Welcome to the New Year!
2026 is still young. And despite all good intentions, it takes courage to arrive unfiltered in the present. Amid devastating world events, accelerating progress, and to-dos that keep falling off the list, there’s little space to really feel where we actually are.
Reflexively, we try to meet this growing overwhelm with even more stimulation. In a seemingly active flight forward, we scroll through the next bot-infested feed, just to avoid feeling what threatens to overwhelm us. But slowly, it begins to dawn:
We won’t get anywhere with our head stuck in a glossy display.
At the turn of the year, we ask ourselves what it really takes to arrive fully in the here and now. Maybe it’s the bass vibrating in your chest. Your feet in the sand. Sweat running from every pore. The silence after a gong. The moment when we allow our full spectrum of emotions—grief and joy, anger and excitement, despair and lust for life.
And because there is no universal answer to this question, at the Bucht der Träumer 2026 we would like to explore together as many paths into the present as we are able to find.
“We cannot change everything, but we can always choose how we act.”
– Melanie Wolfers, Nimm der Ohnmacht ihre Macht
The feeling of powerlessness is not a personal failure. Paradoxically, it grows especially when we try to suppress it. And it diminishes when we have the courage to share it. You don’t need a heroic act for that. A first, small step is enough: reconnecting with yourself and the world around you. From this encounter, something new can emerge: agency.
At Bucht der Träumer* we open up spaces where nothing has to be glossed over. Spaces in which we can practice holding inner tensions and learning to trust one another.
To quote Fatboy Slim: not somehow, somewhere, sometime, but
but right here, right now. Your Bucht der Träumer*
Sincerely, Bucht der Träumer*
PS: Als Festivalteam können wir immer nur einen Rahmen setzen. Das wirklich Spannende ist, was ihr daraus macht! Wie blickt ihr auf unser Jahresthema? Schreibt uns gern über diesen apply here .
