Composing Futures: Creative Impact on Eco-Social Transformation
Updated: 1 day ago
6–7 November 2026
mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, Anton-von-Webern-Platz 1, 1030 Wien
© Huebener
Composing Futures: Creative Impact on Eco-Social Transformation
In the framework of Wien Modern
How can contemporary, improvised, and experimental music contribute to eco-social transformation? How can we move beyond critique towards more equitable, collaborative, and sustainable cultural futures?
Composing Futures: Creative Impact on Eco-Social Transformation brings together artists, cultural practitioners, researchers, policymakers, and audiences for two days of dialogue, experimentation, and collective reflection.
The forum approaches sustainability not only as an ecological concern but also as an artistic, social, and structural question. It asks how artistic practice can challenge established ways of working and organising, and what this means for cultural labour, institutional structures, audience participation, and collective agency.
Through artistic contributions, dialogue sessions, good-practice inputs, workshops, and co-creation labs, Composing Futures creates a space for exchange across artistic, institutional, and policy perspectives, inviting participants to imagine and test more resilient ways of making and sustaining culture.
Programme
Moderation: Antonia Eckhart & Dominik Förtsch
Friday, 6 November
09:00–09:30 | Networking Coffee & Registration
09:30–09:40 | Opening Artistic Contribution
Belma Bešlić-Gál: Pod zemljom (excerpt)
09:40–10:10 | Welcome & Official Opening
Gerda Müller, Vice-Rector, mdw
Sabine Reiter, mica – music austria
Aleksandra Bajde, Internationale Gesellschaft für Neue Musik – Sektion Österreich / Culture and Sustainability Lab
10:10–10:15 | Collective Breathing Exercise
Marie Helle
10:15–10:45 | Artistic Provocation
Ricardo Tovar Mateus, mdw
10:45–11:00 | Coffee Break
11:00–12:00 | Dialogue Session
What Cultural Futures Do We Need for Eco-Social Transformation?
Moderation: Manuel Rivera, Research Institute for Sustainability (RIFS)
Contributors:
Eva Bauer, City of Vienna – Culture
Eva-Maria Bauer, Austrian Music Council
Belma Bešlić-Gál, Zvjezdane Staze
Simon Zöchbauer, SOIL
12:00–12:30 | Audience Dialogue & Collective Reflection
12:30–14:00 | Lunch Break
14:00–14:15 | Artistic Intervention
Samu Gryllus: Soundpainting
14:15–15:15 | Good Practice Inputs
Artists and cultural practitioners share approaches to sustainability, collaboration, and eco-social change.
Gwendolenn Sharp, GreenBeat Nexus
Maria Rylander, Knutpunkt the network
Emma Axberg, one eARTh
Sara Stevanović, Composing in a Bad World: Ecological and Social Perspectives on I Thought God Can Be Found in the Danube, Parts I & II
Mihael Hrustelj, STRUNE — Symphonica Machina et Natura
15:15–15:30 | Coffee Break
15:30–17:00 | Parallel Workshops
Participants choose one of three parallel workshops.
Workshop 1 | Environmental Sustainability & Regenerative Cultural Practice
Gwendolenn Sharp, The Green Room / GreenBeat Nexus
Workshop 2 | Title tbc
Eva-Maria Bauer, Austrian Music Council
Workshop 3 | Economics, Value Systems, Cultural Labour & Alternative Futures
Sven Hartberger, Gemeinwohl-Ökonomie
17:00–17:30 | Reflections and Shared Harvest
Facilitated by: Manuel Rivera, RIFS
Separate registration required.
Saturday, 7 November
09:30–09:45 | Welcome Back & Introduction to the Co-Creation Labs
09:45–11:15 | Co-Creation Labs I
Participants choose one of two parallel labs.
Lab 1 | Counter-Promise Scores
Ricardo Tovar Mateus, mdw
Lab 2 | Who are the (Future) Audiences? From Audience Development to Participation, Co-Creation and Social Transformation
Matic Gajšek, InterCivis
11:15–11:30 | Coffee Break
11:30–12:15 | World Café
12:15–13:45 | Lunch Break
13:45–14:00 | Re-Gathering & Introduction to the Afternoon Labs
14:00–15:30 | Co-Creation Labs II
Participants choose one of two parallel labs.
Lab 3 | Listening as Method: Curating Listening
Orsolya Kaincz
Lab 4 | Creative Entrepreneurship as Agency
Marie-Theres Zirm, cardamom
15:30–15:45 | Coffee Break
15:45–16:30 | Sharing Lab Outcomes & Future Initiatives
16:30–17:00 | Closing Reflections & Outlook
Programme subject to change.
Registration
Participation in the forum is free of charge. Voluntary contributions (pay as you wish) are welcome. Registration includes snacks, coffee, and soup for lunch. Additional lunch options can be purchased at the mdw Mensa on Friday or at nearby cafés and restaurants. Separate registration is required for the SOIL concert.
Please register by 1 November 2026: Register here.
Concept and Organisation
Aleksandra Bajde
Internationale Gesellschaft für Neue Musik – Sektion Österreich / Culture and Sustainability Lab
Birgit Huebener
Doris Weberberger
in cooperation with
supported by
Federal Ministry of Housing, Arts, Culture, Media and Sport
City of Vienna Culture
District Culture of Landstraße
