Begehungen Art Festival 2025

The Begehungen art festival will take place in 2025 on the site of the decommissioned Nord lignite-fired power plant in Chemnitz. In the midst of this impressive industrial architecture, the 22nd edition of the art festival will take a forward-looking approach to burning issues such as resource consumption, biodiversity and climate change.

The power station was built in 1957 under the name Heizkraftwerk Nord I. As the city expanded from the 1970s onwards and the demand for heat and energy increased, HKW Nord II was connected to the grid in 1986.

On 18 January 2024, the lignite-fired power plant was shut down and decommissioned by the operator eins energie in Sachsen GmbH & Co. KG shut it down and decommissioned it.

The CHP plant's chimney is known far beyond the city limits. At a good 300 metres, it is the tallest structure in Saxony. In 2013, the functional building became a widely visible work of art and one of Chemnitz's most popular landmarks.

The Begehungen art festival uses part of the site. In the immediate vicinity of the famous artwork Seven Colours for a Chimney by Daniel Buren, the art festival has an area of around 1.5 hectares at its disposal. The area includes an exhibition space of more than 2000 square metres in three large halls as well as the historically significant Cooling Tower 1, which dates back to the early 1960s, and various technical facilities such as the huge metal Deionat tanks.

The Begehungen 2025 art festival is part of the official programme of the European Capital of Culture Chemnitz 2025.

The exhibition will be created through the artistic direction of selected artworks, an artist-in-residence programme and the project ideas from the worldwide open call. The artist-in-residence programme will be developed together with partner European festivals and institutions.

The Open Call, which will be reserved for young artists and collectives, will start on 13 January 2025.

Dr Claudia Tittel will be the artistic director of the exhibition. We kindly ask you to refrain from sending applications before the start of the call.

The festival was founded in Chemnitz in 2003. It is one of the most renowned art events in Saxony and attracts thousands of visitors every year. It is also part of the official programme for the European Capital of Culture Chemnitz 2025.

For the first edition, twelve empty shops in Chemnitz's Sonnenberg district were the setting for a photography exhibition. In the following years, the festival moved to the Brühl, a largely deserted shopping boulevard at the time, for several years, grew continuously and opened up more and more to other art genres. Since 2010, the art festival has changed its venue every year.

Since then, a former prison, empty cultural centres and schools, abandoned allotment gardens, an old brewery, disused department stores, a drained swimming pool, an orphaned museum or an overgrown railway station have been locations for the festival.

The Begehungen art festival sees itself as an inclusive and accessible festival. Access to all programme items and the exhibition is free of charge. The festival is made possible by a lot of voluntary work by the members of Begehungen e. V. and many helpers.

Participation and inclusion are core values of our social interaction. The Begehungen e.V. team is deeply convinced that everyone should be able to visit our art festival, regardless of their background, age, financial means or physical abilities. That is why we work in several languages, offer guided tours for children and do not charge a fixed admission price. In addition, the Begehungen art festival goes to great lengths to ensure that people with mobility, hearing or visual impairments have easy and natural access to the exhibition and all programme items.

For people with hearing impairments

• Guided tours and events with translations into German sign language

People with visual impairments

• Guidance system through the exhibition venue
• Audio guide with audio description of selected works of art
• Tactile models of selected works of art
• tactile room plan of the buildings

People with limited mobility

• Barrier-free access to the exhibition, catering and all programme items
• Wheelchair-accessible WC
• Portable seating

Do you have specific questions regarding barrier-free offers or would you like to be offered a guided tour? Send us an email to inklusion@begehungen-festival.de

You can support the not inconsiderable costs for barrier-free measures with a donation.

The Begehungen art festival is largely organised on a voluntary basis by Begehungen e.V. and numerous helpers. We would be delighted if you could support this work with a DONATION. Thank you very much!

By bank transfer:

Account holder: Begehungen e. V.

IBAN: DE10 8705 0000 0710 0502 32

Institut: Sparkasse Chemnitz

Per Paypal:

Please use

The Begehungen art festival is a project of the European Capital of Culture Chemnitz 2025 gGmbH. This measure is co-financed by tax revenue on the basis of the budget approved by the Saxon State Parliament,

federal funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, sponsorship and donations as well as funds from the City of Chemnitz's cultural funding programme.

The company eins energie in sachsen GmbH und Co KG is the owner of the festival site and a co-operation partner of the Begehungen 2025 art festival.

The Begehungen art festival is an official part of the European Capital of Culture 2025 Chemnitz programme. Stefan Schmidtke, Managing Director Programme of the European Capital of Culture Chemnitz 2025 gGmbH: ‘The Begehungen art festival encompasses everything that makes Chemnitz European Capital of Culture 2025 - and has done for 20 years. ‘C the unseen’, the motto for the programme of the European Capital of Culture year, is also programmatic for the Begehungen. The festival takes place in unusual locations and makes them visible.

It invites international artists and the local neighbourhood to discover these places and enter into dialogue with each other. The walk-throughs open up spaces and new perspectives. This is also what the European Capital of Culture stands for: encouraging people to get involved, creating access and breaking down barriers.

As a project of the European Capital of Culture Chemnitz 2025, the Begehungen art festival will network intensively with international partner festivals in the coming years and further professionalise itself through this exchange and raise its profile as a European festival.’

Allgemein: info @ begehungen-festival.de

Presse: presse @ begehungen-festival.de

Booking / Festivalprogramm: Booking @ begehungen-festival.de

Fragen zur Bewerbung: application @ begehungen-festival.de