Supergau festival in Salzburg in Austria is calling for artistic projects in outdoor space.
Supergau is an imaginary landscape, a culturally primeval landscape. It is temporary, and during the festival it lies like a second layer over the existing topography of one of the five Salzburg regions [Gaue] (Flachgau, Lungau, Pinzgau, Pongau, Tennengau).
Supergau is freed from the supposed dominance of the city with its programmed cultural spaces, freed from municipal museums, theatres, cabaret stages, that need to be filled by a target audience. Freed from the concept of the public space because Supergau knows only landscape. Supergau is surface and depth at the same time. Supergau has forest - and meadowscapes, mountainscapes, housescapes, asphalt- and concrete-scapes. All these and other landscapes can become a stage at Supergau, an artistic field of action. Supergau is a festival that takes place exclusively outdoors.
The biennial festival celebrated its premiere in Flachgau in 2021 and transformed Lungau into a Supergau for contemporary arts in 2023. The festival will continue in Pinzgau in 2025.
Supergau invites artists to take time for the festival, so it facilitates residencies which offer the opportunity of working on site, researching and exchanging ideas. The whole institution, the development of a dramaturgy and the planning of content in collaboration with participants is an essential component of the festival.
This open call marks the beginning of Supergau, which culminates in the 10-day festival in late May / early June 2025.
The festival is looking for:
- Artistic contributions outdoors.
- Artists from various disciplines who will join them in exploring the question of what the countryside can do as an art- and as production-space, what the city cannot do and what new forms of encounter and dialogue we can create here.
- Artists engaged with the questions, problems and potentials of this region.
- Spatial art that can cover entire meadows, forests, lakes, squares or motorways, for example.
- Cross-disciplinary works that enter into collaborations with visitors, residents, local initiatives or associations.
- Mixed teams with participants from fields other than art are possible (e.g. from science, agriculture, health, education, crafts).
The total budget for the open call amounts to 220,000 Euro. The artistic directors, together with a panel of experts, will select projects from within two categories:
- A: up to € 15,000.
- B: up to € 30,000.
These two categories are simply a rough guide, with no details concerning quality or importance of the individual works. The above-mentioned flat-rate contributions are gross amounts, and must include fees, production and implementation costs, and travel expenses.
Supergau will also provide board and lodgings for the duration of the residencies, and invites the participating artists to stay overnight in the Lungau during the entire festival (in May/June 2024).
