Festival der Regionen 2021
Unter Tag / Underground

25. June - 04. July 2021
Historical Salzkammergut, Oberösterreich

In 2021, the 15th edition of the Festival of Regions will focus on the Upper Austrian part of the historic Salzkammergut – between Bad Ischl and Obertraun. For the first time, the Festival of Regions invites artists to develop and implement projects together with the local population. The participating artists are named CulturNauts due to the research […]

Opening Day Festival of Regions 25.6

Friday, 25.6.2021, from 2 pm Opening of the festival center and exhibitions Opening of the first sculpture garden of Salzkammergut in Roith Opening speeches of the Festival of Regions Music, artistic interventions The Future Is Underground…, Part 1 Dance & music parcours in Bad Ischl’s city center The Future Is Underground…, Part […]

Opening Speech Festival of Regions

Solmaz Khorsand is a journalist, currently working for the Swiss magazine Republic. Prior to that, she was an editor at Wiener Zeitung, der Zeit, der Standard.at and Datum. She received the Vienna Journalist Award for her work in 2018. Statement by the jury: “Solmaz Khorsand always has a clear stance: oriented towards human rights, feminist and for equal opportunities – regardless of whether […]

BeiRoither Festspiele

Intervention by Fariba Mosleh

A temporary co-creative sculpture garden is being built at the gates to historic Salzkammergut, in Roith. Roith – an overlooked district at the outskirts of the Bad Ischl health resort. With the participation of the residents of Roith, new aesthetic perspectives will be developed and stereotypes will be deconstructed. The curator and cultural worker Fariba Mosleh, […]

COVID-19

Exhibition/Installation by Victor Moriyama

Victor Moriyama shows the almost surreal effects of COVID-19 on our lives in impressive images. Images that make it clear that the pandemic affects us all while simultaneously showing us that it affects some of us more heavily than others. Political conditions or the difference between rich and poor – both on a global as […]

Das offene Geheimnis

Exhibition/Installation by Bashir Qonqar

The former Stephaneum gym seems as if students had just played in it yesterday. The newest works by Bad Goisern-based Palestinian artist Bashir Qonqar will be presented in that atmosphere. An expansive exhibition with large-format oil paintings that draws visitors deeper into its spell with every step and every view. Deeper into the human abyss. […]

Der freie Fall

Exhibition/Installation by Bashir Qonqar

The Free Fall is a colorful ambiguity. The images are a brutal acknowledgement of the ghostliness of reality, so that our awareness of places doesn’t sink into nostalgia. It is also a visual recommendation which refers to a city that chases people down and swallows them up or rejects them and sends them into inner […]

Der Reisende

Film by Bashir Qonqar

A combination of comics, drawings and reality: the surreal biography of a Refugee, who had to leave his homeland due to war and who found a new home in the mountains after a long journey. A moving short film by Bashir Qonqar. The involuntary journey is documented by three youths (Ahmed Bne Akeel, Emre Inan […]

The Devil’s in the Details

Theater by David Maayan

In three interlinked formats, Israeli theater maker David Maayan explores local history/ies and their connection to the darkest chapters of Austria’s past, asking which ways these continue to influence our lives to this day. Maayan examines the “dynamics of details” that are known to contain the devil himself. He directs the gaze away from the […]

The unbearable lightness of Shopping

Film by HoyCheong Wong

What was taken for granted yesterday is suddenly impossible due to COVID-19, comforting habits have been thrown out, simple tasks no longer work. With subtle humor, Malaysian visual artist and political activist Wong Hoy Cheong will show a short film about an everyday situation that symbolizes our life in the state of exception that is […]

Die Kaminsky – Taktik

by Teresa Distelberger

British author Christopher New wrote a novel in 2005, entitled The Kaminsky Cure, which was influenced by his late wife Christa’s family history. Her mother, Else Bergmann, was Jewish and was supposed to be taken by the Gestapo. She faked her own suicide in Lake Hallstatt and fled to Germany with a false identity. Larissa […]

