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From July 18, 2025, to August 17, 2025, the 22nd edition of the Begehungen art festival took place in the decommissioned Chemnitz Nord lignite-fired power plant. It was part of the official program of the European Capital of Culture Chemnitz 2025.

Under the title “Everything is Interaction,” the Begehungen art festival highlighted the complexity of resource consumption, biodiversity loss, and the climate crisis. The festival proved to be an inspiring venue for new, forward-looking discourses and a space for encounters, exchange, and creative impulses.

The exhibition brought together 32 international artistic perspectives on the social, ecological, and economic consequences of environmental destruction, on questions of justice and power, and on related social crises. Dr. Claudia Tittel was the artistic director of the exhibition. The exhibition was created through works selected by the artistic director, an artist-in-residence program with Begehungen’s European partner institutions, and project ideas from the globally advertised open call. The open call was reserved for artists under 30, meaning that almost a third of the exhibition was dominated by young perspectives.

The exhibition featured installations, photographs, drawings, sculptures, as well as video and sound artworks. A good quarter of the artworks were site-specific and created specifically for the festival.

The artists of the exhibition: Ana Alenso (VE), Lara Almarcegui (NL/ES), AWOL Collective (VE/ES/RS), Tina Bara (DE), Ursula Biemann & Paulo Tavares (CH/BR), Böhler & Orendt (DE/RO), Borek Brindák (SK), Daniel Canogar (ES/US), Jan Fabian (CZ), Abie Franklin & Daniel Hölzl (GB/AT), Tim Gassauer (DE), Elza Gubanova (UA), Sarah Damai Hoogman (NL), Clemens Hornemann (DE), Anne Duk Hee Jordan (KR/DE), Nadia Kaabi-Linke (DE/TN/UA), Diana Lelonek (PL), Tea Mäkipää (FI), Gisle Nataas (NO), Henrike Naumann (DE), Olaf Nicolai (DE), Uriel Orlow (CH), Johanna M. Reich (DE), Amparo Sard (ES), Katharina Sauermann (AT), Günther & Loredana Selichar (AT/IT), Hito Steyerl (DE), Gregor Schneider (DE), Daniel Otero Torres (CO), Rikuo Ueda (JP), Anna Weberberger (AT), Valeria Zane & Victor Nebbiolo di Castri (IT/FR)

Among the artists selected for the exhibition by Dr. Claudia Tittel and the begehungen team was the Japanese artist Rikuo Ueda. Rikuo Ueda therefore spent a few days in Chemnitz in spring 2025 to conduct research and scout for possible locations for his work in the combined heat and power plant. He chose an imposing steel stair tower. In July 2025, Rikuo Ueda then created the site-specific work “A Letter from the Wind” over a two-week period. It was absolutely fascinating for the festival team to watch this unique artist at work and to be able to help bring “A Letter from the Wind” to life.

Rikuo Ueda creates works that interweave art, nature, and chance. His works are mechanical devices that leave drawings on canvas or paper through wind movements. For Chemnitz, he is transforming the staircase of the reactor building into one of these devices. Over a period of time, wind drawings will be created here. They are unpredictable and unique, and will be influenced by the respective weather conditions and the location of the installation. The resulting works – delicate wind diagrams or letters – can be understood as aesthetic protocols of a shared authorship between the artist and the wind. They will be preserved and displayed in display cases in the reactor building.

Ueda’s drawings are reflections on transience and the invisible forces of nature. Inspired by Arte Povera and Land Art, Ueda combines traditional Japanese aesthetics with Western conceptual art.

In 2025, 56,000 people attended the festival. This number significantly exceeded the expectations of the organizer, the non-profit association Begehungen e.V.. The Press coverage in the regional media was disproportionately high, both in terms of content and quantity. Many national media outlets reported extensively on the festival (Deutschlandfunk, rbb Radio eins, ARD, Süddeutsche.de, Monopol Magazin, ARTmapp, MDR TV). “A letter from the wind” was often part of the photo coverage on TV and in the press.

The Begehungen art festival once again attracted interest from all segments of the population. The large number of guests from outside of the region and internationally was unusual, but certainly also due to the fact that Chemnitz, as the European Capital of Culture in 2025, is particularly attracting tourists. In addition to Capital of Culture tourists and many locals, a professional audience was clearly interested in the exhibition.

The Begehungen art festival generally sees itself as an institution that wants to welcome all sections of the population, especially those who are not interested in art. Extensive mediation and participation programmes therefore accompany the festival period.

The festival pay particular attention to barrier-free access for people with disabilities. The central aims of our work with regard to accessibility are the removal or bridging of obstacles and the possibility of perceiving works with other senses (touch, hearing, smell). Especially for Rikuo Ueda’s Work a tactile model was produced for blind people.

The festival was financed through donations, grants from the city, the state of Saxony, and the federal government, as well as sponsors, foundations, and international institutions from Japan, Spain, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Austria, Finland, the Czech Republic, and Norway.

The Begehungen art festival will continue to dedicate itself to vacant buildings in Chemnitz, breathing new life into them with sophisticated art. Collaborations with international artists will remain an important quality feature. The experiences from our collaborations with Rikuo Ueda in 2025 and Mariko Hori in 2023 were extremely inspiring for us, and we are therefore determined to maintain our connection to Japan. Japanese artists will continue to shape the Begehungen art festival in the future.