With the vision and innovative power of art, the Klima Biennale Wien spurs the paradigm shift toward a livable and sustainable future on our planet. The key tools to achieve this objective are, without doubt, participation, collaboration, and awareness. The Biennale will stake out viable responses to the climate crisis together with the people of Vienna.
The Klima Biennale Wien faces the challenge of making the highly complex and acute issues of global change, the climate crisis, species extinction, and the impacts on the human-nature fabric visible and tangible for everyone: because we urgently need to find new ways of sharing knowledge and discussing strategies together!
The profound and sweeping changes in the Earth’s system necessitate a duly holistic debate. Therefore, the concept and working method of the Biennale focus on multiperspectivity: we see the future as a shared design task and claim a space for reconciling different and sometimes contradictory positions. Precisely such frictions are fertile ground for transformations in society.
In its exhibitions, in public spaces or as part of the festival programme, the Klima Biennale Wien brings together current positions from the fields of international contemporary art, design, architecture and science that point the way to socially and ecologically just world relations. Based on the principles of care and sustainability, the Biennale proposes concrete alternatives by questioning turbo-capitalist concepts and overcoming patriarchal and colonial paradigms in favour of collective, inclusive and common-good strategies.
In a world where economic growth is often regarded as the ultimate goal, the climate crisis is currently challenging this paradigm: How can a livable, climate-fit future be achieved? How do we negotiate the related needs? How can abstract global relationships become easier to understand?
The crisis-ridden present points to a post- growth era. Only systemic, holistic approaches will succeed in proposing a counter-model for a society where ecological balance is reconciled with economic development and prosperity.
Director KunstHausWien / Host Klima Biennale Wien
Gerlinde Riedl took over as director of KunstHausWien in June 2022. Under her leadership, the museum will be sustainably renovated until February 2024 and the permanent exhibition on Friedensreich Hundertwasser will be reorganised. Together with Christoph Thun Hohenstein (Vienna Biennale for Change), Riedl initiated the Vienna Climate Biennale, which is funded by the City of Vienna's departments for climate, culture and economy.
With the new art festival and its focus on contemporary exhibitions and educational formats on the theme of Man and Nature, KunstHausWien continues its pioneering ecological role as Austria's first green museum.
Artistic Director
Claudius Schulze (*1984) serves the Klima Biennale Wien as artistic director. He holds degrees om Conflict Analysis & Resolution (M.A., Sabanci University, Istanbul) and Documentary Photography & Photojournalism (M.A. with distinction, University of the Arts London) and is pursuing a practice-led Ph.D. on machine cognition & sensing and the Anthropogenic Extinction Crisis.
As an artist and researcher, his interest lies in nature, technology, and the consequences of Global Change – in short: the Planetary Crisis. In his studio, he collaborates with a diverse team of educators, engineers, and designers to create unique, site specific installations, bridging the analogue/digital divide. His work is regularly published and exhibited internationally. It is held by various private and public collections.
Most recently, he implemented FIDS Open Research Lab (Elbkulturfonds 2022, Hamburg Germany), an artistic research vessel logging the impact of noise and light pollution in the Port of Hamburg and the effect on bird behaviour using advanced image recognition and Artificial Intelligence.
Together with Sithara Pathirana, Claudius Schulze initiated the first international biennial for nature, climate at the anthropogenic changes to the earth system in Hamburg. He served the first edition 2022, titled ClimateArtFest as the artistic director.
Program Director
Sithara Pathirana (*1987) is responsible for the program of the Climate Biennale Vienna, which includes the festival's framework, educational and outreach activities, and collaborations within the city. She studied English/American Studies (M.A., Karl-Franzens University, Graz) and "Culture and Media Management" (M.A., University of Music and Theatre, Hamburg). As a project and cultural manager, her focus lies in cultural education, particularly in the areas of cultural participation and educational justice.
She served as a speaker at the Hamburg Association for Children and Youth Culture. As an art festival producer, she previously worked at events such as the steirischer herbst, the Hamburger Kulturgipfel, and the Triennale der Photographie Hamburg, where she conceptualized and co-managed the OFF TRIENNALE in 2018 and the Triennale Expanded in 2022.
Together with Claudius Schulze, Sithara Pathirana initiated the first international art biennale for nature, climate, and anthropogenic changes in the Earth's system called ClimateArtFest Hamburg.
Leitung Kommunikation & Presse
Kuratorische Assistenz & Ausstellungsproduktion
