Rotlicht Festival 2026

Our main exhibition in 2026 will again take place in the impressive premises of the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. On over 1300 m2 we will open the festival with our 20 winners from the Open Call 2026.

This year’s theme is “The Anthropocene: Hybrid Realities”.
The festival’s theme invites artists to critically and poetically explore the relationship between human, nature, and image — between intervention and dissolution, influence and vulnerability, construction and decay. Humanity consumes resources as if they were unlimited, reshapes landscapes, replaces ecosystems with artificial environments, and is increasingly described as a geological force in its own right.