We are opening our doors again. After almost a year in challenging and tiring distance mode, the Angewandte is one of a few Austrian universities that has gone back to face-to-face teaching in artistic subjects as early as in March 2021. This was urgently necessary, as it is the nuances, the confrontation, the debate, the human, the physical, the materiality, the coincidence that are indispensable for the development of new ideas and artistic works. A year in distance mode was possible thanks to the great commitment and flexibility of all university staff under great restrictions, and an enormous willingness to compromise.

It is now even more necessary to open the doors and ourselves to the public again at the end of the semester, to present the works that were created and make them available for discussion. With Angewandte Festival 2021, we are taking the only consistent step towards opening up and inviting people back into our buildings. Because only in exchange can the artistic works fully evolve.

However, we do not want to talk about a big comeback. We will not and should not return to the old times of imagined stability, but we will come back to continue our work. Since its foundation, the Angewandte has been a place where questions about the future are raised, artistic concepts and ideas are developed and realised. The people here at this university are actively shaping the future. They deal with the burning questions of our time and strive to make a significant contribution to current socially relevant discourses.

Conventional answers will not suffice in a time that—further intensified by Corona—is more than ever characterised by change, uncertainty, contradictions, ambiguity, and non-linear contexts. Courage to change is needed, with education and culture at the forefront. This is what we are working on behind open and closed doors and I invite you to see for yourself.

Gerald Bast, Rector

Things are bubbling up again in the Angewandte and beginning to burst out. Finally, we can show again the diversity of artistic explorations driven by our questions, visions, and doubts about the now. We can finally negotiate them together, in spaces that often had to stand empty during the past year and which are now filling up again, or in public spaces that are being reconceptualised or used differently after the lockdown. Just as a red mist runs unpredictably and persistently through this year’s festival graphics—developed by students from the Department of Graphics and Advertising—the Angewandte spreads its ideas, projects, and visions across Oskar-Kokoschka-Platz and to the entire city. Hans Schabus draws a new field with a temporary white marking of Oskar-Kokoschka-Platz, which opens up possibilities for an alternative understanding of space that is not based on demarcation and exclusion, but on participation. We are happy to be able to be loud again, to resist a “back to normality” and to challenge reality.

Lena Kohlmayr with Eva Maria Stadler and Martina Schöggl

Artificial Museum, brut, Dynamo (abcdinamo.com), Falter, Fluc, Knize, Radio FM4, Radio Ö1, Standard, USUS am Wasser, Vienna Sightseeing Tours, Volxkino, Werk, Wien Modern

We would like to thank the sponsor for this year’s RONDO Fashion Award NEUBAU EYEWEAR

It’s best to get your Festivalguide directly at the Angewandte Festival 2021. If you cannot attend the festival, you are welcome to order the guide, which will be sent to you. Since our Festivalguide will only be ready shortly before the festival begins, we cannot guarantee that all orders will arrive on time.

From mid-June on, the complete festival programme will be available on angewandtefestival.at where you can also download the Festivalguide as a PDF.

For further information or queries regarding Angewandte Festival 2021, please send an email to angewandte.festival@uni-ak.ac.at or info@uni-ak.ac.at

The exhibitions and the accompanying festival programme will take place in accordance with Covid-19 regulations. If implementation with audience participation is not possible, the contributions will be streamed online at angewandtefestival.at. 

Rules for visiting
↳ Admission and visit only in compliance with the 3-G rule (tested, vaccinated, recovered) – this will be checked at the entrances!
↳ Please wear an FFP2 mask in all rooms of the university and at all festival locations!
↳ Keep a distance of 2 metres to your fellow human beings!

Registration modalities
Festival programme that requires prior registration can be booked for free here: angewandtefestival.at/registration

In case of bad weather, there are no indoor alternatives due to the current Covid-19 restrictions!