A contested terrain: immigrants and their descendants in Viennese culture

Culture in Vienna has become more diverse with successive waves of immigration since the 1960s, but Austrian cultural policies have been slow in picking up this trend. While the federal state has been focusing on maintaining traditional cultural institutions in Vienna such as the Staatsoper, the Burgtheater and the Kunsthistorisches Museum, the city of Vienna has pushed integration and later diversity in cultural policies since the 1990s, albeit more in discourse than in actual funding. Artists of immigrant origin harshly criticise this dire situation: they claim the place which they have not yet been granted, not only in cultural policies, but also in society.