Open Call: International festival campus 2025

Ruhrtriennale 2025 invites you to the International Festival Campus in Bochum and Essen: artists and students (practice and theory) can look forward to a four-day programme curated in cooperation with art academies and universities from all over Europe. A participation includes several visits to the festival's performances, installations and exhibitions as well as taking part in a workshop revolving around the topic Communications about Art, organized and held by lecturers from participating universities. There will also be artist talks, critique discussions and, above all, the opportunity to exchange ideas with international artists and art students from various genres.

The Ruhrtriennale campus programme has existed since 2012 and is one of the largest of its kind. It is based on the belief that every aesthetic experience can only achieve sustainability through a lively, critical and committed discourse that extends beyond disciplinary boundaries. The Ruhrtriennale festival campus creates space for such encounters: between established artists and newcomers, between the successful avantgarde and subversive experimentation, between artists with very different working methods from different cultural contexts. Where practical experiments meet theoretical reflection – in a scope, radicality and intensity that only an international festival can offer.

The programme focus Communication(s) about Art explores the question of how art can (better) be talked about publicly in the future. Which media, forms and formats will lead to which new possibilities? How can a diverse audience be generated and strengthened through exchange and discussion? How can ongoing exclusions – linguistic, ableist, institutional and other – be reflected upon and overcome communicatively and with perspective?

• Free admission to selected events of the festival incl. free shuttle service
• Free participation in a workshop, offered by lecturers from European partner universities
• free accommodation in a hotel in Essen/Bochum (twin room), incl. breakfast and one hot meal per day

Participation fee: 25€

Those interested are to apply by 31 May 2025 with a letter of motivation (max. 1 page) and CV to festivalcampus@ruhtriennale.de. Please indicate which of the three possible time periods you would like to participate in: 28 to 31 Aug [1] or 4 to 7 Sept [2] or 18 to 21 Sept 2025 [3].

Questions about the program may as well be addressed to festivalcampus@ruhtriennale.de

The number of spots is limited to 25. Selection will be made by the festival campus team.

Application deadline: 31 May 2025
Selection of participants: by the end of June 2025

[1] incl. works by von Łukasz Twarkowski, Ivo Van Hove, Mohamed Toukabri a. o.

[2] incl. works by Robyn Orlin, Osmium, Philip Venables a. o.

[3] incl. works by FC Bergman, CHORWERK RUHR, Arhun Aksakal, Cosima von Bonin, Stella Flatten, Marlin de Haan, Paula Pedraza, Franziska Pierwoss & Jonas Leifert, Ramona Schacht & Luca Bublik, Nesrin Tanç, Alfredo Thiermann, Iris Touliatou, Anna R. Winder a. o.