Festival ahoy!
The Danube is the festival.
Immersion / Diving Deeper
Water is political. The Danube connects. It changes. Landscapes, economies, societies. Current creates resistance. Diving in means touching. Let us read the river not as a backdrop, but as a protagonist of social, political and ecological negotiation. Let us immerse ourselves in the interplay of humans, animals, plants and microorganisms.
Invitation to the Open Call for the Festival of Regions 2027
The Festival of Regions invites artists, cultural initiatives and people with a cultural, social, ecological and political commitment to once again not go with the flow.
The deadline for submitting project ideas is April 30, 2026.
The next Festival of Regions will take place from 11 to 20 June 2027 on the Danube, from Linz upstream, in Upper Austria, with the main focus on Aschach an der Donau as the festival center.
Under the theme “Diving Deeper”, we explore the Danube and the water.
The Danube is the river that crosses most countries in the world. But what does the Danube mean locally, locally and beyond? We are looking for new perspectives and connections.
From 10.3.26 – 30.4.26 you can submit here:
How is the river made?
The Danube is regulated and romanticized, navigated and researched, controlled and ideologized, managed and administered. There are many responsible bodies and a wide variety of interests: the EU Strategy for the Danube Region, the Budapest-based intergovernmental Danube Commission responsible for navigation, the Austrian waterway company viadonau, the Federal Office for Water Management, the International Danube Research Association and the Joint Danube Survey, the world’s most comprehensive ecological survey of a major river, to name but a few.
The Danube as protagonist
With the Danube, the 2027 festival is bringing a body of water to the fore for the first time. As a setting for artistic projects. As a figure of thought for movement, as a starting point for installations and interventions. As a fluid space with places and people that are shaped by the river and life by the river.
The Danube changes. Landscapes, economies, societies. Current creates resistance. Immersion means touching. The Festival of Regions views the region and the Danube river not as a backdrop for an art festival, but as a player and protagonist of social, political and ecological action.
How can we make the river different?
What is the Danube beyond regulation and marketing, fairways, power stations and sewage treatment plants? What would the Danube say to all these uses and regulations, to pollution and species extinction?
Other rivers in the world have already been recognized as legal entities. The Danube has not. Its water, its course are man-made. How can we humans do it differently, together with many other aquatic creatures? How can art and culture develop new ideas about life on and with the Danube?
Dive in deep
Immersion: real and metaphorical, physical and artistic. Immerse yourself in the flow of the Danube, feel the water, the temperature, the currents, the undercurrents and counter-currents. Immerse yourself in order to understand that the water in human bodies is related to the water in streams, rivers, lakes and seas. Listening to what the water of the Danube has to say. To find artistic and cultural forms of expression for what is heard in order to build up other water relationships, such as in queer ecologies, hydrofeminist practices, indigenous cosmologies, so that water is once again understood as a living being.
Deep immersion is very different from briefly sticking your toe in the water. Immersion takes time, it is a slow process. When we dive deep, we are no longer on the outside, we lose the safety distance of observation, fixed habits become fluid, we sometimes lose the ground under our feet.
Today, Aschach an der Donau is home to 2226 inhabitants. But who else lives here? What plants, animals and microorganisms live in the Danube? In 2027, we can see the Danube as a living river that has rights, that has a lot to tell us, that wants to be heard and seen differently by us. We want to dive deep into the waters of the Danube in Upper Austria, with Aschach as the festival location, and emerge with changed ideas.
Festival region Danube: The Danube is the festival
Every two years, the Festival of Regions dives into a different region in Upper Austria.
2027 follows the Danube upstream from Linz into the Upper Danube Valley – an invitation to rediscover a river full of contrasts.
Aschach an der Donau as a festival center
There are places that lie on the Danube but have little or nothing to do with it. In these places, the river disappears behind flood structures and main roads. And out of consciousness.
In contrast, Aschach is located directly and literally on the Danube. This immediacy characterizes the town and its people. Aschach’s everyday life and history are closely linked to the Danube.
Floods, most recently in 2013, caused major damage. Industrialization, the construction of the Danube bridge and the power plant have permanently changed the townscape, life and infrastructure. Whereas it used to be boatmen, fishermen and construction workers, we now encounter cyclists, day-trippersand passengers on Danube cruise ships on the riverside promenade.
The setting: a river full of contrasts
On the way to Passau there are harbors, fish ladders, mud islands and power stations that dam up the water and supply us with energy. The banks are lined with towpaths, railroad tracks, cycle paths, main roads, art museums, boat filling stations and secret bathing beaches.
The section between Linz and Ottensheim is a recreational and leisure area. Lively and on the move. With Danube buses, bathing areas and regatta courses. Further upstream, the picture changes. Here, the massive barrages of the power stations, above all Aschach, determine the rhythm of the water. Behind Aschach, a narrower valley opens up, with the impressive nature of the Schlögener Schlinge and steep slopes.
The connector
The Danube is a connector. It flows through or touches 10 European countries and thus different languages, cultures, religions and political systems. As a west-east corridor, the Danube not only transports goods and sediments, but also ideas, political and cultural influences.
The course of the Danube flows through regions where Europe’s contradictions and lines of conflict are evident. The river connects countries that are marked by authoritarian governments, growing nationalism, unresolved historical traumas and current wars. The river has always been closely intertwined with power, ideologies and geopolitical interests.
