Festival ahoy!
The Danube is the festival.
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.
Invitation to the open call for the Festival of Regions 2027
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 the submission of project ideas is 30 April 2026.
The next Festival of Regions takes place from 11 to 20 June 2027 on the Danube, upstream from Linz in Upper Austria, with the main focus of attention on Aschach an der Donau as the festival centre.
Under the theme “Eintauchen / Diving Deeper”, we occupy ourselves with the Danube and water.
The Danube is the river that passes through the most countries in the world. But what does the Danube mean on location, completely locally and beyond? We are looking for new perspectives and connections.
From 10 March 2026 to 30 April 2026, you can submit your entry here:
How is the river made?
The Danube is regulated and romanticised, navigated and researched, controlled and ideologized, economically managed and administered. There are many responsible instances and the most varied interests: the EU Strategy for the Danube Region, the intergovernmental Danube Commission based in Budapest, which is responsible for shipping and navigation, the Austrian waterways association viadonau, the Federal Agency for Water Management, the International Association for Danube Research or the Joint Danube Survey, the most extensive ecological examination of a major river worldwide, to name only a few.
The Danube as protagonist
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.
The Danube changes. Landscapes, economies, societies. Current generates resistance. Diving deeper means touching. The Festival of Regions looks at the region and the River Danube not as a backdrop for an art festival, but instead as a team-mate and protagonist of social, political and ecological action.
How can we make the river different?
What is the Danube beyond regulation and marketing, waterway, power and sewage treatment plant? What would the Danube say to all these uses and regulations, to pollution and extinction of species?
Other rivers in the world have already been recognised as legal persons. Not the Danube. Its waters, its course are man-made. How can we humans do things differently, together with many other aquatic lifeforms? How can art and culture develop new conceptions of life on and with the Danube?
Dive deep
Diving deep: real and metaphorically, physically and artistically. Plunge into the flow of the Danube, feel the water, the temperature, the currents, the undercurrents and crosscurrents. Diving in to obtain understanding that the water in human bodies is related to the water in brooks, rivers, lakes and oceans. Listen to what the water of the Danube has to say. Find artistic and cultural forms of expression for that heard, in order to establish water relationships, like in queer ecologies, hydrofeminist practices, indigenous cosmologies, so that water is once again understood as a living being.
Diving deep is something completely different than quickly dipping your toes in the water once. Immersion takes time, is a slow process. When we dive deep, we are no longer left out, we lose the safety margin of observation. Fixed habits liquefy. We also sometimes lose touch with the ground beneath our feet.
Today, 2,226 residents live in Aschach an der Donau. But who else lives here? Which plants, animals, micro-organisms live in the Danube? In 2027, we can consider the Danube as a living river that has rights, which has a lot to tell us, that wants us to hear and see it differently. We want to dive deep into the water of the Danube in Upper Austria, with Aschach as a festival venue, and surface again with changed conceptions.
Festival region Danube: the Danube is the festival
The Festival of Regions immerses itself every two years into a different region in Upper Austria. In 2027, we follow the Danube upstream from Linz into the upper Danube Valley – an invitation to rediscover a river course full of contrasts.
Aschach an der Donau as festival centre
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.
Floods, most recently in 2013, caused great damage. Industrialisation, the construction of the Danube Bridge and the power plant have lastingly changed townscape, life and infrastructure. In earlier times it was the crews of ships, fishermen and construction workers; today we encounter cycling tourists, people on excursions and passengers of the Danube cruise ships on the shore promenade.
The venue: a river course full of contrasts
Along the way, in the direction of Passau, there are harbours, fish ascents, Gatschinseln (mud islands) and power plants that dam the water and supply us with energy. The banks are lined with stair paths, railway tracks, cycle paths, through roads, art museums, boat petrol stations and secret bathing beaches.
The section between Linz and Ottensheim is a local recreational and leisure area. Lively and in motion. With Danube buses, bathing places and regatta routes. The picture alters farther upstream. Here, the massive barrages of the power plants, especially at Aschach, determine the rhythm of the water. A narrower valley stretches out beyond Aschach; the impressive nature of the Schlögener Schlinge (Schlögen meander) and steep, hilly landscapes.
The connector
The Danube is a connector. It flows through or touches 10 European countries, and thus different languages, cultures, religions and political systems. The Danube, as a west-east corridor, transports not only goods and sediment, but also ideas, political and cultural influences.
The course of the Danube flows through regions which show Europe’s contradictions and lines of conflict. The river connects countries that are characterised by authoritarian governments, increasing nationalism, unresolved historical trauma and current wars. The river has always been closely interwoven with power, ideologies and geopolitical interests.
Life next to and on the river
The Danube connects opposites:
Stone embankments & tremendous renaturation projects.
Beach promenades & through roads along the banks of the Danube.
Toxic sewage & Grüner Veltliner (white wine) from Aschach
Among captains, the Danube is viewed as an elongated village, enlivened by sturgeon, mermaids, ghosts and species that become extinct before we have even got to know them. On the river, we encounter art, cargo and passenger ships, floating studios, fictitious disco ships, ferries, pleasure craft, flat-bottomed boats, flotsam and air mattresses. Past bridge columns, flood barriers, estuaries, locks, Danube beaches, wetland forests and the traces of flooding.
We pass places and people that exist in a relationship or a non-relationship with the river every day, youth partying under bridges and cycling tourists, drifting to Linz in the wind current.
