Festival ahoi! The Festival of Regions immerses itself every two years into a different region in Upper Austria. From 11 to 20 June 2027 we follow the Danube upstream from Linz into the upper Danube Valley with the main focus of attention on Aschach an der Donau as the festival centre.
Die Donau als Festivalregion 2027
With the Danube, the Festival 2027 shifts attention to a body of water for the first time. As a venue for artistic projects, as a figure of thought for movement, as a starting point for installations and interventions. As a fluid space with places and people that are defined by the river and life on the river.
Festival theme: “Eintauchen / Diving Deeper”
Water is political. The Danube connects. It changes. Landscapes, economies, societies. Current generates resistance. Diving means touching. Let’s not see the river as a backdrop, but rather as a protagonist of social, political and ecological negotiation. We dive into the interplay of people, animals, plants and micro-organisms.
Festival centre: Aschach a.d.D.
There are places that may lie on the Danube but now have next to or nothing to do with it. In these places, the river disappears behind flood barrier structures and through roads. And out of consciousness. In contrast with this, Aschach lies directly and literally on the Danube. This immediacy defines the town and its people. The everyday life and history of Aschach are intricately linked with the Danube.
Open Call
The Festival of Regions invites artists, culture initiatives and people with cultural, social, ecological and political commitment to once again swim against the current.
The deadline for submitting project ideas is April 30, 2026.
You can find out more about the open call here.
Answers to frequently asked questions can be found here.
Program Board 2027
The Program Board is responsible for curation and is newly appointed for each festival edition and specifically for each festival region. It consists of four people with different areas of expertise and artistic backgrounds. The Program Board formulates the theme and the call for entries and is responsible for the selection and curatorial supervision of the projects.
from left: Elke Krasny, Simone Barlian, Adriana Torres Topaga, Fina Esslinger
Simone Barlian is an artist and curator from Gmunden. She headed the visual arts program for the European Capital of Culture Bad Ischl – Salzkammergut 2024, is part of the raumarbeiterinnen collective, and works at the University of Art and Design Linz. In her curatorial practice, she deals with spatial and social transformation processes, vacant spaces, and participatory formats in public space. Her projects combine artistic research, local anchoring, and experimental spatial strategies.
Fina Esslinger is an art historian, curator, and art producer specializing in contemporary, conceptual, and installation arts and practices as well as time-based media. She works for the museums of the city of Linz, where she is responsible for digitization and transformation processes in a museum context. She also teaches at the University of Art and Design Linz. Since 2022, she has been chairwoman of the Festival of Regions association. She was chair of the program board for the editions “Höchste Eisenbahn” (2023–2024) and “Realistische Träume” (2025) and has a decisive influence on the programmatic orientation.
Elke Krasny is a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. In her publications and curatorial work, she deals with care, social reproduction, and questions of social, ecological, and epistemic justice and memory politics in architecture, urbanism, and contemporary art. Together with Angelika Fitz, she developed the concept of critical care, which examines architecture in its infrastructural and social dimensions as a form of care. In 2023, she received the Gabriele Possanner State Prize.
Adriana Torres Topaga is a Colombian artist, designer, and researcher. In her work, she combines art, design, and performance, exploring coexistence, the body, migration, and power structures from feminist and decolonial perspectives. The body serves as a place of resistance, care, and knowledge production. She is a member of maiz – Autonomous Center by and for Migrant Women, as well as the association das kollektiv in Linz, and co-founder of the platform LAB ON STAGE, which explores feminist perspectives on the body, space, material, and performance.
Regional Advisory Board 2027
The Regional Advisory Board is an advisory body made up of representatives from the participating regions. It contributes local perspectives and experiences, supports networking between artists and communities, and helps to ensure that festival projects are regionally anchored, socially relevant, and culturally high-quality. The Regional Advisory Board will be appointed after the project selection in June 2026 and announced shortly thereafter.