WE OWE THE WORLD A REVOLUTION! +++ WIR SCHULDEN DER WELT EINE REVOLUTION! +++ WE OWE THE WORLD A REVOLUTION! +++ WIR SCHULDEN DER WELT EINE REVOLUTION! +++ WE OWE THE WORLD A REVOLUTION! +++ WIR SCHULDEN DER WELT EINE REVOLUTION! +++ WE OWE THE WORLD A REVOLUTION! +++ WIR SCHULDEN DER WELT EINE REVOLUTION! +++ WE OWE THE WORLD A REVOLUTION! +++ WIR SCHULDEN DER WELT EINE REVOLUTION! +++

Welcome to the
Republic of the Arts!

The Vienna Festival (Wiener Festwochen) is one of the most important European art and culture festivals; it stokes contemporary global cultural debate, commissions or co-produces works. Theatre, music, opera and performance productions are on show and sociopolitical issues are creatively addressed for five weeks in May and June of each year. The start of Milo Rau’s artistic directorship in 2024 initiated a radical re-design of the festival with the involvement of citizens. The Free Republic of Vienna was proclaimed to 40,000 visitors during the opening of that year’s Vienna Festival (Wiener Festwochen).

‘In the German-speaking world, the Vienna Festival (Wiener Festwochen) really is the holy grail of contemporary theatre and the place to go for controversy.’ RTS

Radical political art, great theatre icons, fierce discussion sprees and wild parties – the new revolutionary institutions, including an anthem and a flag, caused major agitation, from the much-discussed Vienna Trials via the Academy Second Modernism and the Council of the Republic to the institution of a permanent festival hub, the House of the Republic and the Club of the Republic.

Democratising the
Festival

When the Vienna Festival (Wiener Festwochen) | Free Republic of Vienna adopted the Vienna Declaration, it was the first festival in the world to take up its own constitution with rules about quotas, the democratic organisation of curatorship and of ethical and ecological standards. It was created by the Council of the Republic, a board of eighty people from Vienna as well as international guests and establishes the guidelines for the ‘festival of the future’ – the transformation of the Vienna Festival (Wiener Festwochen). What is the art for our time? How can a festival radically enact its sociopolitical goals?

‘Vienna has five seasons: the normal ones plus the Vienna Festival (Wiener Festwochen).’ taz