This is what we demand! Minority movements in Austria

October 25, 2022 to January 18, 2023
Foyer

At the heart of the touring exhibition “This is what we demand! Minority movements in Austria” are the histories, stories and key demands of different minorities in Austria. Authors from minority groups—usually activists—shine a spotlight on their history and set forth their main demands concerning minority politics in the past, present and future.

Activism as well as legal and parliamentary forms of protest are inextricably linked to the history of the political demands made by minorities. The exhibition illuminates the effort, perseverance and alliances necessary to stand up against discrimination and for equal rights.

The historical struggles for bilingual signage and schools in Carinthia and Burgenland and the recognition of Roma and Sinti as an Austrian ethnic minority are presented as examples of strategies and political battles alongside the abolition of paragraph 209 of the penal code (which criminalised homosexuality) and the adoption of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

The organisation “Initiative Minderheiten” has initiated this exhibition to highlight the diversity of minority movements and the significance of their demands for society as a whole.

This view shows a larger part of the hdgö-foyer with the exhibition This is what we demand! in the centre. Behind the exhibition displays you can see the workshop space of the hdgö. To the left of the exhibition displays is a large backlit display that shows the introductory text the hdgö’s main exhibition “New Ages: Austria since 1918”.

A man is looking at one of the eight double-sided exhibition displays. There are two rows with four displays each.

This close-up of one of the exhibition displays shows a hand holding a protest sign. The sign reads in capital handwritten letters: “I UNDERSTAND THAT I WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND BUT I
STAND”

This close-up of one of the exhibition displays shows the section topic of the “Selbstbestimmt-Leben-Bewegung” (”independent living movement“) and above a black-and-white photograph of disability rights activists blocking the entry to the Hofburg on Heldenplatz in Vienna in 1981, the International Year of Disabled Persons.

This close-up shows the heading of the exhibition display dealing with “labour migrants in Austria”. Above the heading, three photographs depict three events of the movement’s history.

Another view of the exhibition from behind, this time not with the workshop space in the background but the hdgö’s foyer.

Exhibition team

Curators: Jessica Beer and Cornelia Kogoj

Exhibition design: Toledo i Dertschei

Exhibition contributors: Hager Abouwarda, Persson Perry Baumgartinger, Andreas Brunner, Ali Gedik, Petra Flieger, Margit Hauser, Mirjam Karoly, Birge Krondorfer, Herbert Langthaler, Eleonore Lappin-Eppel, Lydia Novak, Volker Schönwiese, Vanessa Spanbauer, Vladimir Wakounig

With statements from: Noomi Anyanwu, Heline Ahmad, Ara Badrtarkhanian, Isabel Frey, Lara Guttmann, Dunia Khalil, Elisabeth Magdlener and Samuel Mago

An exhibition by Initiative Minderheiten

Funded by the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research

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