FESTIVAL OF REGIONS 2007. EXITS AND DEAD ENDS

The Festival der Regionen (festival of the regions) that takes place in 2007 in Kirchdorf an der Krems (Upper Austria) invites visitors to take a tour of 25 art projects that focus thematically on history, migration, mobility, progress and withdrawal. “Kontakt” is supporting in particular the contributions by the artist Nika Radic (lives and works in Vienna and Zagreb) and by Jiri Skála (lives and works in Prague).

Transnational mobility, often compulsory, and continued drastic differences in standards of living have changed the thought of progress, at least in Europe, into a stop-and-go movement between security-oriented persistence and protectionism, and a simultaneous intensification of competition and demands for change. Present-day life and projections for the future are mostly caught in polarities. Opening up and sealing off, internationalization and national autonomy, ecology and technical development, sustainability and ever-increasing pressure toward flexibility etc.
As so often in situations with initially contradictory options for action, apart from the propaganda machines operating at top speed, hopelessness and a feeling of inevitability take hold. At the same time, old and new movements endeavour to find options to overcome stagnation and maintain the ability to act. The current social situation draws its nervous, tense volatility from these antagonisms. In zones of apparent calm and satisfaction, a depressive pressure pervades, whereas around them the lines of flight cross. The various resonances begin to become superimposed and much becomes possible: stillness through suspension, sound through interactions and a build-up into unimaginable frequencies with an uncertain course.
With the theme Exits and Dead Ends the Festival of Regions is bracketing its pretension to local reference together with a worldwide relevant issue. With the environs of the Pyhrn expressway (23 communities in the district Kirchdorf upon Krems), a region was chosen as the focal region for the 2007 festival which has had to repeatedly confront the controversy between opposed progressive movements. Between transnational axis, recreational area and transitional zone to central regions, numerous points of reference for developing projects can be expected.

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