2007 Festival of the Regions: The Bottom Line
Copyright: Otto Saxinger
“At every venue, we were the talk of the town!” That’s how Director Martin Fritz summed up the 2007 festival. And the next installment in two years time will be staged in close cooperation with Linz09.
There was the floating labyrinth on Lake Elisabeth, sound effects resounding across parking lots and gas stations, and an installation on the roof of venerable Schlierbach Monastery. The Festival of the Regions specializes in art projects that are custom-tailored to their settings and that reach out and touch the people living in the unique regions in which they’re staged. The 2007 venue was Pyhrn-Eisenwurzen in southern Upper Austria along the highway to Graz in the Province of Styria. Martin Fritz and his staff were pleased to report over 15,000 visitor contacts this year.The plans for 2009 are already taking shape, and the choice of the region has been made in consultation with Linz09. The next festival will be hosted by the South of Linz, an interesting transitional zone blending urban and rural elements, a place where the outlying region approaches the city and the core deliberately opens up to the periphery.
