May 25, 2010

At the outset: a festival like Inntöne, which has been making regional cultural work visible and tangible for 25 years, is an important guarantor of the diversity of Upper Austria's cultural landscape.

However, all of this is diminished, not to say nullified, when the festival obviously sets out to deny social realities at its anniversary edition.

How else could it be interpreted that only 4 of the 106 musicians listed during the festival are women? Perhaps to be even clearer: We are talking about less than 4%. We are also talking about the fact that none of these women are mentioned in an
Ensemble name, i.e. in a "leading" position.

We cannot and do not want to respond to the chauvinistic doctrine that good female musicians are so hard to find and that there are so few of them. Because that is simply wrong.

But it does require greater sensitivity to make women visible. One reason for this may be that they have also been made invisible in the alternative music sector over the years.

We would expect that:
a) an association, a festival, a curator who has also been awarded the major state prize for proactive cultural work for his work, is able to create a different image of society.
b) all reflection is not reflexively wiped off the table. Rather, that progressive institutions (or institutions that claim to be) also question social realities and fight against them.

Change always starts on a small scale, gentlemen!

Best regards
FIFTITU%