Mischmaschinn: Questions for the programme board

1.) Who are you?

2.) You deal with art professionally and in your free time. What was your awakening experience? When did you first realize that there is art that inspires you so much that you want to align your life with it?

3.) We have been working together intensively for a few months. What do you know today about the Innviertel that you didn’t know in February 2024?

Fina Esslinger

1.) Who am I? Fina Esslinger. Probably somewhere between a digital database, an glowing wish list and a dancing village. In search of bridges between art, people and sometimes even official forms.

2.) I literally fell into art – born in the Stadtwerkstatt Linz, a hotspot for artistic experiments in Linz. With parents who are both artists, it quickly became clear that there had to be someone in the family who doesn’t necessarily have to produce. So I studied art history to understand how to communicate, classify and accompany art. I have never regretted this decision, even though it is sometimes a balancing act between passion and reality.

3.) There is an incredible energy here – people are insanely fast, get down to work immediately and see things through as if there were no tomorrow. And there is always enough room for openness, humor and a spontaneous conversation about the best dumplings. And Braunau? It surprised me! Much less stubborn, narrow-minded and right-wing than I had feared. Sure, the city has a Nazi history, as does all of Upper Austria, and especially with the stamp of Hitler’s birthplace – the nightmares of the past don’t just disappear into the Inn fog. But it is precisely these contradictions that make the Innviertel so exciting: between the past and the future, between the regulars’ table and visions. It’s a great place to start – with imagination and a good dose of humor.

Mieze Medusa

1.) I’m an author, poetry slammer and rapper. I’m also a fictional character. There’s an alter ego who takes on everyday life: pays taxes, votes, is happy when there’s a family celebration where everyone comes together. But what Mieze Medusa comes up with is a full-time job. A beautiful one. One for life. One that I invented myself.

2.) I am the child who read all night long under the covers with glowing ears and a flashlight. However, I didn’t write for a very long time. I am the first artist in my family. In retrospect, I could have known earlier how uncompromising my love of words is. Today I know that this is intentional, that I grew up in a society that does not want to encourage a little girl in the country. I am working against that. I encourage others to try it out too.
My awakening experience? HipHop. With HipHop I became active myelf.

3.) How optimistic a region can be when it sees itself as a region, not as a homeland. My view of the Innviertel was shaped in childhood: there was a strong border between Austria and Germany. Now a border region has become a hub. Exciting!

At the same time, the conditions in the Innviertel have changed since we started our work, especially in terms of jobs and the economy. The topic “realistic dreams” also wants to talk about this: How can we weave visions into our everyday lives?

Isa Schieche

1.) Hi. My name is Isa Schieche, I come from the Innviertel and I am a sculptor, filmmaker and performer. The wood workshop that I share with my father is in the region. Therefore, during the warmer seasons, I spend a lot of time in the Innviertel and, when it rains or snows, in Vienna, working on film projects in the areas of screenwriting, directing, and editing. At the moment, in addition to the Festival of Regions, my first feature-length film script and the preparations for a video installation in the Botanical Garden in Brussels are keeping me busy.

2.) As a child, I drew and painted a lot. Behind our house there was a swamp. In winter, I spent afternoons hammering figures and patterns into the surface of the ice. Maybe that’s what led me to sculpture, or maybe it was just because we had a little forest and a workshop. I’ve only been making films for a few years, but the most formative art experiences for me took place in the cinema. When I was at school, I saw the film “Billy Elliot” 25 years ago. The film touched me so much as a child that my perception of the world shifted.

3.) Above all, I have been able to learn a lot about Braunau, its history and its inhabitants recently. Coming from the northern Innviertel, I knew Schärding and Ried a lot better.
Thanks to the festival’s regional partners, my knowledge of specific traditions has increased dramatically. I am thrilled with the openness with which the people of Braunau are willing to combine the old with the new, to endure contradictions and to devote themselves to difficult content in all its complexity without shortcuts.

Katharina Spanlang

1.) Hello, I’m Katharina: social designer, curator and cultural manager. I am fascinated by the intersection of art and rural development. I particularly enjoy working on projects that challenge traditional boundaries, question habitual thought patterns and open spaces for new perspectives and possibilities. My goal? To invite people to listen, reflect and participate – because the best ideas arise from exchange.

2.) I am interested in what connects people. So I first studied technical chemistry because I really wanted to find out which molecular structures and forces hold us together. Then I realized: the more exciting reactions don’t happen in the laboratory, but between people. I did a training as a conflict mediator and ended up in social work. There I realized: Many understand their conflicts – but taking action? Difficult. And then I thought to myself: maybe art can make a difference here! I embarked on what felt like my seven hundredth and sixty-second educational path, studied art and implemented projects in rural areas. Now I curate an art festival and research how art can initiate dialogue, strengthen communities and enrich our coexistence.

3) I grew up on the border of the Innviertel, went to school there, celebrated festivals and formed friendships. Since 2020, I have been implementing art projects in the Innviertel that deal with coming home, the visibility of art in rural areas and the independent art and cultural scene in peripheral regions. I appreciate the doer energy of the people in the Innviertel. They think in terms of solutions and offer support whenever possible. However, they also don’t spare criticism and are happy to openly question the meaning of an art project. I learned to appreciate these intensive discussions, even if it is sometimes difficult for all sides: I much prefer honest exchange, in which we may disagree on many things, to always swimming in the same bubble.

Antoine Turillon

1.) I am a visual artist living in Vienna, where I also studied after moving here from France a long time ago. My artistic works are mainly site-specific projects that are created in public spaces, often in collaboration with others. They question traditional forms of representation and create spaces for social processes that contribute to the examination of the challenges of our time.

2.) As long as I was not working in an academic environment, the necessity to reflect on the decision to be a visual artist was not really relevant. You are mainly concerned with working and at the same time ensuring that what you do generates enough energy to continue to believe in it. However, as soon as you have to talk about what you or others are doing in this field… and deconstruct it, the meaning of your own artistic work changes. Above all, it made me realize that it is almost impossible to find the right form or expression to convey what you want to express with an artistic work, but nevertheless I almost always feel the need to keep trying.

3.) Where it actually is.
That the past still shapes the present more than most people want to admit.
That the peculiarities of the Innviertel region are difficult to grasp and address.
And that there are still too many words in the dialect that mean nothing to me, even though I have heard them many times.