Program: Projects
The Projects unit was in charge of all projects apart from those in the areas of Music and Performing Arts. Exhibitions put on by Linz09 in Linz’s cultural institutions and in the public sphere spanned the time from autumn 2008 through Culture Capital Year to the first weeks of 2010.Lentos Kunstmuseum contributed the exhibitions BEST OF AUSTRIA, MESOPOTAMISCHE ERZÄHLUNGEN [Mesopotamian Narratives] and SEE THIS SOUND to the programme of Linz09. Stadtmuseum Nordico put on two exhibitions in the course of the year: there was ZAUBERKÜNSTE [Doing Magic] to kick off, highlighting the city’s “magical aspect”; from June 2009 the exhibition LINZ. STADT IM GLÜCK [City in Luck] gave a synopsis of three decades of urban development. In its exhibition NUR DURCHGEREIST [Just Passing Through] StifterHaus provided a stage for the ambivalent reactions to Linz by a great number of literary personalities who had, at some stage of its history, paid the city a flying visit. The Landesgalerie put on the crowd-pulling TOULOUSE-LAUTREC: DER INTIME BLICK. [Toulous-Lautrec: An Intimate Look]. The inauguration of the new South Wing of the Schlossmuseum was celebrated with the exhibition DAS GRÜNE BAND EUROPAS [The European Green Belt], which was on show until the middle of January 2010 and represented a much-noticed contribution to the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Iron Curtain against the backdrop of the Culture Capital. In autumn 2009 the Landesgalerie staged DER “FALL” FORUM DESIGN [The “Case” Forum Design], a particularly intricate chapter of Linz’s cultural history. HÖHENRAUSCH surpassed Linz09’s wildest dreams by attracting more than 270,000 visitors. Comparable in terms of attendance was 80+1. EINE WELTREISE, which made a similarly imaginative use of the public sphere.
One of Linz09’s most significant programme lines was the one that targeted the city’s contemporary history. A wide range of projects, including several in the fields of Music and Performing Arts, together threw light on the way the city had tackled its Nazi past. The extermination camps in Linz’s immediate vicinity, Mauthausen and Gusen, were the topic of two symposia. DAS UNSICHTBARE LAGER [The Invisible Camp] gave insight into the extermination machinery of the Nazis. The most hotly debated projects were IN SITU and UNTER UNS [Amidst Us]. At the end of the year the exhibition BIBLIOTHEK DER GERETTETEN ERINNERUNGEN [The Library of Rescued Memories] recalled the many facettes of Jewish life in pre-Holocaust Europe.
While the city centre was an obvious choice for the staging of various Linz09 events, many projects made use of a variety of venues located in other parts of town and in the region. BELLEVUE, a canary-yellow house located in Bindermichl/Spallerhof, proved a great attraction between June and September 2009. It was a temporary structure built on top of the roofed-over motorway and housed a great number of extremely popular neighbourhood projects. BELLEVUE was a brilliant supplement and extension of the KULTURHAUPTSTADTTEIL DES MONATS project that was scheduled for the entire year, fcousing on a different neighbourhood each month. Programming here took the form of a curated competition. Ottensheim, Wels and the Mühlviertel were the venues of Linz09’s regional projects KULTURBADEN, WHAT YOU REALLY NEED and WEGZEIT.
In light of its broadly defined concept of culture it was incumbent on Linz09 to position projects at the interface of politics, science and history. A case in point is the KEPLER SALON. One of the houses Johannes Kepler used to live in in the heart of the city became the venue for highly ambitious knowledge mediation. The artist group Social Impact created several of Linz09’s projects, most notably SUBVERSIV MESSE [Suversive Fair], which made use of the traditional trade fair format to put politically suversive strategies on display in the Hafenhalle and caused quite a stir and a substantive media echo. The same applied to another Social Impact project: KOMMEN UND GEHEN [Coming and Going]. At 36 points on Linz’s city boundary place-name signs were put up that displayed the city’s name in any one of a variety of different languages and appropriate scripts. Through other projects, such as KULTURLOTSINNEN [Culture Pilots], HAFEN DER SEHNSUCHT [In the Harbor of Longing for …] and BIBLIOTHEK DER HUNDERT SPRACHEN [The Library of One Hundred Languages] Linz09 sought to create a situation in which it would be possible also for foreigners living in Linz to be part of European Culture Capital Year.
The programme’s variety and high density, moderate pricing and simple booking procedures were designed to lure also visitors to Linz09 events who were not yet confirmed aficionados of high culture. The politically inclined were invited to rediscover sites of social conflicts in Linz under the guidance of REBELLINNEN [Activistas]; for environment conscious people NACH LINZ HINAUS provided guided tours focused on the concert of nature, culture and industry in Linz. KINDERPUNKT09 was provided all kinds of information material relevant to Linz09’s programme for children. Folklore addicts were treated to both traditional and innovative fare in the BRAUHAUS [The Brewery], which was open for business for three weeks. A similar cross-over project was HOLZ&BLECH, in which local brass bands, playing music composed for the occasion, set off on expeditions to explore the city’s past.
The programme of a European Capital of Culture should not be measured exclusively by its input into the local cultural scene. This is why a great deal of emphasis was given to projects that enabled local and regional events to get in touch with Europe and to network the two worlds. Despite organisational and budgetary problems, 17 projects were realised in the Lithuanian Culture Capital jointly with Vilnius 2009, especially in the areas of music and literature. These included exchange projects of the Anton Bruckner Privatuniversität and Linz Music School and a series of literary projects organised by StifterHaus. The LINZ EUROPA TOUR 2007−2009 may be considered as an archetypal example of a pan-European networking project. Europe as a theme was never absent from Linz09 during the entire year, from the film festival CROSSING EUROPE to LINZFEST09, for which invitations were issued to all past and future Culture Capitals, and the series of adult education lectures EUROPA – DIE DEMOKRATISCHE HERAUSFORDERUNG [Europe – the Challenge of Democracy]. Another Linz09 project in spring 2009 risked an unusual perspective on Europe. In a six-week theatre, music, dance and literature festival entitled EXTRA EUROPA three European countries, Norway, Switzerland and Turkey, whose only common ground is that none of them is an EU member, were given the opportunity to present their case to the Culture Capital audience. The entire project focused on the political and social implications of EU membership.
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