WORT:KLANG Festival of the Arts, Salem 2025 26.09. - 28.09.2025

We cordially invite you to become part of this special festival through your support and commitment! With your help, you will give WORT:KLANG a voice and promote cultural diversity in the rural Lake Constance region.

WORT:KLANG - Festival of the Arts

In Salem - in the beautiful Linzgau region - we are planning an interdisciplinary festival from 26-28 September 2025 that focuses on the unifying power of language. The non-profit organisation 1:1 CONCERTS e.V., which has already created many intimate encounters worldwide with its unique concert format, is cooperating with L WIE MATERIE, whose exhibition spaces are anchoring contemporary art in Salem for the long term. At WORT:KLANG, we use music, visual arts, literature, film and science to transform surprising venues into unexpected spaces of experience.

Under the direction of Christian Siegmund (1:1 CONCERTS e.V.) and Johanna Knöpfle (L WIE MATERIE), over 30 artists from Germany and abroad are part of the festival, including 12 freelance artists from various disciplines as well as students from the Leopold School which specialises in education for young people with hearing and speech impairments. Over 400 event tickets offer easy access to culture in the countryside. We work together with local social partners: the Linzgau Shuttle takes people with limited mobility to the concert free of charge and via the Familientreff Salem we can invite people to the festival who would otherwise not have the chance to attend a concert. Admission is free for children and young spectators up to the age of 16.

PROGRAMME: Everything here revolves around language:

• Festival Exhibition at L WIE MATERIE featuring a light installation by Rebecca Koellner, which deals with the struggle for words. Objects and drawings by Johanna Knöpfle, whose work explores the complexity of understanding. Photographs by Matthias Schenkl provide a cross-reference to literature and history.

• 1:1 CONCERTS in a wide variety of disciplines: 10-minute ‘tête-àtêtes’’ - whether the guests encounter music, language, poetry, a DJ set, painting, photography or sound design remains a secret until the encounter itself.

• Performance project LIPSPIL: with pupils from the Leopold School as part of the project week for the school's 25th anniversary, in collaboration with teacher Anja Mayer-Pelzl. The results are an integral part of the festival exhibition.

• Participatory music performance Goethe & Dante: A fictional German-Italian poet competition in which the audience becomes an actor at eye level. With Theresa Kronthaler, Christian Siegmund, Mirella Vinciguerra, Andrea Macaluso and Marco Mantovani. German premiere

• Syrian-German reading. The author Luna Al-Mousli , who grew up in Damascus, takes us into the familiar and unfamiliar worlds of words from another culture.

• Short films / screening / DJ sets in cooperation with Fluctuating Images, Dr. Cornelia and Prof. Dr Holger Lund: 3 documentary, experimental short films that combine poetry, lyrics and everyday elements in a cinematic way. Afterwards, DJ sets will turn the stage into a dance club.

• ‘Monkey Talk’: How do our closest relatives communicate? In this lecture, behavioural biologist and director of Affenberg , Dr Roland Hilgartner, provides scientific insights into communication in Barbary apes and other non-human primates.

• The spacious garden of the L WIE MATERIE is a place for exchange and encounters, where you can reflect on what you have experienced with yourself or others, echo it and deepen it. Culinary artist Mama Africa will take care of our physical well-being with African recipes and flavours. Around an open fire, the culinary delights will bring us together and give us new strength and energy.

PROJECT GOALS:

• Making language audible and visible in concerts, exhibitions, readings, screenings and much more.

• Disciplinary expansion of the 1:1 CONCERTS including completely new art disciplines (painting, DJ live mix, sound design, poetry, photography)

• Creating a bridge between cultures & generations

• Promotion of young talents

• Easy access to culture in a very rural area, with fair or free admission or on a donation basis

• Support for regional language promotion projects