Tuesdays and Wednesdays are hearing days – a series in which we will develop the rules for the festival of the future together. Who takes decisions? Where does project funding come from and where does it go? Who is invited and who isn’t – and why? Who is the producer, who is the audience? Boycotts – yes or no? And: how does a globally active festival agree with sustainability? Experts, artists and activists provide an insight into their practices and examine potential alternatives. Over the duration of five weeks, the Council of the Republic will attend and discuss the hearings and design the Festwochen’s own constitution, which will be presented to the audience at the end of the festival as the Vienna Declaration.
28 / 29 May,
4 / 5 / 11 / 12 / 18 / 19 June, 6 pm
House of the Republic
produced and executed by the team of the Wiener Festwochen | Free Republic of Vienna
Leila Offinassinga, 18, pupilWill the Free Republic of Vienna undertake to keep to a code of conduct that is transparent to outsiders and safeguards against any kind of discrimination? Will diversity quotas for the employment of new staff be introduced? Who will be given a stage in the future? Which political and moral principles will the festival commit to and will there be an inquiry of Viennese citizens to decide on the exclusion of artists in the future?
Council Member Chair
Noomi Anyanwu, Dunia Khalil & Alexander MartosTheatre and festival stages are places where society watches itself. That can turn the aesthetic space into a highly political space. This is a political claim that has been a recurrent theme – almost a fetish – throughout the history of modern art. Now, the Free Republic of Vienna Festwochen face further difficult questions in connection with politics, morals and communication:
Does a festival need a general ‘position’ and ‘values’ in order to navigate the charged conflicts of the present and the impact zones of artistic collaboration, as is often called for nowadays? How might we tell significant values apart from moralistic hypocrisy that threatens to affect democratic discourse? Does a festival have to take a position on worldviews and global politics at all? Isn’t it the very point of the freedom of art to imagine radically different ideas of cohabitation into reality? Moreover, how can the Wiener Festwochen protect its art and its artists from increasingly fierce attacks that are launched at them either from the depths of social media or out of the skirmishes of the politics of the day?
Hearing 3 will approach these tension-packed issues from two points of view:
DAY 1 – TUESDAY, 4 JUNE
How do we tackle ‘false actions’, within the festival, meaning undesirable behaviours such as discrimination, sexism, mobbing, etc, in those areas that are not covered by criminal law? Furthermore: Can there be clear and expedient forms of dealing sensibly with violations, slander, interference and polemics connected to the much-evoked ‘cancel culture’?
DAY 2 – WEDNESDAY, 5 JUNE
How might ‘true change’, meaning a real difference, emerge out of a festival of the arts? Will it take new, more direct forms of artistic solidarity or does it rather take an honest insight that true change always begins with oneself?
Noomi Anyanwu is an activist and chairperson of Black Voices Austria. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in African Studies and is currently studying Human Rights and Diplomacy at the University of Stirling, Scotland. She has been politically active since the age of 15 in the form of workshops, Austria-wide campaigns in youth organisations, her school newspaper and currently her online activism as @thisisnoomi. She also works as a trainer and consultant on anti-racism for organisations and in adult education. Her last publication as an author and editor was a great success with the racism guide ‘Was that racist now?’.
Dunia Khalil is a long-standing legal advisor addressing the fields of anti-racism action and online hate speech. She is a skilled anti-racism trainer who offers workshops and trainings on a number of topics related to anti-discrimination issues. Dunia Khalil also acts as an expert in national and international networks, working groups and organisations that address issues of basic rights and human rights.
Alexander Martos works in Vienna as an independent curator, implementing a number of projects in the broad field of science, education and the public sphere as well as science and the arts. He has been director of the research, education and culture platform ‘Science Communications Research’, which he founded together with Karin Harrasser in 2006. Alexander Martos studied philosophy, contemporary history and cultural science at the University of Vienna.
Muhammet Ali Baş ist Kurator und Vermittler für Stadtprojekte bei der Tangente St. Pölten.
Birgit Englert is Associate Professor of African History and Societies at the Institute of African Studies at the University of Vienna and has been habilitated since 2023. Over the past 25 years, numerous publications on land rights, popular cultural practices, mobilities and qualitative research methods, especially on East Africa and diasporic contexts. Among other things, co-founder of ‘Stichproben. Wiener Zeitschrift für kritische Afrikastudien’ (since 2001) and the “Rassismuskritische AG am Institut für Afrikawissenschaften” (since 2021). Current research and teaching on solidarity practices, especially with a focus on the struggle against apartheid in South Africa and the mutual reference between African and Palestinian actors. Furthermore, several years of engagement with the debate on cultures of remembrance in German-speaking countries and practical experience with cancel culture in a university context.’
Arne Forke is a consultant for theatre, music and literature in the office of Vienna’s City Councillor for Culture.