Life on and by the river
The Danube combines opposites:
– stone embankments & huge renaturation projects.
– beach promenades & Danube embankment federal roads.
– toxic wastewater & Grüner Veltliner from Aschach.
Among captains, the Danube is considered a long village, inhabited by sturgeons, mermaids, ghosts and species that die out before we get to know them. On the river we encounter art, cargo and passenger ships, floating studios, fictitious disco ships, ferries, pleasure boats, flats, flotsam and air mattresses. Past bridge piers, flood protection structures, estuaries, locks, Danube beaches, riparian forests and the traces of floods.
We pass places and people who are in and out of relationship with the river every day, young people partying under bridges and radio tourists drifting to Linz in the wind current.
Submission principles & special selection criteria
We are looking for artistic projects, interventions, original and unconventional ideas that deal with the Danube region from Linz upstream – with Aschach a.d.D. as the festival center. We are looking for
- Projects that understand the Danube not just as a landscape, stage, resource or transport route, but as a living actor that shapes living spaces and is simultaneously shaped by human and non-human relationships
- Works that establish new relationships with the river and open up new perspectives, combining local perspectives with supra-regional or international viewpoints
- Projects that involve local people and bring together initiatives and actors from art, science, administration, activism, associations or neighborhoods
- Experimental, interdisciplinary artistic approaches
- Unusual approaches to mediation
- Projects that are particularly present and tangible in the focus location Aschach an der Donau as a festival center
A festival by people for people
If you see your work as a relevant contribution to the issues raised by the Festival of Regions, we would be delighted to receive your submission. We endeavor to read each submission carefully. Please submit a project that you have developed yourself and see as a meaningful contribution to the theme of the Festival of Regions “Eintauchen / diving deeper” and to the Danube region (Linz upstream). The Festival of Regions is a community-oriented art and culture festival. We create common spaces to explore social, cultural and artistic issues together – in exchange with a region, its actors and international guests.
The submissions are read and discussed by people. Specifically, by a small, dedicated team. We are increasingly experiencing that tenders are flooded with a large amount of automatically generated content. We also have limited time and human resources and cannot process a mass of submissions at will.
The Festival of Regions is explicitly interested in new forms of working.
At the same time, however, we do not want to receive any project applications that are significantly or completely AI-generated.
Experience shows that automatically generated texts often sound good and are formatted well, but remain vague in terms of content. We would rather invest this time in interpersonal discussions – for example with original ideas.
We invite you to critically negotiate AI as a tool. The following applies to submissions: Sketches, unfinished thoughts, experimental approaches and linguistic vagueness are expressly welcome. We prefer these to smoothly polished texts where the authorship or the creation process remains unclear.
Project selection
The decision on the selection of projects is made by a four-member program board, which bears curatorial responsibility for the festival program and is newly appointed for each festival edition. Members of the Program Board for the 2027 edition are Simone Barlian, Fina Esslinger, Elke Krasny and Adriana Torres Topaga.
Selection is independent of gender, nationality, ethnic or social origin, religion or ideology, age, disability and sexual identity or orientation.
Projects will be selected in a multi-stage process by the end of June 2026.
The selected projects will be presented in autumn 2026.
When selecting the projects, the Program Board takes particular account of
- the artistic quality and originality of the idea
- the content-related examination of the festival theme
- the connection to the region and the specific location
- the potential for audience and local stakeholder participation
- the feasibility within the given time and organizational framework
The Festival of Regions welcomes projects that are diverse, barrier-free and inclusive.
We attach great importance to sustainable production methods and the responsible use of resources. (Festival of the Regions is a Green Event)
Participation in the festival process
The selected projects are expected to actively participate in the festival process:
- Participation in the kick-off meeting (September 2026)
- Participation in press and presentation events
- Personal presence during the festival (June 11 – 20, 2027)
Components of the project submissions
Project proposals must contain the following information:
- Contact details of the contact person
- Brief description of the project (max. 700 characters)
- Reference to the festival theme (max. 700 characters)
- Description of the project (max. 7 pages, 20 MB)
- Project subject (photo, graphic or visualization incl. photo credits)
- Planned place of realization or spatial requirements (max. 700 characters)
- Short biographies of the persons involved and previous artistic or cultural activities (max. 1500 characters)
- Timetable for development and implementation (max. 1000 characters)
- Financial plan / calculation (enclosure)
Submissions are only possible in German or English via the online form. Once submitted, project proposals can no longer be edited or resubmitted.
A confirmation of receipt will be sent automatically by e-mail. If no confirmation is received, please contact .
Late or incomplete submissions cannot be considered. All submitters will be informed of the result by e-mail by the end of June 2026.
Consulting
The Festival of Regions supports submitters with research, networking and the search for suitable locations or cooperation partners in the region.
For questions about the submission or for consultations, please contact Ulla Steyrleuthner () is at your disposal.
Local inspection
On Friday, April 10, 2026, the festival invites you to a joint tour through the festival region.
Meeting point: 12:30 pm, Stadtwerkstatt Linz
Registration by April 1, 2026 at
Deadline: April 30, 2026, 24:00 hours