisp” performance “Sons of Sissy” awaits, with an experimental exploration of “traditional Alpine live music, various group dances and ritual practices.”
A two-day reading festival with music that offers a stage for young and established, regional and supra-regional writers in the Wiesleitnerhof and Alte Kirche cultural area, the Klingendes Haus” installation by Götz Bury, which gets a whole house to mutate into a resonating body with curious instruments, or a Drive Thru-Bar as a serving point for “cultural fast food” on the edge of the B1 main road are further programme highlights of this year’s festival.
The 2017 FESTIVAL OF THE REGIONS will be accompanied by a “Palaver” series by the Kepler Salon in Marchtrenk as well as by features and talks on the festival events by REFUGEE LINZ TV (refugees take over the programming in dorf.tv).
Students from the NMS2 school in in Marchtrenk will make a documentary of the 2017 FESTIVAL OF THE REGIONS, under the direction of Liesa Kovacs from the Medienkulturhaus Wels. The Marchtrenk-born writer Angela Flam will observe the FESTIVAL OF THE REGIONS from a literary perspective; her impressions and articles will be published in the catalogue, which like the documentary will be issued in autumn 2017.
Fascinating light and shadow play: The trailer by Karin Fisslthaler
The services of the media artist Karin Fisslthaler have been acquired for the 2017 festival trailer. Staged as a fascinating play of light an shadow, Fisslthaler alias Cherry Sunkist also contributes to the music that can be heard live at her concert and DJing at the FdR opening party.
The festival centre as a “multifunctional steel skeleton”
Between the old and the new church on Welser Straße the festival centre is an architectural and functional anchor point in the festival events: multifunctional for events, exhibitions, concerts, catering and as a contact point for information, this grandstand construction shines as an “outsized, unvarnished steel skeleton” and functions as a structural housing for individual functional elements such as containers and transporter wrecks that hold festival exhibitions.
For the catering in the festival centre we are pleased to be working with “Über den Tellerrand Linz” association: with cuisine as one of the most accepted media of cultural exchange, the association is committed to the integration of refugees in Austria. (https://ueberdentellerrand.org/de/index/)
Art education
The art education includes guided festival tours for groups, individual visitors and students as well as the “Blind Date” education format:
In the FdR “Blind Date” festival, visitors meet an unknown counterpart: sometimes it is a member of the festival management, sometimes a technician, sometimes they get to know artists and guests personally. The group is accompanied by a facilitator who hosts, complements and supports in the orientation in the festival area.
Different thematic topics and questions arise depending on the discussion partner, various perspectives are cast on the development and production of a festival or an artistic work.
Saturday 1 July, 18:00
Sunday 2 July, 15:00
Saturday 8 July, 18:00
All starts at the festival centre
Target groups: adults, and students from age twelve
Guided tours:
Saturday and Sunday, 15:00 and 18.00 (duration approx. 1.5 hours)
Monday to Friday at 18:00 (duration approx. 1.5 hours)
All starts at the festival centre
Please register at +43 (0)680 401 3 974 or at the festival centre
Events with admission
Most admission to the FESTIVAL OF THE REGIONS programme is free of charge. Tickets for Marta Górnicka, “Hymn to Love”, Simon Mayer, “Sons of Sissy” and Miet Warlop, “Fruits of Labour” cost €18/ reduced €14; for the Kreisky concert €10.
Tickets can be reserved at www.fdr.at bzw. +43 (0) 680 401 3 973.
Concessions: Ö1 Club, OÖN card, Der Standard, AK Kultur, Raika cash card, students, Aktion Hunger auf Kunst und Kultur.
Thanks to:
Grantors and Sponsors
Land Oberösterreich, Bundeskanzleramt Österreich für Kunst und Kultur, Stadtgemeinde Marchtrenk, Schäfer Shop, AK Kultur, gfK OÖ, Generali Gruppe, Raiffeisen, trodat/trotec Group, Austria KulturKontakt, blue danube airport linz, Fahrtechnik ÖAMTC, Flanders State of the Art, Gerüstbau Dietz, Gasteiner, Gösser, Pago, Schladminger
Mediapartners
Der Standard, Oberösterreichische Nachrichten, Ö1 Club, ORF OÖ, FM4