The programme board carries the curatorial responsibility and is unique to every edition of the festival and specific to the festival region. The programme board consists of five members that each come from a different background artistically and have a different main focus. The programme board formulates the topic, the call for entries and is responsible for the selection and the curatorial accompaniment of the projects.
Members of the programme board 2024-2025 are: Fina Esslinger, Doris Mitterbacher (Mieze Medusa), Isa Schieche, Katharina Spanlang und Antoine Turillon.
Mieze Medusa (Doris Mitterbacher) is an author, rapper, and pioneer of the Austrian Poetry Slam scene. She organises and hosts Poetry Slam performances and readings. She has had numerous publications, including novels, anthologies, Poetry Slam texts, and Rap albums. Most recently: the novel “Was über Frauen geredet wird” (Residenz, 2022) and together with Yasmin Hafedh the collection “Die Krise schreibt man nicht mit langem “I”, auch wenn sie riesengroß ist” (Lektora, 2023) http://www.miezemedusa.com
Isa Schieche lives and works as a visual artist and filmmaker in Raab im Innviertel and in Vienna. She creates participatory objects and installations that are activated through performance. Her works deal with customs and craft, place and dance, intimacy and queerness. In 2024, Isa Schieche was awarded the Max Ophüls Preis – Best Short Film for “Die Räuberinnen” and the Dorothea-von-Stetten-Kunstpreis. At the festival in 2023, Isa Schieche realised the performance “Skills & Tools: A Guidebook”, together with Helen Weber, Oskar Mayböck, and Milou van Duijnhoven. https://isaschieche.com
Antoine Turillon is a visual artist. His works are created mostly in public spaces, in many cases within collaborations and are site-specific. His approach questions traditional forms of representation, and creates spaces for social processes that in turn go on to create a deeper understanding for the current challenges of our time, and new paths of perception. Together with Seth Weiner he developed and curated the project “GIVEAWAYS/HIDEAWAYS” at the train station in Lungitz in Upper Austria for the Festival of the Regions 2023. https://antoineturillon.net/
Fina Esslinger is an art historian, curator, and cultural manager. Since July 2018, she is a board member and since April 2022 the head of the board for the Festival of the Regions. Her main focus is on contemporary, conceptual art, installation works, and Austrian fine art with a focus on time-based media. In 2023-2024 Esslinger was a member and the head of the programme board for the edition “High Time”.
Katharina Spanlang has been a member of the board of the festival since the end of 2022. She is a social designer, mediator, and co-founder of the collective “Leischn”, that works to realise art and cultural projects in rural areas. Among other things, in 2022 she developed and realised various long-term art residencies and events through the project “Wirbelfeld” in the three districts of the Innviertel together with Madgalena Hubauer.