Günther Friesinger is a media artist, author, curator and film producer. He is managing director of the artists’ collective monochrom, founder and director of paraflows – platform for digital art and culture in Vienna and festival director of Roboexotica. Current films: Hacking at Leaves (2024), current publications: Kleine Weltentwürfe. Texte zur Medien-, Kunst-, und Kulturtheorie (2024), Protestformen. Widerstand als kulturelle Praxis (2023). Tag cloud: contemporary art, digital culture, activism, performance, media theory, science fiction, open culture, urban hacking.
Andrea Lumplecker works at the intersection of artistic, curatorial and mediating practice. Together with Yasmina Haddad, she is part of the collective and off space SCHOOL, which they have been running together in Vienna since 2011. Since 2021, Andrea has headed the continuing education programme at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, which she named Class for All with the aim of opening up access to the art university to a diverse audience. Intersectionality takes centre stage, combining (queer) feminist theory, anti-colonial action and ecological intervention through thinking, desire, kinship and empathy to create a collective artistic practice.
Andreas Mailath-Pokorny has been Rector of the Music and Arts Private University of the City of Vienna since 2018. From 1988 to 1997, he was Head of Office in the Cabinet of Federal Chancellor Vranitzky, and from 1997 to 2001 Head of the Arts Section in the Federal Chancellery. From 2001 to 2018, Andreas Mailath-Pokorny was City Councillor for Culture and Science in Vienna. Since 2010, he has also been President of the Association of Social Democratic Academics, Intellectuals and Artists.
Nada Taha Ali Mohamed is a lawyer and worked for many years as a managing director in several organisations/associations. She currently heads the coordination office of the Vienna Children and Youth Strategy of the City of Vienna (at WIENXTRA) and organises participation projects for young people between the ages of 5 and 20 in Vienna.
Vera Rosner (formerly Rebl) was born in Vienna, specialises in dance, choreography, performance and interdisciplinary concepts and lives in Vienna. She has been leading a weekly open
workshop group since 2006, an advanced training group since 2011 and teaches various workshop formats in Vienna, Graz, Innsbruck, Bremen, at GAIAC in Porto, at DanceAbility Finland, AbArt in Munich and at the University of Bologna. From 2005 to 2009 she danced with Danse Brute. In 2008, she founded the company A.D.A.M., with which she created the performances 6 tanzen, Auf freiem Fuß, dancing with paints (collaboration with L.A.C.E. Theatre, Los Angeles), (Ruderal-)Flora and Fuss-Noten. As a performer, she was most recently seen on stage in Gala by Jerôme Bel and in Habitat and Everybody Electric by Doris Uhlich.
Heinz Sichrovsky is a cultural journalist. He studied German language and literature and dropped out at the dissertation stage to become a cultural critic. Since then, he has worked for the Arbeiter-Zeitung, NEWS, Kronen Zeitung and ORF, writes cultural history non-fiction and is also the presenter of the book magazine erLesen on ORF 3. Heinz Sichrovsky is married, has two daughters and lives in Vienna.
Nina Vobruba, born 1985, works as a cultural worker and artist. At FLUCC she works in the field of community projects, organisational development and art production and is also involved in the ongoing process of building structures for awareness, discrimination sensitivity and prevention of violence. As an artist,
she works in the fields of performance and visual arts, interweaving interdisciplinary processes and collective practices. Her work has been exhibited at Kunsthaus Graz, Neue Galerie Graz and Kunsthalle Wien, among others. She was involved in the founding of the CAMBIUM community project, which converted a former barracks site into self-managed living and working space and was bought free by the 70 or so residents and around 250 investors in 2019. She lives in Vienna with her son and is occasionally active in activist contexts.
Dusty Whistles is a trans woman who is racialized as white and is considered able-bodied in a society that structurally prioritizes corponormativity and whiteness. She is a working class art worker from a Portuguese immigrant family of artisans and unionized service workers. She was born on the island of Paumanok on Matinecock territory in the colonial occupation that is called New York. She currently lives and works in Vienna. Her practice is informed by 24 years of activist labor and is framed within a tradition of Social Practice art. Her work encompasses performance based strategies, archival disciplines, methodologies of care and coalition building in conversation with an intersectional movement practice.
PUBLICATION DETAILS Owner, Editor and Publisher Wiener Festwochen GesmbH, Lehárgasse 11/1/6, 1060 Wien P + 43 1 589 22 0, festwochen@festwochen.at | www.festwochen.at General Management Milo Rau, Artemis Vakianis Artistic Direction (responsible for content) Milo Rau (Artistic Director) Text credits Contribution by the committee chairmanship Noomi Anyanwu, Dunia Khalil and Alexander Martos Picture Credit Cover © Alevtina KakhidzeProduced by Print Alliance HAV Produktions GmbH (Bad Vöslau)
The cover illustration was designed by the multidisciplinary Ukrainian artist Alevtina Kakhidze, whose work critically examines socio-political changes and topics such as consumer behaviour, ecology, feminism and life in conflict zones.
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