From 14 to 23 May 2026, the 8th edition of the Asia–Europe Cultural Festival (AECFest), in collaboration with SPRING Performing Arts Festival in Utrecht, explores Asia–Europe collaboration as a lived, negotiated condition. Moving beyond geopolitical abstraction, the festival examines connection through migration, memory, public gathering, digital culture, and everyday gestures.
Opening and Presence: The festival opens with South Korean choreographer Sung Im Her’s Everything Falls Dramatic and Tomorrowisnowtodayisyesterday (TiNTiY), reflecting on fragility, resilience, and the mediated gaze of digital culture.
Access, Hospitality, and Power: Wait To Be Seated (Sandbox Collective, Bangalore × She She Pop, Berlin) presented on 14 and 15 May, is a theatre piece addressing hierarchy, inclusion, and imbalances of voice across cultural contexts.
Public Spaces and Participation: Works such as Daniel Kok and Luke George’s Homebound, and Orangcosong’s Engeki Quest, turn audiences into participants, exploring home, social bonds, and relational mapping.
Cinema and Reflection: On Sunday 17 May, Adrià Guxens’ Holding the Unsaid including four short movies, invites attentive engagement with memory, identity, and belonging across Asia and Europe.
Myth, Play, and Alternative Frameworks: Over the second weekend, Aoí + Esteban’s LILITH.AEON – an interactive performance installation – and Orangcosong’s IsLand Bar – a multidisciplinary perfomance taking place in the town bars – explore displacement and human future, while The Bench (By Accident) navigates moments of loneness and longing.
Decolonising Narratives: On 22 May, Choy Ka Fai’s contemporary dance piece SoftMachine and a panel discussion will engage with themes of restitution, authorship, and equitable storytelling across geographies.
A Living Collective Reflection: AECFest’s new CAMP offers mid-career producers the opportunity to engage with the festival through a 4-day programme dedicated to capacity building and networking.
Across performances, installations, and discussions, AECFest 2026 presents Asia–Europe relations in motion — attentive to asymmetries, committed to mutual presence, and invested in the practice of listening, waiting, and moving forward together.