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Your open call was brought to my attention by a peer from the Brussels art world.

Attracted by your vision of a new, ambitious art space in the historically rich and complex context of Brugge, I allow myself to send you the outline of a concept for the opening festival in 2025/26.

As a curator, festival maker and researcher with an academic background in Classical Archaeology, Musicology, Philosophy and German Literature I am enchanted by the city of Bruges and its unique heritage since a long time. My attached concept reflects this fascination, as well as my commitment to pressing societal and political questions. The politics of time, including historiography, were in the focus of my last long-term commitment as artistic director of Berliner Festspiele's Festival for Time Issues MaerzMusik.

I have created festivals and other public environments for art, encounter and learning for more than 20 years. Last year I decided to terminate my 9-year assignment with Berliner Festspiele. Despite my actual plan to commit to a research sabbatical in 2023/24,  your open call inspired me to apply with the following concept.

I am passionate about creating public spaces that enable diverse encounters

As to my professional network: From the mid-90s till around 2010 my professional focus was on contemporary music and sound art. Since my time as artistic director of Austria’s largest contemporary music festival Wien Modern (2000–2009) I have been deeply connected with an international network of festivals and concert house in Europe and beyond. From around 2005 I started to work – as a curator and collaborator – with the performance art and dance scene, extending my professional network to theaters and performance networks.

Through my interdisciplinary research (starting in 2000 with my master thesis project on the art brut artist Adolf Wölfi) I also had the opportunity to develop a number of project with visual arts institutions and curator, as well as projects intersecting with political theory, neuroscience, and architecture.

Having most recently  been part of the artistic lead team of one of Germany’s largest art centres under the umbrella of Kulturveranstaltungen des Bundes in Berlin (which comprises Berliner Festspiele, Gropius Bau, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, and Berlinale Film Festival) gave me the opportunity to further deepen and broaden my transdisciplinary curatorial practice and network.

For almost 10 years I worked at the heart of a vibrant artistic ecosystem in the art metropolis Berlin. The festival I directed in Berlin was coined by extensive interdisciplinary collaboration, initiating, featuring, and producing not only concerts and performances, but also exhibitions, art and media installations, film programs, conferences and other transdisciplinary discourse formats.  My professional network thus extends into different artistic disciplines beyond my initial turf, into visual art, theatre, performance, and film.