Dreifaltigkeitssäule

Exhibition/Installation by HTBLA Hallstatt

Following the initiative of the Bad Ischl parish, the Sculpture Department of the HTBLA Hallstatt is designing its own version of a modern Trinity Column, thereby creating a monument to the corona pandemic. Based on plague columns that were built out of gratitude for the survivors of epidemics, the sculpture is made of wood – […]

Enterdet

Exhibition/Installation by Christian Ecker and Monika Sobotik

A dialog between the natural sciences and art, concretely between botanist and root researcher Monika Sobotik and artist Christian Ecker. The point of departure is the treatment and handling of natural processes. Root preparations, drawings and photographs by the pioneers of Austrian root research will be presented. Monika Sobotik’s microscopic root cuts can be seen […]

Flo’s Medusa

Exhibition/Installation by Florian Nitsch

5 meters high, 10 meters long – a 4-storey sculpture towering steeply into the room transforms the Lehartheater hall into an exhibition space. FLO’S MEDUSA by Florian Nitsch is a modular assembled installation with reference to Théodore Géricault’s painting “The Raft of the Medusa” from 1819. Paintings, sketches, tilted pictorial membranes – a wild crossover […]

Fragmente

Intervention by Jane Kennedy and Roger Titley

Fragments collects reports on harrowing experiences and taboo topics and releases them into the local waterways. People from the region will have the opportunity to express themselves. Their reports will be printed in the form of word snippets, sentence fragments, text fragments on dissolving materials, paper or bread and released into the waters of Bad Goisern. […]

FrauenLandLeben Wanderlesung

audiovisual performance, Reading by Magdalena Stammler

What does country life do to women? Five Austrian women authors asked themselves this question. They will present the literary and performative texts that they wrote in various places in Sisipark and Bad Ischl. Sisipark may be named after the empress, however, only men are honored on all of the monuments and plaques – women are […]

FünfZehn

Exhibition/Installation by Kunstuniversität Linz

The history of the Festival of Regions in augmented reality. The first Festival of Regions took place in 1993. A lot has changed, a lot has stayed the same. Some of the central approaches of the Festival are and have been: strengthening local initiatives, opening spaces/space for thought, critique of political and social developments, participation, […]

Gesurfte Freiheit

Exhibition/Installation by Medienportal Salzkammergut

Today, like a wave tunnel, we are encompassed by a digital bubble. Consciously or unconsciously, intentionally or unintentionally, we are part of this digital reality, supported by a constantly growing physical infrastructure consisting of people and machines. “Surfed Freedom” is a mixture of digital and analog media that serves as an entry point for visitors. […]

Geteilte Räume – Revisiting Gosaumühle

Exhibition/Installation, Intervention

Gosaumühle is a place with many pasts: a travel destination and country inn for aristocracy, storage space and processing facility for the wood required for salt mining, diving school and campsite and ultimately refugee boarding house. Vacant for years, it will soon face a new future. The fact that there are pictures of both Empress […]

Gletscher in Not – ResearchLab

Exhibition/Installation, Intervention by Markus Jeschaunig

Glacier in Danger – ResearchLAB deals with the collapse of the Hallstatt Glacier and its effects on the region. With scientifically based knowledge and artistically absurd interventions, possibilities are shown for how this process can be slowed down or even reversed. A permanent installation, The Floating Forest, will take up the topic at Lake Hallstatt, […]

Hallstatt_Underground_ Punk_Picknick

Music by Kulturverein kunterbunt KulturBunt

The underground is everywhere – this evening is dedicated to the musical underground, the raw, the rough, the snotty, the PUNK! Kinga Dula: Melancholy rock and punk – performed by a strong, expressive woman’s voice. The trio Cromulents is comprised of well-known musicians from the region – in short: PUNK! Drinking ballads by Kaiserschmoarn will make you sit up and […]

Hallstatt – Wohnen im Schaufenster

Exhibition/Installation by TU Wien Forschungsbereich Wohnbau und Entwerfen

Hallstatt – a world of building culture and life stories, cultural heritage and tourist magnet, film set and photo point, but, above all, the life and living environments of its residents. The exhibition dares to look behind the scenes, deals with the areas of tension of the global phenomenon of overtourism and living in a […]

