Studio Marcus Kraft: (k)A Festival for Zurich Theater Spectacle

When the Federal Council decided in April that large-scale events would not be permitted until at least the end of August, the festival program and the campaign were already well advanced. The festival, which attracts well over 100,000 people a year, subsequently had to reinvent itself.

This year, for the first time, the festival will be held in a decentralized location throughout the city of Zurich.

"We decided early on not to do a festival only with those artists* who are still able to travel, but to look for ways in which art from distant places can nevertheless reach as many people as possible in Zurich," says artistic director Matthias von Hartz.

Within a very short time, Studio Marcus Kraft developed the appropriate campaign. Scenes from past festival editions are shown, which will definitely not exist this year: Densely packed auditoriums, crowds on the Landiwiese, as well as hundreds of people waiting in line. Transposed in black and white, the pictures almost seem to be from another age. They are crossed out with yellow ribbons, on which the most important information about the event is written.

"The fact that we're crossing out the photos with barrier tape is of course also a visual reference to the present day - because ever since the emergence of the corona virus, barrier and adhesive tapes have been a feature of our everyday lives. The yellow tapes not only adorn all the festival's media, but will also be used at the various venues," says art director and designer Marcus Kraft.

This year's highlights include the Lithuanian indoor beach opera "Sun & Sea," which won the Golden Lion at last year's Venice Biennale; a mobile interactive work by choreographer William Forsythe that will travel through Zurich for ten days; an international radio ballet; a pandemic simulation; pop-up street art; and Collective Listenings on 100 picnic blankets.