Submission Guidelines & Selection Criteria
We are looking for artistic projects, interventions, original and unconventional ideas that engage with the Danube region upstream from Linz – with Aschach an der Donau as the festival center.
We are looking for:
- Projects that understand the Danube not only as a landscape, stage, resource or transport route, but as a living actor that shapes habitats and is itself shaped by human and non-human relationships
- Works that establish new relationships with the river and open up new perspectives, combining local viewpoints with supraregional or international perspectives.
- Projects that involve people from the region and bring together initiatives and actors from art, science, administration, activism, associations, or neighborhood communities
- Experimental, interdisciplinary artistic approaches
- Unusual approaches to mediation
- Projects that become present and tangible especially in Aschach an der Donau, the main focus location and festival center
A Festival by People for People
If you see your work as a relevant contribution to the questions explored by Festival of Regions, we warmly welcome your submission. We aim to read every submission with care and attention. Please submit a project that you have developed yourself and that you consider a meaningful contribution to the theme of the Festival der Regionen, “Eintauchen / diving deeper”, and to the Danube region (upstream from Linz). The Festival of Regions is a community-oriented art and cultural festival. We create shared spaces to deepen social, cultural, and artistic questions together — in dialogue with a region, its actors, and international guests.
Submissions are read and discussed by people — specifically by a small and dedicated team. Increasingly, we observe that open calls are flooded with large amounts of automatically generated content. Like many organizations, we have limited time and human resources and cannot process unlimited numbers of submissions.
The Festival of Regions is explicitly interested in exploring new forms of working.
At the same time, we do not wish to receive project proposals that are predominantly or entirely generated by AI.
Experience shows that automatically generated texts often sound good and are well formatted but remain vague in content. We prefer to invest our time in interpersonal exchange – for example with original ideas.
We invite contributors to critically engage with AI as a tool. For submissions the following applies: sketches, unfinished thoughts, experimental approaches and even linguistic imperfections are explicitly welcome. We prefer these over polished texts where authorship or the creative process remains unclear.
Project Selection
The decision on the selection of projects is made by a four-member program board, which holds the curatorial responsibility for the festival program and is newly appointed for each festival edition.
Members of the program board for the 2027 edition are: Simone Barlian, Fina Esslinger, Elke Krasny, Adriana Torres Topaga.
The selection is made independently of gender, nationality, ethnic or social origin, religion or worldview, age, disability, or sexual identity or orientation.
Project selection will take place in a multi-stage process until the end of June 2026.
Selected projects will be announced in autumn 2026.
In particular, the program board considers the following criteria:
- artistic quality and originality of the idea
- engagement with the festival theme
- connection to the region and specific location
- potential for participation by audiences and local actors
- feasibility within the given time and organisational framework
The Festival of Regions welcomes projects that are diverse, accessible and inclusive.
We value sustainable production methods and responsible use of resources.
(Festival der Regionen is a Green Event.)
Participation in the Festival Process
The selected projects are expected to actively participate in the festival process:
- Participation in the Kick-Off Meeting (September 2026)
- Participation in press and presentation events
- Personal presence during the festival (June 11–20, 2027)
Components of the Project Submission
Project proposals must include the following information:
- Contact details of the contact person
- Short project description (max. 700 characters)
- Relation to the festival theme (max. 700 characters)
- Project description (max. 7 pages, 20 MB)
- Project visual (photo, graphic, or visualization including photo credits)
- Planned location of realisation or spatial requirements (max. 700 characters)
- Short biographies of the participants and previous artistic or cultural activities (max. 1500 characters)
- Timeline for development and implementation (max. 1000 characters)
- Financial plan / budget (attachment)
Submission deadline: April 30, 2026, 24:00
Submissions are accepted in German or English only via the online form. After submission, project proposals cannot be edited or resubmitted.
A confirmation of receipt will be sent automatically by email.
If you do not receive confirmation, please contact: opencall@fdr.at
Late or incomplete submissions cannot be considered.
All applicants will be informed of the results by email by the end of June 2026.
Consultation
The Festival of Regions supports applicants with research, networking, and finding suitable locations or cooperation partners in the region.
For questions about the submission or for consultation meetings, please contact:
Ulla Steyrleuthner (ulla.steyrleuthner@fdr.at)
Site Visit
On Friday, April 10, 2026, the festival invites participants to a joint tour through the festival region.
Meeting point: 12:30 PM, Stadtwerkstatt Linz
Registration until April 1, 2026 via:
ulla.steyrleuthner@fdr.at
About the Festival of Regions
The Festival of Regions has been exploring and activating a different region in Upper Austria every two years since 1993.
Over more than 30 years, the realities in the regions and how these are perceived have changed greatly. However, for the Festival of Regions it is always about diving deeper into a region, making changes not only visible and tangible, but also actively working on new conceptions. Region is thought of and shaped differently by the festival.
The festival thereby looks at current, at the same time local, specific and big questions. It deals with societal themes in art and culture projects. In the process, international artists enter into contact with the local population, while local culture associations work together with national cultural figures. Passers-by become part of the festival.
Regions are never isolated. They exist in complex cultural, ecological, economic and political correlations with other regions. Geopolitics are always also regional. Economy is always also local. There is hardly anything that allows a better understanding of this than a river, which is specific and different at every place, and nonetheless connects all places along its course with one another.