Heimat ist teilbar

Intervention by Sahel Ahmadzai

The concept of homeland is often debased into a vehicle for which only those who were born in a place by chance and are supposed to belong to a common culture are allowed to ride. Others can only reach home by returning. With radio shows and a post card action, “Homeland Is Divisible” offsets this […]

Heldinnen der Provinz

Exhibition/Installation by Magdalena Stammler

Author Magdalena Stammler creates portraits of women. Women who make a difference, who fight against resistance, who take an unchartered path. Women that are persistent. Women that are inspiring. Woman that live in the countryside. Rural exodus has been increasing over the last few years, the reasons for moving are varied – but the provincial heroines […]

Home Office

Exhibition/Installation by Wolfgang Menschhorn

The humorous drawings by Wolfgang Menschhorn, the well-known caricaturist from Bad Goisern, describe the difficulty of performing certain jobs from one’s home office. A small and equally active and uninvited guest drives people to perform their jobs at home now. This is not a big problem for the programmer or book author. But more jobs […]

Ideologie der Verlassenheit

Music by Duncan Graham

An actor, a cello, and a piano interpret the script, written as a song cycle, by the internationally acclaimed Australian playwright Duncan Graham, who was not able to travel to Europe due to our living situation the last few months. Between grief and ignorance, longing and irony, the stories, songs and monologues of people who […]

Mozart auf der Alm – Mozart at the Pasture

Music by Franziska Fleischanderl and Toni Burger

The dulcimer virtuoso Franziska Fleischanderl and the Bad Aussee-based violinist Toni Burger will create a delightful open air concert in which historical folk music from the region is closely linked with the classical music of Mozart, Haydn, and more. An exciting musical journey for the dulcimer, string instruments and a hurdy-gurdy. Musicians of the HTBLA […]

Oder eine Idee von dir

Exhibition/Installation by Galerie Tacheles

This art is fed from deep layers of the soul. It is not subject to any market laws, no zeitgeist, no profane purpose. It is absolutely free and authentic. It was only made because it had to be made. Sigrid Reingruber’s work is like a never-ending excavation, an original artistic expression. Christian Rebhan’s […]

Reich mir zum Abschied noch einmal die Hände

literary musical journey by Klaus Maria Brandauer

Poems, Letter and Stories, Operetta and hit song lyrics by Fritz Löhner-Beda, the librettist of the successful operettas by Paul Abrahams und Franz Lehárs, as well as texts by contemporaries, will all form the stepping stones on the literary path that will lead Klaus Maria Brandauer into the world of the first half of the […]

Resonanz der Tiefe – SKGT Suite Premiere

Music by Florian Nitsch and Toni Burger

Inspired by the landscape and the locations, nestled between the mountains, connected by the waters of Lake Hallstatt and the Traun, musician and violinist Toni Burger will compose an ode to Salzkammergut. The depths of the landscape will be explored with the unusual sonic combination of the organ, dulcimer, salterio, violin, and clarinets as sonar […]

Salzwelten Underground

Exhibition/Installation

Created after a visit to Salzwelten Hallstatt, this installation by visual artist Florian Nitsch hides things that are about to be revealed. Elements and layers overlap – there are many things to discover, even if you have to dig for them. Both within the image as well as within oneself. What archeology, mining and art have […]

Solid Bodies — Soft Machines

Exhibition/Installation by Betül Seyma Küpeli

Betül Seyma Küpeli goes in search of the intersection between the human body and the machine in the oral history of labor migration with the workers of the former Lodenfrey textile factory in Bad Ischl. With digital painting and moving images, printed and projected onto textiles, the subjective stories of the workers are illuminated both […]

The Future is Underground

Dance by Luisa Ungar Ronderos and Romy Kolb

Fragments of a lost script have been found: a rehearsal, a ship, a troupe performing to survive. This guided tour takes the audiences through the history of escape of an austrian pioneer of modern dance while experiencing situations which unfold in the squares and streets of the city of Bad Ischl. Stretching the lines between fiction and reality, […]

The Grid

Exhibition/Installation by Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien

