{"id":1377,"date":"2024-11-12T15:00:32","date_gmt":"2024-11-12T15:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fringify.hamburg\/about-us\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T11:16:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T11:16:14","slug":"about-us","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/fringify.hamburg\/en\/about-us\/","title":{"rendered":"About Us"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Hauptsache Frei was founded as a festival for independent performing arts in Hamburg. Thanks to its successful concept, it has established itself in Hamburg and nationwide over the past 10 years. In the past nine editions, the festival has not only grown in terms of budget, duration, and the number of events, but also in its overall impact. It has long evolved from a small, local festival into a nationally recognized event and has established itself as a founding member of the FESTIVAL FRIENDS network at the national level. The leadership change that takes place every three years gives the festival the opportunity to renew itself while building on the accumulated experience and expertise.<\/p>

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In its 10th year, the festival takes on a new look and becomes Fringify \u2013 Independent Arts Festival Hamburg. The name change marks a new chapter in the festival’s development and emphasizes our vision of celebrating the diversity and vibrancy of the independent scene in Hamburg.<\/p>

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The English term \u201cfringe\u201d refers to outer areas or boundaries. Originally, the term was used to describe independent, experimental, and alternative art and theater productions that often take place outside the mainstream. Fringify follows this tradition by presenting the work of artists and groups from Hamburg\u2019s independent scene and beyond. <\/p>

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With Ksenia Ravvina and Alexandar Hadjiev as the new artistic directors, the significance of the festival in Hamburg is being strengthened not only as an artistic but also as a political platform. Addressing structural discrimination and strengthening the participation of artists with refugee and migration backgrounds are central tasks for the upcoming editions. The already extensive experiences and strong local and national networks are now being expanded to include a robust international network, bringing a focus on sustainable and accessible structures into this partnership.<\/p>

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In addition to its structures, the festival provides its festival center in the form of a pavilion, aiming for shared use, networking, interaction, exchange, and greater visibility for a wide variety of participants. The Pavilion of the Free Arts is a laboratory, a presentation space, and a low-threshold venue located in the heart of the city.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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About the selection process:<\/h4>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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We were delighted by the large number of approximately 240 applications, which made the selection process a challenging task for our jury. Ultimately, 15 works were selected based not only on aesthetic and formal criteria but also on their technical feasibility at the cooperating venues.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Jurymitglieder 2026<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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Kajan Luc<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Kajan Luc (she\/her) lives and works in Hamburg as a designer, curator, dramaturg, and lecturer, with a focus on power-critical, anti-racist, and decolonial design practices. Through multimedia interventions, she engages with questions of climate (in)justice, cultures of remembrance, and discrimination. She received the Hamburg Teaching Award in 2022 for her experimental seminars. She is the initiator and artistic director of the award-winning art and research festival KLIMASTR\u00d6ME (Hamburg District Culture Award 2025). She is also part of the design and game collective studioplayces, whose installations have been presented, among others, at Deichtorhallen Hamburg, PLAY, and Kampnagel, and will be shown at the Vienna Climate Biennale in 2026.
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Susanne Blumenthal<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Susanne Blumenthal is a conductor and Professor of New Music at the University of Music and Dance Cologne. Her work moves between contemporary music, improvisation, and interdisciplinary formats. She collaborates with renowned international ensembles, orchestras, and festivals such as Ensemble Modern, the SWR Symphony Orchestra, the Remix Ensemble, the Donaueschinger Musiktage, Wien Modern, and the Munich Biennale. She is the founder and artistic director of the EOS Chamber Orchestra and serves on advisory boards of the German Music Council. Her extensive curatorial, pedagogical, and artistic experience informs her jury work across a wide range of contemporary contexts.
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Lorenzo Pappagallo<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Lorenzo Pappagallo is a French-Italian curator and cultural manager based in Madrid, working internationally in the field of performing arts. He is part of the artistic leadership of Fabbrica Europa (Florence), where he is responsible for international programming formats, cooperation projects, and artistic mobility. He is also the artistic director of ESCENA PATRIMONIO, the dance festival of the Spanish UNESCO World Heritage Cities, and Associate Curator of the performing arts fair dFERIA in San Sebasti\u00e1n. His work focuses on international exchange, residency formats, and the support of contemporary artistic practice.
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Jury Members 2025<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Laura Besch<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Laura Besch, raised in Salzburg, studied German Studies, Musicology, and Human Medicine in Berlin. Since 2013, she has been producing performances, performative concerts, and audio walks with her performance collective hannsjana. Her work with hannsjana has taken her to theaters (Sophiensaele Berlin, Nationaltheater Mannheim, Luzerner Theater) and museums (Museum f\u00fcr Kommunikation Berlin, Technoseum Mannheim). She has participated in residency programs at Gessnerallee (Zurich), brut (Vienna), and spent time as a visiting artist at Back to Back Theatre in Geelong, Australia. Since June 2023, Laura Besch has been part of the Artistic Direction at Theater Thikwa in Berlin. <\/p>

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Viktoria Draganova<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Curator, founder of the art space Swimming Pool and its artistic director. Initiator of various educational programs and research platforms, including the Center for Social Vision. In 2024, Viktoria initiated Nine Elephants, a micro-festival for artistic interventions in urban spaces. She is also involved in the development of cultural policy through her participation in working groups and committees. She lives in Sofia, studied law in Berlin and holds a doctorate in legal history. <\/p>

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Ayna Steigerwald<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Ayna Steigerwald (she\/her) works as a writer and dramaturge in the independent arts scene, organizes readings, and explores questions of solidarity within spaces and events. She was part of the artistic direction of ULF \u2013 Das Unabh\u00e4ngige Lesereihen Festival in Nuremberg and the art and discourse festival fluctoplasma in Hamburg. She has contributed to projects such as the photo-text installations mo|men|tos and, most recently, the temporary art lab REMISE. In 2022, she was awarded the Hamburg Literature Prize for Poetry, and in 2024, she received the Adalbert Stifter Fellowship. <\/p>

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Hauptsache Frei was founded as a festival for independent performing arts in Hamburg. Thanks to its successful concept, it has established itself in Hamburg and nationwide over the past 10 years. In the past nine editions, the festival has not only grown in terms of budget, duration, and the number of events, but also in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1377","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fringify.hamburg\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fringify.hamburg\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fringify.hamburg\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fringify.hamburg\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fringify.hamburg\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1377"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/fringify.hamburg\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4515,"href":"https:\/\/fringify.hamburg\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1377\/revisions\/4515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fringify.hamburg\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}