Festival-en

OSTEN 2022

A festival in Bitterfeld-Wolfen

OSTEN is a festival for art and mutual interest. It explores and celebrates “the East” as a landscape of change for people, nature and coexistence. And where, if not in Bitterfeld-Wolfen, can stories of change be told? Because like hardly any other city in the former East of Germany, Bitterfeld, once called the “dirtiest city in Europe,” today stands as a model for ecological redevelopment, for change. And yet it is a good example of the economic, social and biographical changes that many places in eastern Germany and beyond have experienced.

With the help of art, the OSTEN festival aims to stimulate exchange about the history and present of “the East” and to create encounters: Art as an occasion to discover, to act, to get in touch and to stay in touch. The festival sees itself as a text marker and amplifier of the movement energy of a region in upheaval and wants to build up something where a lot of cultural offerings have disappeared since reunification. OSTEN addresses the people of Bitterfeld-Wolfen by developing unusual approaches to the city, and people from outside, who are to be made aware of what is special about this landscape and its history.

With a diverse program of theater, performances, workshops, excursions and much more, the festival made “the East” visible for the first time in the summer of 2022. Around 5,000 visitors accepted the invitation to (re)discover the Kulturpalast in Bitterfeld, the heart of the first festival, and the city of Bitterfeld-Wolfen from an artistic perspective. More than 60 artists and 150 students as well as a broad network of almost 30 cultural institutions have created the program.

After the successful first edition, the OSTEN 2024 festival is moving to Wolfen. The next edition is dedicated to the eventful history of the former film factory and the upheavals in biographies, urban society and nature that can be told about it. From 29th June to 2nd July 2023 a network meeting with public program part marks the start for the conception of the next festival in 2024.