Composing Futures: Creative Impact on Eco-Social Transformation

Share This Post

Composing Futures: Creative Impact on Eco-Social Transformation

Forum & Co-Creation Labs
6–7 November 2026
University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna
in the framework of Wien Modern

How can contemporary, improvised, and experimental music contribute to eco-social transformation? How can we move beyond critique towards more equitable, collaborative, and sustainable cultural futures?

Composing Futures: Creative Impact on Eco-Social Transformation brings together artists, cultural practitioners, researchers, policymakers, and audiences for two days of dialogue, experimentation, and collective reflection.

The forum approaches sustainability not only as an ecological concern but also as an artistic, social, and structural question. It asks how artistic practice can challenge established ways of working and organising, and what this means for cultural labour, institutional structures, audience participation, and collective agency.

Through artistic contributions, dialogue sessions, good-practice inputs, workshops, and co-creation labs, Composing Futures creates a space for exchange across artistic, institutional, and policy perspectives, inviting participants to imagine and test more resilient ways of making and sustaining culture.

Programme

Moderation: Antonia Eckhart & Dominik Förtsch

Friday, 6 November

09:00–09:30 | Networking Coffee & Registration

09:30–09:40 | Opening Artistic Contribution

Belma Bešlić-Gál: Pod zemljom (excerpt)

09:40–10:10 | Welcome & Official Opening

Gerda Müller, Vice-Rector, mdw
Sabine Reiter, mica – music austria
Aleksandra Bajde, Internationale Gesellschaft für Neue Musik – Sektion Österreich / Culture and Sustainability Lab

10:10–10:15 | Collective Breathing Exercise

Marie Helle

10:15–10:45 | Artistic Provocation

Ricardo Tovar Mateus, mdw

10:45–11:00 | Coffee Break

11:00–12:00 | Dialogue Session

What Cultural Futures Do We Need for Eco-Social Transformation?

Moderation: Manuel Rivera, Research Institute for Sustainability (RIFS)

Contributors:

Eva-Maria Bauer, City of Vienna – Culture
Eva-Maria Bauer, Austrian Music Council
Belma Bešlić-Gál, Zvjezdane Staze
Simon Zöchbauer, SOIL

12:00–12:30 | Audience Dialogue & Collective Reflection

12:30–14:00 | Lunch Break

14:00–14:15 | Artistic Intervention

Samu Gryllus: Soundpainting

14:15–15:15 | Good Practice Inputs

Artists and cultural practitioners share approaches to sustainability, collaboration, and eco-social change.

Gwendolenn Sharp, GreenBeat Nexus
Maria Rylander, Knutpunkt
Emma Axberg, one eARTh
Sara Stevanović
Mihael Hrustelj

15:15–15:30 | Coffee Break

15:30–17:00 | Parallel Workshops

Participants choose one of three parallel workshops.

Workshop 1 | Environmental Sustainability & Regenerative Cultural Practice

Gwendolenn Sharp, The Green Room / GreenBeat Nexus

Workshop 2 | Title tbc

Eva-Maria Bauer, Austrian Music Council

Workshop 3 | Economics, Value Systems, Cultural Labour & Alternative Futures

Sven Hartberger, Gemeinwohl- Ökonomie

17:00–17:30 | Reflections and Shared Harvest

Facilitated by: Manuel Rivera, RIFS

19:00 | Concert: SOIL – Songs from the Underground

Separate registration required.

Saturday, 7 November

09:30–09:45 | Welcome Back & Introduction to the Co-Creation Labs

09:45–11:15 | Co-Creation Labs I

Participants choose one of two parallel labs.

Lab 1 | Counter-Promise Scores

Ricardo Tovar Mateus

Lab 2 | Audience Development

Matic Gajšek

11:15–11:30 | Coffee Break

11:30–12:15 | World Café

12:15–13:45 | Lunch Break

13:45–14:00 | Re-Gathering & Introduction to the Afternoon Labs

14:00–15:30 | Co-Creation Labs II
Participants choose one of two parallel labs.

Lab 3 | Listening as Method: Curating Listening

Orsolya Kaincz

Lab 4 | Creative Entrepreneurship as Agency Marie-Theres Zirm, cardamom

15:30–15:45 | Coffee Break

15:45–16:30 | Sharing Lab Outcomes & Future Initiatives

16:30–17:00 | Closing Reflections & Outlook

Programme subject to change.

Registration

Participation in the forum is free of charge. Voluntary contributions (pay as you wish) are welcome. Registration includes snacks, coffee, and soup for lunch. Additional lunch options can be purchased at the mdw Mensa on Friday or at nearby cafés and restaurants. Separate registration is required for the SOIL concert.

Please register by 1 November 2026: Register here