Vision & Idea
On the Road to Becoming the 2024 European Capital of Culture Bad Ischl Salzkammergut
There are already nearly 200 projects planned and the network of artists, associations, institutions and business for the region is growing larger and larger.
The schedule of programming for the 2024 European Capital of Culture Bad Ischl Salzkammergut is growing and thriving. A large number of dedicated partners from the region are standing by the side of the programming team and specifying the contents of their projects; the schedule of programming is nourished by international impulses that bring new voices and points of view into the Salzkammergut region.
In numbers: of the now nearly 200 confirmed projects, more than 85% of them are being realized by local and regional project organizers (artists, associations, institutions, businesses). The remaining projects will all be arranged by the end of 2022. Throughout the entire year of 2024, with individual pieces of programming taking place in the year 2023, more than 150 projects will be distributed all throughout the Salzkammergut region to be experienced – a diverse mixture of regional impulses and international artists intended to stimulate reflection, consisting of artistic performance and discourse, conceived sustainably and which value tradition but, at the same time, look toward the future.
Created from the salt, enriched by the salt and, together with the salt, into the future. CULTURE IS THE NEW SALT. The Salzkammergut region offers a great deal of exciting histories, locations and people and is located within an impressive landscape. Shaped by the elements of salt, water and wood, a diverse region has established itself in which the history of salt mining began 7,000 years ago in Hallstatt. The salt trade fed the region, enriched it and allowed it to network internationally; it has drawn the rich and powerful to the countryside, the Salzkammergut region has become a beloved destination during the summer holidays and the historic cultural landscape within the Salzkammergut region is now part of the UNESCO World Heritage List.
With its evolved compactness, shielded by mountains, lakes and rivers, the Salzkammergut region stands exemplarily for many other regions in the world. The divides observed globally between the industrialized north and the south, used for tourism as well as for agriculture, come together clearly here and, at the same time, also serve both as a prime example as well as a laboratory for how the increasing political, cultural, economic and ecological challenges facing Europe and the world can be encountered.
Programming Focuses
The programming for the 2024 European Capital of Culture Bad Ischl Salzkammergut uses four points of focus to create a balance between these important areas and uses a multitude of projects to point out possibilities for actively shaping our future.
In its four lines of programming, POWER AND TRADITION, CULTURE IN MOTION, SHARING SALZKAMMERGUT – The Art of Traveling and GLOBALOCAL – Building the New, the European Capital of Culture is dealing with important topics within our region, Europe and the entire world, setting new impulses for the future, putting on display the diversity in historically rooted and contemporary art and culture and networking the region internationally.
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An open and active memorial culture without blind spots is a necessity for using the past to learn lessons for a careful and proactive approach to our present and future. The maintaining of tradition is a vibrant and strong practice in the Salzkammergut region. It covers a wide range of activities, extending from music, crafts, customs, theater and literature to restaurant culture. In order to understand traditions, however, a differentiated view of how they developed is also necessary. What power relationships have shaped this region and new modes of behavior and new customs? Remembering means shaping the future responsibly. This is exactly what POWER AND TRADITION recognizes and understands that their reciprocal effects are a prerequisite for understanding and respecting local and global identities as they change and evolve. Searching for the origins in our region reveals both the stories of their creation as well as global connections.
Culture is subjected to constant change; it arises from societal processes as well as sometimes from protests. Historically, workers culture was responsible for the first social demands and led decisively to the safeguarding of the professional life. Over the further course of events, the imperial court, the summer holidaymakers, Jewish life and its disappearance through the expulsion and extermination policy of the National Socialists, industry and tourism also shaped the cultural landscape. That is, culture is constantly in movement, it changes.
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The need for a clear cultural identity seems to be comprehensible in a world where everything is globally dependent upon each other. But is this so clearly demonstrable? The French philosopher François Jullien states that the nature of culture is change. Customs, traditions or a shared language are seen as resources that are generally available to all and which can be used in a wide variety of ways.
They are the foundations upon which the societies build and further develop themselves. Unconventional art formats as well as sustainable concepts are made possible through curiosity, productive questioning, querying and researching, through new points of view and interpretations and with an international dialogue of cultures. Culture and thus cultural identity never stand still. CULTURE IN MOTION is a matter of course. It allows innovations and makes a region and its society strong and able to face the future. It recognizes diversity as a strength with which one can learn from each other and, in doing so, further develop and stand up to new challenges.
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Tourism, grown out of the summer holidaymaking tradition in this extraordinary Alpine region, which began in the 19th century, is one of the most important lifelines in the Salzkammergut region, the place yearned for by many travelers.
The proper course, however, is not to see tourism as a service-providing one-way street with seasonally based peak times, but instead to see it as a fantastic opportunity to learn from each other. As in all regions of Europe, the side effects of a travel industry inspired by iconic landscape images cannot be overlooked. SHARING SALZKAMMERGUT – The Art of Traveling explores the diverse challenges as well as opportunities for a high quality further development of tourism and pursues the question of how Alpine space can be shaped attractively during the summer and winter months also beyond the field of tourism. How can an Alpine region whose landscape is to be preserved and is also intended to become a year-round travel destination prepare itself for the future?