Research, observation, talking to people, participation and intervention were planned. But lockdown number two forced the students to distance and isolate themselves. There is talk of platforms everywhere, physical and digital, which ones can we stand on? The group works in the underground, digging through the “myths” of the region. A bronze object appears – a […]

The Ugly

Film by Jane Kennedy and Roger Titley

In her bold 3-D film, international multimedia storyteller Jane Kennedy takes us deep into the world of a person reflecting on an unsettling time. Experiences that accompany them for a lifetime. Developed with world-renowned figure maker and animation artist, Roger Titley, known in Upper Austria as the designer of the larger-than-life animals from the Linz09 […]

Under Dog plays Mirrorrim

Music by Anton Bruckner Privatuniversität and Jazzfreunde Bad Ischl

Bad Ischl Jazz Friends & JIM Linz! The Institute for Jazz and Improvised Music at the Anton Bruckner Private University dedicates itself in an unusual way to “underground” music and literature: with the undertone series, on the one hand, a theoretical construction through acoustic music, and the subtext, on the other, the additional, implicit level […]

Vielschichtige Geschichte(n)

Exhibition/Installation, Film, Intervention by Teresa Distelberger

In a participatory process with residents, schoolchildren and local historians, filmmaker and artistic researcher Theresa Distelberger devoted herself to multilayered stories from the 1930s/40s. Which stories move us? And how do we grasp them to be able to tell them? Three different formats resulted: FINDS: Selected locations containing stories are marked by oversized pins. Historical […]

Virtually Impossible

audiovisual performance by Florian Nitsch

Bringing the history and present of Ischl’s PKS Villa to life. That is what Florian Nitsch has planned. The visual artist’s performance will be supported by drummer Bernhard Breuer (Elektro Guzzi). Acoustic-digital effects mesh with live visual drawings and animations, the scenery changes. The PKS Villa will pulsate – it will become a moving work of […]

WAWEWIWOWÄWU

Exhibition/Installation by Florian Nitsch

The works employ the aesthetics of painting, taking from other media and incorporating various techniques in order to make traditional utensils such as the brush seem obsolete. What looks like painting at first glance is actually layers of paint and surfaces that are based on the process, among others, of screen printing and the integration […]

Wenn Häuser Geschichten erzählen

Reading by Marie-Theres Arnbom

Sommerfrische. A term for relaxation, recuperation, country living, snacking. Including mountains and lakes. All of this has been appreciated by people in Salzkammergut for more than 150 years. Marie-Theres Arnbom has a lot to say about it. In her series on villas in various summer resorts, she tracks down forgotten stories, presents interesting personalities, finds […]

With Love

Dance, Performance by Efva Lilja

Dance as a resistance movement, a poem of life and the voice of love. A performance by the Swedish choreographer and performance artist Efva Lilja, who has decided to dance until everything ugly no longer exists… Surprisingly occurring short monologues in dance form, alone or in interaction with the audience in different locations in the […]

Diskursive Momente

Discourse

1, Wozu Held*innen?! Philosophieren im Park Rathauspark, Ebensee Beteiligte: Frauenforum Salzkammergut, Lisz Hirn, Magdalena Stammler, “Heldinnen der Provinz” Musik: International Faeries (formerly known as Fabelhafte Furien) Was ist eigentlich ein*e Held*in? Wer kann ein*e Held*in sein, und wozu brauchen wir Held*innen überhaupt? Die Philosophin Lisz Hirn beschäftigt sich in ihrer Arbeit und Forschung unter anderem mit […]

Encores

1) Cooperation with OÖ Landes-Kultur GmbH The Festival of Regions and The Upper Austrian Landes-Kultur GmbH are planning a sustainable multi-year cooperation. Currently in preparation: Unter Tag / Underground in Linz: An exhibition for 2022, in which selected works by the CultureNauts will be presented as echoes of the festival from inner Salzkammergut in […]

Think, Talk, Act and Enjoy!

Intervention, Performance

The concept of language is manifested in words. Beyond what is said there is nothing. Or is there? Words are used to manifest power. Words are there to be claimed. As for myself, I trust the unspoken, yet talking. I focus my listening on all that is beyond words, underneath the surface. The beauty with […]