Wortstatt | Carmen Oswald, Camron Mhina, Schulhaus Unterer Hitzberg, Erlenbach

Projects with participatory-artistic approaches play a crucial role at the festival. School classes from various educational contexts in the canton and the city of Zurich collaborate with cultural professionals to develop various artistic formats, which are eventually presented at the festival. The development processes often span several months. All projects have a platform at the festival. The program times will be communicated at a later date.

In the current exhibition at Museum Rietberg, students explore Omar Victor Diop's photo series Being There and examine questions of belonging and exclusion: Who belongs, who doesn't, and who decides? Based on Diop's work, they research their own family histories, experiment with photography and sound, and use their findings to create an audio-image walk. During their live performance at the Museum Rietberg and on the festival grounds, they invite the audience to reflect on visibility, exclusion, and the power of images.

Kindergarten children discover their bodies as creative tools: painting with movement creates colorful traces in the room, on paper, fabric, or the floor. Dance and movement games allow them to experience coordination, rhythm, body and spatial awareness in a playful way. Step by step, the children experiment with movements, materials, and light. The result is a large painted fabric canvas, which is exhibited at the Blickfelder Festival together with a documentation of the process.

School stress, searching for apprenticeships, self-discovery – a lot is demanded of young people today. Where do I stand? Who am I? What can I do, and where is my place in the world? The students are making a documentary film about their hopes, dreams, and questions. They decide for themselves whether they want to work in front of or behind the camera and learn to tell stories with images. The finished film will premiere at the Blickfelder Festival.

What does my dream space look like and what would I like to experience in it? School pupils are working with students from Zurich University of the Arts to build a meeting place on the green field next to the Blickfelder Festival Center at GZ Buchegg Zurich. During the festival, it will be open to everyone: for playing, dancing, eating, or solving puzzles – the audience decides what activities take place. From idea development and concept presentation to construction and performance, the young people experience the entire process and invite the audience to become part of the shared space.

Children venture into real and imaginary forests, experience nature with all their senses, and develop characters and stories. In the creative process, individual ideas grow together into a collective work—like trees forming a forest. At the Blickfelder Festival, this results in an installation that transports young and old alike into imaginative forest worlds.

What should I wear? Which apprenticeship should I choose? Vanilla or strawberry ice cream? In the “Office for Decision-Making” project, students explore ways out of the maze of decisions. With theatrical inputs, games, roles, and their own experiences, they develop tools that help them make decisions. At the festival, they set up their office, advise the audience, and invite them to participate. They playfully reflect on responsibility, power structures, and the artistic dimension of decision-making.

Students invent their own games and invite the audience to try them out! Under the guidance of game designers, they develop characters, stories, and game ideas, which they test, adapt, and refine step by step. The resulting games can be played at the Blickfelder Festival. An interactive experience that combines creativity, imagination, and fun—for young and old alike.

The students design shoes and draw inspiration from them. Each shoe creation tells a story, inspiring characters and actions. The stories come to life during an interactive walk at the Blickfelder Festival.
An experience full of imagination, encounters, and creative surprises—to participate in, marvel at, and discover.