BREGENZ.- The cultural highlight on Sunday evening, 23 August, was the surprise of the Summer of Art on Lake Constance. At the invitation of Historische Schifffahrt Bodensee, Barbara Anna Husar's social sculpture Flying Udder acted as both, an experiment and as a stage for a one-of-a-kind concert experience between teats, sky and water. All of this took place on and above the Hohentwiel (1913) and Oesterreich (1928) on their maiden voyage as a future satellite for art institutions.

Bundling energy, creativity and spirit in the Lake Constance region
When Historische Schifffahrt Bodensee managed to bring Barbara Anna Husar on board to create an art event for the maiden voyage of the newly restored Art Déco motor ship Oesterreich as the first historical art ship in Europe with her social sculpture FLYING UDDER, none of the protagonists really knew how exciting this first joint cruise with and on both historic ships would be.

"After this incredible concert experience, which took place between and on the Oesterreich, on the Hohentwiel and in the flying udder airship on and above Lake Constance, I am more convinced than ever that the decision to win Barbara Anna Husar for our maiden voyage was the right one. With her multisensual production, she initiated interactions between creative minds as a heavenly messenger, as will be realized in the future by the Historische Schifffahrt Bodensee with well-known art institutions from the Lake Constance region as a floating space for contemporary art and an art satellite. We are already very excited about the extraordinary events with which the art institutions - after the Frauenmuseum Hittisau with director Stefania Pitscheider Soraperra, this year as the first art space - will surprise us in the future", Bernd Hartmann, managing director, MS Austria, comments happily on the successful overall event.




Smell, taste, see, hear, feel
Even Barbara Anna Husar, initiator of the Bregenz Air Festival, was surprised and amazed at the potential her protagonists were able to unlock during the Fertilisation Act of the Flying Udder. She was able to gather and network these protagonists for the Bregenz Air Festival on the Oesterreich and Hohentwiel – top chef Heino Huber (Udder Greetings from the kitchen), Nina Lyne Gangl (WUNDE.R [Wound/Wonder] – birth performance), Claudia Mang and Ulrich Schwendinger (Joyful Arrival – positive birth stories), Evelyn Fink-Mennel (Alpsegen chant with milking funnel), Wind Improvisation with saxophone and trombone, Rigoletto – Leonardo Rosales and the Rigoletto Trio and Flamenco – Trio Casa Domingo.

“The Social Sculpture Flying Udder is an art project and aesthetic concept that has grown over the years and is more relevant than ever in the current moment where we are loving, giving birth, feeling, thinking, designing, living and working. In the future, a much more robust, stronger network of people is needed in order to set trends for sustainable development and, with their conscious interactions, deal with the need to be careful and respectful with our environment and with ourselves," says the Vorarlberg artist Barbara Anna Husar, summarising her artistic motivation and the overall concept of the Bregenz Air Festival.

Blessed by the Alpsegen chant on the water and in the air and brought safely back to the port
It was truly a miracle that the weather conditions held up from the beginning to the end of the event despite the forecasts. The protagonists on the water – the captains Adi Konstatzky on the Oesterreich and Robert Kössler on the Hohentwiel – as well as in the air – the balloonist Nadja Manser-Nussbaumer – were challenged at the start at the Symphonikerplatz of the Festspielhaus. Due to considerable gusts of wind, it took some time before the pink, 35-metre-high balloon with its gold-plated basket could be tethered to the Oesterreich so that it would float above both ships and transform into a resonating body. Thanks to Alpsegen chant, which was sung with a milking funnel by the Vorarlberg musician and ethnomusicologist Evelyn Fink-Mennel, the concert between teats, sky and water with the brass section from the Bregenz Festival’s performance of Rigoletto was able to safely go ahead on the water and in the air and bring the passengers, who were also part of this extraordinary production, back to the ships' home port in Hard safe and sound.

Barbara Anna Husar
Born in 1975 in Feldkirch (Vorarlberg); 1995 University of Applied Arts, Vienna, free graphics with Prof. Mario Terzic; 1998/1999 Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam and School of Visual Arts, New York; 2000 Diploma from the University of Applied Arts, Vienna; Numerous exhibitions and exhibition participations from Bilbao to Shanghai. Prizes, grants, artist residencies, lectures and performances as well as large-screen projections, publications, and art acquisitions. She lives and works as an independent artist in Vienna