NUREMBERG Why a festival?

It's time to offer a stage for an exuberant, colorful society,

for a lively cultural sector, for artists who work professionally

and yet throw all the rules of art overboard for noise and fine tones,
for contradictions that need to be resolved not only in Nuremberg, for a warm one
Embracing cultural contrasts and creating a space in which this diverse potential grows together into a fruitful mix.

IDYLLERIA

Is a program that sets itself the task of having no tasks.
Everything can come together here:

Art, music, theater, dance, words

Outsiders meet interior ones, posers meet cautious ones, show-offs meet devotees and vice versa, expressive dance meets impression world, art stuttering meets chanting, wallflowers meet flower power and know-it-alls meet thirst for knowledge

... and then everything becomes one:

The audience is there and the Magic begins!

IDYLLEREI22

International Festival for Inclusive Arts

Reason and intention

In 2022, the KUNSTRAUM in the WerkStadt Lebenshilfe Nuremberg will be eleven years old. We are taking this birthday as an opportunity to organize an international festival together with galleries, studios and art groups from all over the world and, within this framework, to present works of art, music and theater whose creators have intellectual disabilities, suffer from psychological problems or unspecified, reveal pathological tendencies in their works.

The festival is scheduled to take place in Nuremberg, because with currently 15 to 20 full-time creatives and numerous exhibitions and exhibition participations, the KUNSTRAUM is now internationally networked and has become the most important center for outsider art in northern Bavaria.

Selected institutions and galleries from the outsider spectrum show the work of their protagonists here. In addition, for the first time in this context, we are presenting established artists whose oeuvres also illustrate the possibilities of the absurd, the illicit or the unreasonable.

Outsider Art

Numerous neologisms have emerged from attempts to find a term for the works of art or generally for the artistic WORK of people with mental, emotional or psychological disabilities. They all serve or served to classify, evaluate or devalue. Like many others, “outsider art” is probably the most frequently mentioned term and is based on the naming of a flaw, just as we understand the terms “disability” or “impairment” as a faulty deviation from some kind of norm. It is not just for this reason that the term outsider is repeatedly assessed critically. After all, outsider art has long since established itself on the international art market and is increasingly reflected in the general art world and in the accompanying publications. This causes the positions to become closer. The “outrageous” work of art that creates indignation or disgust is becoming rarer in an enlightened society.

Content and goals

The main aim of the event is to make visible and understandable the power of obsessive creativity as a source and inspiration in art, highlighting its irrepressible energy, the influence it exerts and the traces it leaves behind.

Many of the works shown are created under the assumption of extreme experience and/or a special mental disposition. If this results in possible parallels in perception, interpretation or evaluation, one aim of the event could be to point these out. Different positions, which are based on a variety of world views, could be compared at this level. Furthermore, it should be examined whether there can be connections for certain, artistically gifted people between the urge to create and the pressure to suffer, between vision and reality, between assertion and knowledge.

The art of the so-called outsiders is also not yet as well known or as recognized in Germany as in other countries in the world. Here we come across an obvious deficiency that we are addressing with this action.

Another goal of the festival is to show contributions from as many parts of the world and from different cultures as possible. People should also be able to meet each other barrier-free. Of course we are breaking down technical obstacles, but what we are primarily concerned with are the barriers in our heads. We want to attack these by astonishing our audience, inspiring them, surprising them and bringing them to new insights. Artists, studios and galleries get to know each other and can network. People with and without intellectual disabilities and with and without psychological impairments will play a key role in the planning and implementation.

The works on display will come from people with and without impairments or disabilities and from different social contexts. The project organization values the inclusion of its protagonists and diversity.

Nuremberg location

Nuremberg has positioned itself and made a name for itself as a city of human rights. A festival for outsider culture could hardly be more effectively positioned in Europe. With the Z-Bau - House for Contemporary Culture, we have found a location for the festival that offers a large hall with a stage, smaller rooms for lectures and films and an outdoor area with a sculpture garden and catering and which is already barrier-free.

preview

We would like to see contributions from all areas of the visual arts as well as guest artists from other genres such as drama, dance and literature.

We invite outsider studios, theater groups, performers, musicians and specialized galleries to take part in the exhibition. It is being advertised nationally and is expected to attract several thousand visitors over a weekend.

Z-Bau, house for contemporary culture, project partner in Nuremberg

The Z-Bau – House for Contemporary Culture sees itself as an open and free cultural house. It is open to all people who reject any form of discrimination. Because of this open orientation, people with different life plans, expectations, wishes, ideas and goals come together. Therefore, it is also a living space and therefore a place for sociability, discussion, networking and interdisciplinary understanding.

The Z-Bau is supported by the municipality, but is independent of party politics. We experience the Z-Bau and its actors as an attentive and critical-constructive voice in cultural policy, supported by a nonprofit, common good orientation and the goal of enabling culture in its diversity in the greater Nuremberg area and supporting cultural workers in their development. As a house for contemporary culture, it represents the heterogeneous field of contemporary music, art and cultural movements. On its premises, its actors find a designable and protected open space.

Organization and organizer

The initiator of the festival is the art space IDYLLEREI of the WerkStadt Lebenshilfe Nürnberg. Around 15 to 20 artists with various intellectual disabilities have been working there since 2011. The studio is led by Christian Vittinghoff and Lutz Krutein.

The organizer is the WerkStadt Lebenshilfe Nuremberg gGmbH

Recognized workshop for people with disabilities in accordance with SGB IX