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Shaping the rural Alpine region in such a manner that the usual north-south divide is compensated for and supplemented, that the labor market is enriched with creative potential, that works against the emigration of young, well-educated people in order to make a life in the countryside possiblewhile still being networked and able to work globally. This means expanding mobility and digitalization, developing strategies to once again make agriculture possible as a livelihood, combine land use planning and the development of a reasonable construction culture, creating spaces for education and art, striving for sustainability in all areas within the Salzkammergut region as well as beyond. In GLOBALOCAL – BUILDING THE NEW, the focus has been placed on thinking about the world of tomorrow and developing strategies for action as well as dealing with the points of tension between the generations. After all, it is especially the young people who are affected by the careless use of resources; this is why young people are the central group being addressed when it comes to recognizing interim spaces for promoting the cultural and creative diversity in the rural Alpine area of the Salzkammergut region and creating the prospect of a life that is attractive for young and old alike.
Strong Partners
In order to realize trend-setting initiatives beyond the year 2024 that young people will especially benefit from requires a strong partner who is well-established here. We are pleased that we have found exactly such a partner with Raiffeisenbank to whom the regional economy and the collaboration here is very important.
Important Topics
Construction Culture | Education | Digitalization | Memorial Culture | Gender | Crafts | Industrial Culture | Jewish Culture | Cultural Tourism | Art & Culture as a Location Factor | Rural Depopulation | Agriculture | Migration | Mobility | Sustainability | Next Generation | Ecology | Regional Development
Care & Sustainability
The Salzkammergut region is the first rural Alpine area to bear this title – this entails both tremendous opportunities as well as responsibility. A tourism region must deal attentively with the existing resources and, as a Green European Capital of Culture, it will orient its actions accordingly as such.
Opportunities for Diversity
The tradition in dialog with new culture movements, tourism in harmony with nature and culture, sustainability and understanding the further development of the region as rural urbanity – for young and old alike. Artistic interventions that look both backward and forward in discussion with current scientific knowledge are intended to shake things up and indicate perspectives. The 2024 European Capital of Culture is searching for the courage to be different and understand aesthetic as a compass for making distinctions.
Reflecting Upon Togetherness
The Capital of Culture offers an opportunity to ask the burning questions of our time: How do we live as a society here in rural Alpine space, how do we want to live in the future? How do we understand ourselves within Europe and as a part of the world? What contribution do we want to make to a shared Europe? How is it possible to bring art and culture to life as a significant location factor for the development of a region? The diversity of culture and a culture of diversity form an opportunity to share this single world we have internationally, transnationally and together.
Facts
The title European Capital of Culture has been bestowed upon cities and regions in Europe since 1985. For the first time in history, one is taking place in an intra-Alpine rural region in 2024.
Bad Ischl and the Salzkammergut region were granted the title 2024 European Capital of Culture in November of 2019 after a multi-tiered application process. The banner city of Bad Ischl has developed a cultural region together 22 additional communities in Upper Austria and Styria that has reinvented itself through the interaction of art, culture, business and tourism. Together with Bad Ischl – Salzkammergut, Tartu (Estonia) and Bodø (Norway) will serve as the 2024 European Capitals of Culture.
The Capital of Culture Region
includes 23 communities in the states of Upper Austria and Styria:
Upper Austria:
The banner city of Bad Ischl, Altmünster, Bad Goisern, Ebensee am Traunsee, Gmunden, Gosau, Grünau im Almtal, Hallstatt, Kirchham, Laakirchen, Obertraun, Pettenbach im Almtal, Roitham am Traunfall, St. Konrad, Scharnstein, Steinbach am Attersee, Traunkirchen, Unterach am Attersee, Vorchdorf
Styria:
Altaussee, Bad Aussee, Bad Mitterndorf, Grundlsee
The Supervisory Board – consisting of 14 people – was formed in August of 2020; the chairperson of the board is Hannes Heide.
There are a total of nine owners of the Kulturhauptstadt Bad Ischl – Salzkammergut 2024 GmbH.
Together, they also constitute the general assembly:
Stadtgemeinde Bad Ischl / Stadtgemeinde Gmunden / Regionalentwicklungsverein Traunsteinregion Regionalentwicklungsverein Inneres Salzkammergut – REGIS / Regionalverein Ausseerland Tourismusverband Bad Ischl / Tourismusverband Inneres Salzkammergut / Kulturvision Salzkammergut / Wirtschaftskammer OÖ
The Regional Forum was founded in October of 2020 as an advisory body. The 30 members provide advisory support, their network provides information from the region and they serve as a mouthpiece for the concerns of the Kulturhauptstadt Bad Ischl – Salzkammergut 2024 GmbH.
