Mysterious

International Culture Art Project

2021 - 2024

On the initiative of the Cultural Officer for the Danube Region at the DZM Ulm and with the support of the Baden-Württemberg Foundation and the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts Baden-Württemberg, a new international cultural-art project started in September 2021, in which artists* and young people from five cities in the Danube region – among them the four European Capitals of Culture (and their surrounding areas) – will work together. The project will take place in 2022-2024.

The “Mysterious” project deliberately turns away from the classic scheme of presenting selected works of art, traveling exhibitions and symposiums and instead turns to new methods such as co-creation.

Temporary meetings of artists from the Danube region are planned in the current European capitals of culture in the Danube region (and their environs). The timetable consciously takes into account that in the years 2022-2024 alone there will be four important but still little-known places in the Danube region as European Capitals of Culture. The fifth city in this network is Ulm, which offers a European stage for the results of the project with the International Danube Festival:

2022: Novi Sad and Vojvodina/Serbia as well as presentation at the International Danube Festival in Ulm/Neu-Ulm

2023: Veszprém and the Balaton region/Hungary as well as Timişoara and the Banat/Romania

2024: Bad Ischl and the Salzkammergut/Austria,

2024: Presentation of the project results at the International Danube Festival in Ulm/Neu-Ulm

Project weeks with young artists from all fields of art will take place at the locations mentioned, who, with the help of local young people and students, will get to know particularly attractive but little-known, forgotten or not easily accessible or invisible places in the city/region and work on them together in an artistic performance.

The project makers think, for example, of places with which hidden stories, legends or historical events are connected, or which contribute to a better understanding of the history, cultural heritage and current identity of the Danube region, such as the underground passages of the Peterwardein Fortress and the old marshalling yard in Novi Sad, the backyards of the old town houses in Timisoara as well as the forgotten villages of the Banater Heide.

The kick-off meeting of the project took place on September 30th and October 1st, 2021 in Vienna, attended by a local organizer from Bad Ischl, Novi Sad, Timisoara and Veszprém. The local organizers will accompany the entire project and, among other things, organize the artists, the young people and the meetings on site

project team

Izabela Mašić (Novi Sad-Vojvodina), Andrea Wolfer (Timișoara – Banat), Szonja Dohnál (Veszprém – Balaton), Jakob Kinz (Bad Ischl – Salzkammergut), Jonas Bolle (Stuttgart – Ulm) and the project management: Swantje Volkmann (Ulm) and Márton Méhes (Vienna)