Young artists from abroad and from Austria are invited to the 2024 Capital of Culture region for 1-3 months at a time to work, research, develop and present artistic contributions on site. Vacant buildings are thus activated and enlivened with culture, and a dialogue and exchange with the places and their people is created.
The residencies will take place in 12 selected vacant and unused railway stations along the ÖBB regional lines in the Capital of Culture region: from the Almtal to the inner Salzkammergut to Tauplitz in the Ausseerland. The former restaurant at Bad Ischl station will also be part of these “cultural stations”, a joint project with ÖBB. In 2024, the restaurant space will be transformed with art interventions, exhibitions and pop-up projects, including the “Wirtshauslabor”. At the same time, it is an information point for the artist-in-residency programme “Salt Lake Cities”.
In the rooms of the former post office in Bad Ischl, Nick Oberthaler, a native of Ischl and professor at the Art University in Lyon, is working on site-specific works with three young graduates from France; two painterly positions will also be on display in an exhibition. The brewery Schloss Essenberg is renovating two small flats on the grounds for the residency programme.
In the course of the Capital of Culture year, the residencies will cooperate with other projects of the Capital of Culture 2024, such as the symposium “Interventa Hallstatt” with an architectural focus in Hallstatt. Artistic interventions in or in the context of the permanent exhibitions take place in regional museums.
