VIENNA.- The Klima Biennale Wien returns in spring 2026 for its second edition. With over 100 cooperation partners, the festival programme of the first edition attracted more than 225,000 visitors. Once again, the festival, initiated by the City of Vienna and hosted by the KunstHausWien, is dedicated to giving new impetus to the fight for climate justice and a viably liveable future for everyone.

The Klima Biennale Wien understands art to be a motor of social change. Drawing on the diverse means of art it raises awareness of the climate crisis and its social dimensions, while creating spaces for new perspectives on crucial issues like biodiversity, urban development, coexistence and climate justice.

Art in public space in focus

Next year, the Biennale's experimental field will not be a festival area, but the entire urban space: with the exhibition (No) Funny Games and interventions in public places the festival brings climate issues to everyday life and creates low-threshold encounters with art. Throughout all of Vienna and especially at the centrally-located Karlsplatz, both young and renowned, local and international artists can be discovered.

The festival headquarters, designed by the scenography duo JASCHA&FRANZ from Hamburg and Berlin in cooperation with the Austrian writer Andrea Grill, is once again the KunstHausWien. There the main exhibition Seeds explores the multifaceted importance of seeds as a vehicle for how we handle the earth and interact with one another. The group show tells us about the disappearance of seeds, agrobiodiversity and colonialism – but also about self-empowerment, communities based on solidarity and regenerative futures.

Cooperations and projects

Partnerships are once again the foundation of the Klima Biennale Wien in 2026. They mirror the breadth of the climate crisis—from art, culture and design via urban development and science through to education and social engagement.

Partnerships are already up and running which will carry on to the festival. For instance, the open call—Creatives for Vienna – Making Spaces—was launched in summer 2025 by the Vienna Business Agency. Ten selected projects revitalising public spaces will be presented during the Klima Biennale Wien in 2026. Also underway since the start of this year's winter semester is the Solutions & Strategies project, a cooperation with the University of Applied Arts Vienna and the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. The project reaches its climax during the festival with a focus week on the Danube Canal.

The Klima Biennale Wien brings together stakeholders from the arts, science, the economy and education to foster innovative solutions and create new spaces for dialogue. Climate issues and themes are presented and negotiated decentralised throughout the whole city – with the goal to lend impetus to achieving a sustainable, just and liveable future beyond the festival.

The complete programme of the second edition of the Klima Biennale Wien will be released in January 2026.