Klanghaus is a platform for contemporary art and culture outside urban centres and across borders. It is a meeting point, a location dedicated to forging dialogue, cultural exchange, and new encounters and networks.
Klanghaus Untergreith was built in 2005 and is an established location for cultural exchange in the South Styrian countryside, hosting various initiatives including Klangfest performance events, children’s workshops and artists in residence.
The surrounding landscape has inspired a number of visiting artists to develop new, site-based work for performances at Klanghaus. The openness and position of the house itself reflects the breadth and openness of the art and performance that have been created and shown there to date. Klanghaus offers artists and audiences the opportunity to exchange new perspectives in the context of a shared aesthetic moment. As such, it is an experimental field, enabling new work and collaborations to develop in an inspiring process involving people, landscapes and creativity.
Mia Zabelka, Karin Schorm and Zahra Mani, from Vienna, Carinthia and the UK / Pakistan respectively, have “taken root” in Untergreith themselves, bringing their own diversity and internationality to the local cultural landscape. Artists from all over the world are invited to perform and present their work, and carry resonances of their time in Untergreith back out into the world, thus creating an ever-growing network that positions the Klanghaus and the region in a greater cultural nexus.
Klanghaus brings contemporary art to rural surroundings and creates an exchange between artists, audiences, and local inhabitants, who have the opportunity to meet the visiting artists and talk to them in a dynamic creative atmosphere, transcending boundaries between performers and recipients. Local communities ranging from music groups to elderly inhabitants or asylum seekers participate directly in our activities, enhancing a sustainable sense of community.
Zahra Mani, Karin Schorm and Mia Zabelka have worked together over many years as curators of inter-medial art and culture in Austria, Europe and internationally. Their work focuses particularly on the creation and fostering of networks and collaborations across geographical and genre-based borders.
Klanghaus / projects
“Klangfest” – performance evenings involving a broad range of local and international artists – take place three to four times a year in the intimate ambience of the South Styrian hillscape for a broad audience from the region and beyond.
Klanghaus also collaborates across borders, and co-hosts at least one Klangfest each year in central Istria at Hrelji 45 with Mani doo.
The ongoing collaboration with Mani doo is just one instance of border-crossing initiatives which include work throughout the Alps-Adriatic region with partners including Slovenian organisations Glas Podzemlje and Narodni Dom in Maribor, ZMT / Sajeta Festival in Tolmin and numerous local, regional and European radio stations including Radio Waltl (Leutschach), Radio Agora (Klagenfurt & Leutschach), Glas Podzemlje, Radio Slovenia (ARS), ORF OE1 Kunstradio und Zeitton, HRT Radio Pula, Serbian Radio Belgrade 3, etc.
These cultural bridges are a reflection of the Alps-Adriatic region and an expression of the fundamental European idea inherent in the projects.
Klanghaus also hosts a sound gallery, artists in residence and children’s workshops amongst other ongoing and project-based activities.
EU Creative Europe projects to date
2019-2021 RESCUE – REgeneration of disused Industrial Sites through Creativity in Europe with partners from (Commune die Santo Stefano di Magra, Associazione culturale Gli Scarti), Slowenien (Kibla), Germany (I-Bug), and Austria (Klanghaus Untergreith).
2016-2018 Echoes from invisible landscapes, an interdisciplinary engagement with hidden layers of the Alps-Adriatic landscape with paratners from Austria (Enterprise Z / Klanghaus, the Department for Cultural Anthropology at the University of Klagenfurt/Celovec, Wieser Verlag), Croatia (Mani doo) and Slovenia (Zveza Mink Tolmin).
2010-2012 Phonart – the Lost Languages of Europe, a network project for art associated with sound and language with partners from Austria (Enterprise Z / Klanghaus), the Czech republic (mamapapa), Croatia (Mani doo) and Serbia (RingRing).
Klanghaus / team
Karin Schorm has been active in the international art-world since the 1980’s. As gallery owner, curator, and creative leader she has contributed greatly to the development of art in public space and the reception of contemporary artwork in Austria and internationally. Curatorial work includes “On Board” for the Venice Biennale, “Mondecho” for the Salzburg Festival, “Engelspfad” in Vienna, “Sound Moves in Full Colours” for Graz as European City of Culture 2003 and various collaborations with festivals and organizations such as WeinKlang (with enterprise z), a festival which has been taking place four times a year since 2007, PhonoFemme, launched in Vienna 2009 and 2010-12 the EU co-funded project Phonart – The Lost Languages of Europe with Mani d.o.o., Enterprise Z, mamapapa (CZ) and RingRing (RS), 2016-18 Echoes from invisible Landscapes with Mani d.o.o. (HR), Enterprise Z, University of Klagenfurt-Celovec, Wieser Verlag (AT) & Zveza Mink Tolmin (SI) http://www.schormani.com
Zahra Mani, from the UK and Pakistan (resident in Austria since 2002), is a musician, composer, curator and literary translator. She studied German and Philosophy at Oxford and moved to Austria in 2001. She founded Mani d.o.o. in Istria, Croatia, in 2005, as an organisation dedicated to creating trans-regional networks and collaborative platforms for art and culture. Zahra Mani has worked as a curator of various projects for public spaces, festivals and inter-medial events in Austria. As a musician, she performs live in various constellations, composes and creates multi-channel installations and radio art. Her work combines field recordings, instruments and voices in an ongoing exploration of sound and music. Her artistic and curatorial work challenges notions of boundaries, investigating and revealing the spaces between. http://www.zahramani.com