With the end of the Summer Salzburg Festival, I think back to the founders of such an event. Two of the prime movers were Jews: the magnificent theater director Max Reinhardt and the poet and librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal. The hope, originally was that through culture Austria could regain a sense of purpose after the devastation of World War I. For the next 15 years the Salzburg festival was a magnet for leading intellectuals and artists in Europe.

Fast forward to September, 2008. Schmeide 08 is a Community of Artists. It is a playground (space, infrastructure and time) where the international Schmiede-network comes together every year for ten days, to create a flexible center for the exchange of information, knowledge, ways and means to cooperate at the Alte Saline, Pernerinsel Hallein.

Could there be a creative revolution once more in Salzburg and Hallein? This small city nestling oh so cosy between the Tauern mountain ranges to the south from the moderately high Kitzbüheler Alps and, to farther north, the Salzburg Limestone Alps lays home to a strong support of the far-right freedom party. Former Salzburg director and Belgian impresario Gerard Mortier, who left Salzburg said he was “happy” about Helene Partik-Pable’s (former chair-person of Freedom-party) reaction to his production of Die Fledermaus that the production belittled the city. As the role of theatre was to be “rousing, provocative and challenging”

Quite. Schmeide 08 offers a refreshing perspective on the arts. The founder Ruediger Wassibauer and a creative team has provided a platform for artists who are named: Smiths from all over the world to come together to produce work incollaboration with each other that is expanding the boundaries and working towards new networks of knowledge and understanding. Quite a different freedom party, isn’t it?

Myself and my working partner Delphine Mae are enthusiastically taking part in Schmeide bringing ten teenage students from a Gymnasium in Salzburg. We are creating an intergenerational project with teenagers working with Smiths. These students will have chance to interact with these Smiths (who are working with several different art forms such as music, film, dance, painting, design)create their own narratives through the language of film. This will be based on their interests, instead of self-imposed trends that are set-up for “Yooofff”-this kind of ‘dumbing-down’ for teenagers is patronising and negates their responsibility causing either aggression, hyperactivity and/or irresponsibility which often leads into adult life.

The project’s name VIA-VIDA originates from Latin meaning: Way With Life. Simultaneously, VIA stands for Values, Identity, Art revealing how Schmeide’s creative playground is a platform project for a way to life through art.

Onlookers have commented on the risk involved, but life is a risk and at the age of 16-18 students, on the brink of adulthood, are crying out to create their own networks of knowledge so that they can navigate their way through a perplexing contemporary landscape. what’s the alternative, the alternative, is that they, bored by the domesticity and of a mountain valley village may turn, unguided to drugs and alcohol. Hence the dark belly of Salzburg-a strip of dark , dirty and cheap pubs that lie to the left of salzach river, a beautiful force of nature. By giving these teenagers at a crucial age Schmeide 08- a place to experiment with life to awaken their freedom to make wise choices and have responsibilities they will find a way to life.