LIVE ART FESTIVAL #16: Hitze.Heat.

The world is in turmoil – both socially and climatically.

Overheated debates meet real global warming, national isolation meets global crises. The lines of conflict are hardening as temperatures rise. We need decisive, sustainable answers to burning questions – and spaces where they can be tested together.

For the grand finale before renovation, Kampnagel is opening all its halls – radically, widely and polyphonically. With the motto HITZE.HEAT. Live Art Festival #16 becomes a platform for artistic debate, solidarity in practice and cross-border thinking. Especially in the climate crisis, those who only think of themselves are heating up everyone else.

For several days, Kampnagel will be transformed into a walk-in sculpture. Music, video, performance, and discussion will intertwine, linking climate, society, and political power.

Five artistic positions, all of them long-standing companions of Kampnagel, explore the phenomenon of heat with varying intensities and aesthetics:

• Tianzhuo Chen opens in k6 with a work-in-progress showing of his piece SUN (AT) – an energetic prelude between ritual and the present, AI and the sun as a force.
• God's Entertainment transforms k2 into a surreal underwater world and continues its performance series with IT'S GETTING HOT IN BIKINI BOTTOM! – between pop, abyss, and overheating.
• Nesindano “Khoes” Namesis curates artistic positions from Namibia that critically examine the “New Green Deal” and reflect global climate policy from a southern perspective.
• Prof. Dr. Fahim Amir and his philosophical guests in k1 develop a space for reflection that uses “forensic ecology” to dissect postcolonial power relations and bring ecological issues to a political head.
• And Migrantpolitan invites visitors to the heated pool to literally negotiate burning issues: Who cooks whom?

The festival sees itself as an open parcours. Each hall opens up its own artistic world, each decision made by the audience shapes an individual path through aesthetics, discourses, and encounters. Linger or move on, immerse yourself or contradict – the dramaturgy emerges as you walk. The song line “Fighting fire with fire” becomes the curatorial principle: The Heat is on! Let the Live Art Festival begin.