GRAZ.- The 58th edition of steirischer herbst festival is inspired by Ernst Toller’s satirical play Nie wieder Friede (1934–36): on Mount Olympus, Napoleon and Francis of Assisi debate whether humanity prefers peace or war and send a cryptic declaration of war to mountainous Dunkelstein. Immediately, the population remembers an obscure “hereditary enemy” and mobilizes against foreigners.
In English, Toller’s play is usually staged as No More Peace. This title does not capture the intensity of the original and its reversal of the popular interwar slogan “Nie wieder Krieg.” Nie wieder means “never again,” the phrase chanted by Buchenwald survivors shortly after the camp’s liberation.
Toller’s indictment of Europe as it fell under the spell of fascism could not be more relevant today. Institutions built to prevent the return of war and genocide are crumbling. Given the amount of bloodshed since 1945, “never again” rings hollow. Vladimir Putin’s Russia leads its bloody war of aggression while claiming to support peace, and the Israeli government uses the threat of a new Holocaust to continue the Gaza war indefinitely, fully extending it to the civilian population.
steirischer herbst’s home region of Styria somewhat resembles Toller’s Dunkelstein. After a stunning victory in the state elections, the far-right Freedom Party is in power. To no one’s surprise, migrants and other minorities are targeted as cultural institutions and NGOs face funding cuts and anti-discrimination legislation is rolled back.
Historically, steirischer herbst opposed itself to lingering fascist tendencies in postwar Austria. Today, the Nazis’ political heirs are firmly established. With its new edition, the festival returns to its antifascist impulses, reactivates Toller’s title, and encourages artists to respond to the current moment, often by revisiting historical works.
Like George Orwell, Toller observed how easily words can be turned upside down. steirischer herbst ’25 opens on Graz’s Freiheitsplatz (Freedom Square), which was renamed as such by the Nazis in 1938. Already before the festival, Ahmet Öğüt symbolically reclaims this name, asking passersby to interpret what freedom means today.
On September 18, the festival kicks off with a new audio performance by award-winning collective LIGNA, inviting the audience to explore contested ideas of freedom. It is followed by a new choreography by Manuel Pelmuș for Frédéric Gies—inspired by Kurt Jooss’s seminal anti-war ballet The Green Table (1932)—as well as Ivo Dimchev’s grand exploration of social tensions. Further performances take place throughout the festival.
This year, steirischer herbst’s exhibition is located in Graz’s former Bauer distillery, whose multipart building is turned into a metaphor for a polarized society that still finds itself “in the same boat.” For the festival, the venue is renamed BAU, a word with many meanings in German, from construction site to den to prison. Here, visitors encounter entangled stories of oppression and escape, of eternal journeying and imposed hiding. In the curatorial imagination, the building recalls at once a ship on which antifascists fled occupied France, an Alpine fortress to which the Right withdraws like at the end of World War II, a Magic Mountain–like sanatorium with its precarious hope, or a hotel whose guests await their uncertain transit.
The exhibition and performances of Never Again Peace are accompanied by artist talks, debates, as well as six specially commissioned cabaret shows.
Participating artists include Carla Åhlander and Gernot Wieland, Zaid Alsalame, Angélique Aubrit & Ludovic Beillard, Candice Breitz, Pauline Curnier Jardin, Ivo Dimchev, Eva Ďurovec, Charlotte Gash, Gelitin, Pedro Gómez-Egaña, Elias Holzknecht, Max Höfler and Andreas Unterweger, Dana Kavelina, Helga Lázár, LIGNA, Lau Lukkarila, Liina Magnea, Augustin Maurs, Nástio Mosquito, Stephan Mörsch, Olaf Nicolai, Ahmet Öğüt, Illya Pavlov, Manuel Pelmuș and Frédéric Gies, Edwin Ramirez, Isabella Sedlak and Yousef Sweid, Seven Trials Theatre Troupe, Haim Sokol, Mounira Al Solh, Franz von Strolchen, Theater im Bahnhof and Das Planetenparty Prinzip, Philippe Vandenberg, Michiel Vandevelde, Pankaj Tiwari, and Eneas Prawdzic, Maria Vilkovisky and Ruthie Jenrbekova (Kreolex zentre), and zweintopf.
