InDi(e) Day – Inclusion, Diversity and Education

The event will be held in German, sign language interpretation will be provided. No registration is required and participation in individual programme items is welcome.

The event is organized by the Student Welcome Center (Christina Fasching) and the University Library (Patrizia Wiesner-Ledermann) of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. We would like to thank the Working Group on Equal Opportunities (AfG) for their support in making this event possible.

Program:

9:30 h 
Arrival, Check-in, Start, Welcome words

10 h
Ableism and school | Lecture
Tobias Buchner | Institute for Inclusive Education, PH Upper Austria

11 h Followed by discussion, then short break

The presentation develops a critical perspective on ableism in schools: Ableism is reconstructed as a system of differentiation with productive, hierarchical, dichotomizing, fluid-affective, and intersectional structural characteristics and applied to school practices (selection, SPF special educational needs, curricula). Finally, the text reformulates inclusive education as a counterprogram: individualized empowerment instead of “one size fits all,” reflexive professionalization, organizational cultural change, and political resources.

11:30 h 
Nothing without us! Inclusion in educational institutions | Lecture with tour at Schillerplatz
Julia Haimburger | Art educator, Österreichische Galerie Belvedere

What do we mean by an inclusive museum, and how can educational institutions work in a way that is critical of discrimination? The Belvedere team asks itself these and other questions in order to make the museum more accessible as a place of encounter. In collaboration with Michaela Joch, expert on anti-ableism and artist, this lecture aims to provide insight into the practice of exchange and convey equal participation through examples.

13 h
Lunch break

14 h
The Way We Are | Short documentary
Daria Tchapanova | Director

Short documentary film, 2023, 16min, Colour, German, English subtitles

The short documentary film The Way We Are is based on a dance workshop that took place as part of a school project led by choreographers Romy Kolb, Felix Röper, and Mariella Schlossnagl.
The film takes a critical look at the topic of inclusive education in Austria. It presents dance scenes — a fusion between choreographers and students — that express inclusion through the language of dance. Accompanied by statements from performer Cornelia Scheuer, the film offers a critical commentary on barriers in public spaces, the exclusion of people with disabilities in relation to human rights, and the lack of social integration within the Austrian education system.

14:30 h
Moving Academy | Workshop (Auditorium)
Magdalena Chowaniec | Choreography, Performance, Curating, Outreach, Music

We take one hour to create a collective body and to literally move the Academy.
Movement is used as a tool to unlearn and to reconnect — with ourselves, with others, and with the structures we are embedded in.
Bodily awareness will help us recognize the different dynamics, bodies, weights, temporalities, and spectrums of mobility we all inhabit as a collective body. Opposing frontality and ocular centrism (the privileging of sight over the other senses), we will share and explore new ways of relating with others based on sensorial experience, discovering corporealities beyond the daily choreography of productivity.
Only when all bodies are involved can real care, collective well-being, and systemic change be negotiated and imagined.

Break until 16:15 h

16:30 h
If You Are Afraid You Put Your Heart Into Your Mouth and Smile | Film 
Marie Luise Lehner | Director

Film 2025, 87min, German, German Sign Language and English, with subtitles in German and English

18 h
Talk with director Marie Luise Lehner and actress Mariya Menner

Anna is new to the class at the prestigious school in Vienna's first district. She comes from the working-class district Floridsdorf, while the other students in the class come from different backgrounds. Anna's mother Isolde is deaf. And Anna's Ralph Lauren sweater is fake. But her new friend Mara is real, and the insight they gain together is also very real: there is no place for shame in life.
Marie Luise Lehner's film tells a story about circumstances, about origins, about transformations, about young people who have no idea yet but already know everything they need to know about the future—a coming-of-age story, radically tender.

Contributors:

Prof. Dr. Tobias Buchner currently heads the Institute for Inclusive Education at the University of Education Upper Austria, after working at Trinity College Dublin (Ireland), the University of Vienna (Austria), and the University of Halle (Germany). His research focuses on inclusive education, digitalization and space, ableism and education, and inclusive research. Buchner has received several research awards, including the 2018 Science Award from the German Educational Research Association. He has carried out numerous national and international projects on inclusive and special education, both as a project manager and as a cooperation partner. In addition, he has published in leading, internationally peer-reviewed journals in his field and is the editor of the “Handbuch Inklusive Forschung” (German) and the “Routledge Handbook on Space, Education and Inclusion.”
Tobias Buchner is head of the Section for Inclusion, Diversity, and Social Inequalities at the Austrian Society for Research and Development in Education (ÖFEB).
In addition to these roles, Tobias Buchner is a member of the board of the Competence Network for Information Technology for the Integration of People with Disabilities (KI-I): https://www.ki-i.at/en/home

Julia Haimburger laid the foundation for her work as an art and culture educator by combining her studies in art history and education at the University of Graz. Her education also took her to Canada and Sweden. She gained experience in the social sector by accompanying artists at the Gugging Open Studio, among other things. As an art educator at the Belvedere, she pursues an inclusive approach and is committed to consistent accessibility.
https://www.belvedere.at/en/your-visit/inclusion-museum
Daria Tchapanova is a research-oriented artist and filmmaker. With a background in art and anthropology, she creates spaces within her transdisciplinary practice where different disciplines and perspectives intersect. Her work invites audiences to engage with issues of social justice, (in)equality, and self-representation. Inspired by socio-political and cultural questions, she develops narratives and imagery that reflect artists’ perspectives on society. She brings to light stories that emerge between the personal and the collective, creating multilayered spaces in which reality and imagination meet.
https://www.dat-art.com/

Magdalena Chowaniec works as a choreographer, performer, musician, curator and cultural mediator. In her artistic practice, she explores choreographic and somatic methods as tools of gentle resistance, socio-political reorganization, and individual as well as collective transformation.
Her own artistic projects have been presented at ImPulsTanz Festival, TQW Vienna, Kampnagel Hamburg, the Wiener Festwochen and Sophiensæle Berlin. In 2023 and 2025, she choreographed two opera productions at the Vienna State Opera.
Magdalena is also part of the rave duo Mermaid & Seafruit, co-organized the Wieder Donnerstag demonstrations, and worked as an artistic researcher at the Doctoral School of the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz. Over the past three years, she has been active as a curator for urban projects and as an outreach specialist at Tangente St. Pölten.

Marie Luise Lehner, born in 1995, lives in Vienna. Filmmaker, author, and punk musician.
Studied at the Institute of Language Arts at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Then studied screenwriting and dramaturgy at the Vienna Film Academy. Currently, studying for a master's degree in directing at the Vienna Film Academy and contextual painting at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Writes screenplays and prose. Her novels “Fliegenpilze aus Kork” and “Im Blick” were published by Kremayr&Scheriau. Her literary works have received numerous awards. Her short films have been shown at various international film festivals. She has been an inspiring member of the feminist punk band “Schapka” since 2012.

Mariya Menner is an actress and sign language teacher. Even as a child, she dreamed of being on stage and in front of the camera — inspired by TV series such as Gute Zeiten, schlechte Zeiten and Sturm der Liebe. She continues to pursue this dream with great passion to this day. She became known for her leading role in the film “Wenn du Angst hast, nimmst du dein Herz in den Mund und lächelst” (When You're Afraid, Put Your Heart in Your Mouth and Smile), which was shown at the Berlinale, among other places.
She had already appeared in various theater and film productions, impressing audiences with her authentic presence. In addition to acting, she teaches sign language at universities, clinics, and institutions and is committed to promoting the visibility and recognition of deaf people in art and society. Her motto: “I can do anything—except hear.”