Every year, artists from around the world make Vienna their new home, bringing with them different artistic traditions, educational backgrounds, perspectives and ways of working. Their arrival has the potential to broaden the city’s cultural landscape and introduce approaches that have not yet found a strong place within Vienna’s established art institutions.

Yet this potential is still not fully reflected in institutional structures and programmes. In this discussion, researchers and cultural workers consider why that is, what obstacles newly arrived artists encounter, and how Vienna’s art sector could respond more openly to the diversity already present in the city.

The conversation also introduces new QMA – Question Me & Answer artist database, developed to increase the visibility of artists with diverse backgrounds and to help establish the heterogeneity of artistic practice in Vienna as an integral part of the city’s cultural landscape.

With:
Lilian Häge, researcher (EDUCULT)
Smaranda Krings, , cultural manager and curator (QMA)
Guilherme Maggessi, cultural manager, artist and curator (IG BIldende Kunst)
Justina Špeirokaitė, cultural manager and curator (QMA)

Recorded on 23 September 2026 in Depot Kunst und Diskussion. In cooperation with QMA – Question Me & Answer and IG Bildende Kunst.