SCHLACHTEN, our international contemporary arts festival, focuses in 2015 on the theme of DISPLACEMENT: be it geographical displacement, the migration or dislocation of persons, or cultural displacement; as a result of conflict, economic pressures, the effects of environmental degradation, of globalization, through increased freedom of movement and an increasingly interconnected world.

2015 marks the 70 year anniversary of the end of WW II, a period of mass displacement of persons around the globe. The estimated figure of over 50 million Displaced Persons worldwide, in the years following the war, has been surpassed this past year for the first time, making it a topmost European and worldwide concern, which is closely linked to political, economic, and not least, environmental factors. The mass displacements and expulsions of the 20th century are still reverberating today, as those who are displaced displace and the unsettled unsettle, in a chain of events that has yet to run its course.

DISPLACED 2015 offers a platform and an opportunity for artists, performers, thinkers and audiences to engage with and highlight the important issue of DISPLACEMENT, as reflected in our local, personal and global contexts.