Art Festival Begehungen 2024

There is unrest in the region 35 years ago. What started small soon grew into a major movement. Protests break out across the country, society wavers between fear and awakening. Is the situation tipping over? Or will the forces balance out and calm return?

The 21st edition of the Begehungen art festival will take place at a location that is closely linked to the protests in the GDR 35 years ago: back then, a group of citizens came together to change the GDR's education system, among other things.
Although the GDR was soon history, the idea took shape surprisingly quickly. On 1 September 1990, the new Chemnitz school model was opened as a place for progressive learning and teaching. It still exists successfully today, now at a new location.

The founding building at Charlottenstraße 52, formerly the Albrecht Dürer or Charlottenschule, was abandoned in 2012 due to structural defects - and now forms the authentic setting for the 2024 festival entitled "KIPPELN".

An exhibition will bring together 23 works by international contemporary artists and a festival programme with concerts, theater, lectures and performances will be offered.

The aim of the festival is the artistic examination of different forms of protest and resistance as well as the visualisation of protest movements in the present day, but also of past decades across the globe.

Artists participating in the exhibition:

Benjamin Badock (Germany)

Martin Bertelmann (Germany)

Helena Her (Mexico)

Jürgen Höritzsch (Germany)

Sebastian Jung (Germany)

Kubra Khademi (Afghanistan)

Edgar Leciejewski (Germany)

Julia Lübbecke (Germany)

Antonia Mang (Germany)

Pavel Mozhar (Belarus)

Shahrzad Nazarpour (Iran)

Ronja Oehler / Gesa Schermuly (Germany)

Yiannis Pappas (Greece)

Thomas Prochnow (Germany)

Johanna Reich (Germany)

Elske Rosenfeld (Germany)

Maria Ruido (Spain)

Anna Schimkat (Germany)

Doris Obermayr (AT)

Tina Bara / Alba D'Urbano (Germany/Italy)

Mariana Vassileva (Bulgaria)

David Wittinghofer (Austria)

The jury this year consisted of

Dr Claudia Tittel (curator, artistic director of the exhibition)

Irini Mavromatidou (artist, participant of the Begehungen Festival 2014)

Carl Geißler (actor and former pupil at the school)

as well as a voice of the Begehungen e.V..

Participation and inclusion are core values of our social interaction. For the Begehungen e.V. team, it is a deep conviction that all people can visit our art festival regardless of their origin, age, financial means or physical conditions. That is why we work in several languages, offer guided tours for children and do not charge a fixed admission price. In addition, the Begehungen art festival has been making enormous efforts since 2016 to provide people with mobility, hearing or visual impairments with uncomplicated and natural access to the exhibition and all programme items.

From our point of view, this is a matter of course, but it also presents the festival team with new challenges time and again, as new tasks have to be solved every year due to the annually changing venues. We are happy to take on this challenge. The gratitude of the people affected by the restrictions is an invaluable reward for us.

This year, we are able to cover the not inconsiderable costs for barrier-free measures on the one hand through income from a crowdfunding campaign (many thanks to the donors!) and on the other hand through the powerful support of SFZ Cowerk gGmbH.

For people with hearing impairments

Translations into German sign language at the festival opening and the 3 pm guided tours on 17 and 18 August. In addition, the artist talk on 18 August at 2 pm will be translated into sign language.

People with visual impairments

• Guidance system through the exhibition venue
• Audio guide with audio description of selected artworks
• Tactile models of selected artworks
• Tactile room plan of the buildings

People with limited mobility

• Barrier-free access to the exhibition, catering and all programme items
• Wheelchair-accessible toilet
• Portable seating

Do you have specific questions regarding barrier-free offers or would you like to be offered a guided tour? Send us an email to inklusion@begehungen-festival.de

Without the wonderful support from the "public sector", from donors and sponsors, but also from you, dear visitors, the realisation of such a large event would be inconceivable. This event is co-financed by tax revenue on the basis of the budget approved by the Saxon state parliament and by federal funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media. It is a project of the European Capital of Culture Chemnitz 2025 gGmbH. We are explicitly grateful for the funding from the budget of the City of Chemnitz and the Cultural Foundation of the Free State of Saxony.

The numerous guided tours for children and young people can be realised thanks to the commitment of Volksbank Chemnitz eG. The Bürgerplattform MitteOst provides financial support for the concert and children's programme. The companies DMK-E Business GmbH, Sparkasse Chemnitz and GGG make the high-calibre nature of our exhibition possible with their financial support.

Without the SFZ Cowerk gGmbh, it would hardly have been possible this year to make access to our festival as barrier-free as possible. The Chemnitz-based companies Bergt Bräu Reichenbrand, PM2 and TD Media are more than just service providers and suppliers for us. They help us with advice, action and cool drinks. Many thanks to all of them!

The festival was founded in 2003. In the first edition, twelve empty shops in the Sonnenberg district of Chemnitz were the venues for a photography exhibition. In the years that followed, the festival moved to Brühl for several years, a shopping boulevard that was largely abandoned at the time, grew continuously and opened up more and more to other areas of art. The art festival has changed its venue every year since 2010.

Since then, a former prison, empty cultural centers, abandoned allotments, an old brewery, disused department stores, a drained water park, an orphaned museum or an overgrown train station have been the festival's locations. In 2022 and 2023 the festival took place outside of Chemnitz, in the small towns of Thalheim and Lichtenstein.

The exhibition is open to all genres of visual art. An extensive festival program, consisting of lectures, talks, readings and concerts, is an essential part of the festival.

The visits are seen as an inclusive and barrier-free festival. Admission to all program items and the exhibition is free. The festival is largely created through voluntary work by the members of the Begehungen e.V. and many helpers.

The Kunstfestival Begehungen are an official part of the program for the European Capital of Culture 2025 Chemnitz.

The Begehungen art festival is an official part of the program for the European Capital of Culture 2025 Chemnitz. In a process leading up to the Capital of Culture year, the festival will take place between 2022 and 2024 in the cultural region around Chemnitz. In 2022, 12,000 people visited the former Erzgebirge baths in Thalheim for the premiere of this format.

Stefan Schmidtke, Program Director European Capital of Culture Chemnitz 2025 GmbH: “The art festival Begehungen contains everything that is European Capital of Culture Chemnitz 2025 – and has been for 20 years. "C the unseen", the motto for the program of the Capital of Culture year, is also programmatic for the Begehungen. The festival uses unusual places and makes them visible.

It invites international artists and the local neighborhood to discover these places and engage in conversation. The Begehungen open up spaces and new perspectives. This is also what the Capital of Culture stands for: encouraging people to get involved, creating access and breaking down barriers. As a project of the European Capital of Culture Chemnitz 2025, the art festival Begehungen will network intensively with international partner festivals in the coming years and through this exchange will be further professionalized and profiled as a European festival."

General: info @ begehungen-festival.de

Press: presse @ begehungen-festival.de

Booking / Festivalprogramme: booking @ begehungen-festival.de

Questions about the application: application @ begehungen-festival.de