As part of our 70th anniversary programme, ACF – A Celebration of Friends, we are delighted to present the 10th iteration of the popular concert series Jazzexchange!

We are pleased to welcome one of the most dynamic trios from the Austrian jazz scene – HAEZZ – to this year's Jazzexchange, curated by Guido Spannocchi. This project brings together cutting-edge artists from Austria and the UK. The HAEZZ trio, consisting of bassist Tobias Vedovelli, saxophonist Štěpán Flagar and trumpeter Martin Eberle, will present imaginatively arranged pieces that resonate musically in the sound, open up atmospheric spaces and develop an inviting warmth. They will be joined by the acclaimed British ensemble Testaments.

Complimentary tickets are offered to our ACF newsletter subscribers! Please send an email to office@acflondon.org

The ArtEN Annual Exhibition is a cultural event presenting exceptional international artists working in the UK today. The 2026 iteration, Degrees of Contact, brings fifteen distinct practitioners into a shared space including two London-based Austrian artists. Euphrosyne Andrews works across sculpture, public artwork and print while Filip Lav’s artistic practice intertwines evocative elements of 19th-century romanticism with the fragmented geometry of modernist abstraction.

Join Touch Nature artists Claire Morgan, Oliver Ressler, and Jasmina Cibic for a special discussion of their work and some of the wider themes in the exhibition. Artist, activist, and filmmaker Oliver Ressler has produced numerous exhibitions, installations, outdoor works, and films addressing democracy, racism, migration, economic globalisation, and climate change. Jasmina Cibic demonstrates in her works how mechanisms of power also target non-human beings, turning them into objects of human observation and enjoyment, while Claire Morgan explores the fundamental conditions of human existence in her fragile, poetic works.

CineClub presents a special season of films in conjunction with our summer exhibition Touch Nature exploring humanity's relationship with nature.

In the wild expanses, where bushbucks, impalas, zebras, gnus and other creatures graze by the thousands, they are on holiday. German and Austrian hunting tourists drive through the bush, lie in wait, stalk their prey. They shoot, sob with excitement and pose before the animals they have bagged. A vacation movie about killing, a movie about human nature. By presenting hunting as leisure, infamous Austrian director Ulrich Seidl confronts viewers with the banality of violence and raises unsettling questions about human attitudes toward nature, death, and domination.

This lecture by Pia Schölnberger explores the history and present practice of art restitution and provenance research in Austria in the aftermath of National Socialism. Drawing on case studies from Austrian federal museums and collections, it traces how objects became separated from their owners through persecution, forced displacement, confiscation and the destruction of entire social and cultural worlds.

Pia Schölnberger is Head of the Commission for Provenance Research and the Office of the Austrian Art Restitution Advisory Board at the Austrian Federal Ministry for Housing, Arts, Culture, Media and Sport.

The ACF London is delighted to welcome the acclaimed Austrian novelist, playwright and essayist Kaśka Bryla for a special evening presenting her most recent novel mein vater, der gulag, die krähe und ich. Kaśka Bryla will read selected passages which will also be available in a sample translation by Sheridan Marshall. After the reading, Kaśka Bryla and Sheridan Marshall will discuss the novel, its themes and the process of literary translation.

The event will be chaired by Andrea Capovilla, Director of the Ingeborg Bachmann Centre for Austrian Literature and Culture, and will conclude with an audience Q&A session.

Vienna-based guitarist and composer Mahan Mirarab presents his new solo album for fretless guitar and guitar on 30 May at World Heart Beat Embassy Gardens. Blending Iranian musical traditions with contemporary jazz, European chamber textures, and experimental sound, Mirarab crafts music shaped by migration, memory, and spacious groove. 

The album features guest artists Lars Danielsson, Kian Soltani, and Golnar Shahyar. For the London concert, Mirarab is joined by acclaimed Austrian percussionist Bernhard Schimpelsberger, known for his innovative rhythmic language rooted in Indian classical tradition and global collaborations. 

Austrian jazz quartet ROUNDABOUT is coming to Camden Town's The Jazz Café as part of the Future Jazz Showcase. This format brings forward-thinking artists reshaping jazz from the ground up, delivering locked-in rhythms, off-the-cuff brilliance, and that charged, future-facing energy that sets them apart.

From the Upper Austrian Mühlviertel to stages around the world, within a short matter of time this young quartet has already established itself in the Austrian music scene. ​With overwhelming energy and impressive musical talent, the four musicians create complex soundscapes while maintaining the accessibility of rhythm and melody. Their music is a dynamic blend of vibrant Neo-Soul, R'n'B, and New Jazz.

Experimental composer Nava Hemyari, with musician Sarah Maria Dragović, reimagines a classic fairy tale, where Gepetto creates Pinocchio out of loneliness. Over time, the puppet evolves from naive companion into something extraordinary – sharper and more attuned than any human. But gradually, Pinocchio becomes a mirror, reflecting back not only Gepetto's ideas but the very traits he despises in himself. Through this allegory, Hemyari explores human-AI interaction, considering how AI models are structurally inclined to align with the user's worldview.

Vienna-based vocalist and pianist Stephie Hacker joins acclaimed London multi-instrumentalist Arnulf Barrable-Lindner for an intimate evening of original music. With roots in jazz, classical and pop, the duo explores deeply personal songs through delicate arrangements, cinematic textures and strong musical synergy. Arnulf, known for his work with Heather Nova, KT Tunstall and Ed Harcourt, brings emotional depth and instrumental richness to Stephie’s heartfelt storytelling. Together, they create a warm, soulful soundscape that invites the audience into a space of vulnerability, beauty and connection — a rare opportunity to experience two accomplished artists in an intimate musical dialogue.

JW3 presents a programme of experimental short films and live music by Austrian-British multidisciplinary artist Hugo Max.

Kosher Giraffes & Other Tails brings together projects devised over the last five years while Max has researched his ancestral heritage. Working at the intersection between creative mediums to illuminate blind spots in familial memory, he offers a unique reflection on Jewish identity, intergenerational engagement and the refugee experience. Displaced giraffes regularly congregate in his films as a mute chorus, appearing in fragmented narratives steeped in the sensual, spiritual and tragicomic.

Join us for a night of performance and poetry when three of Austria’s most remarkable contemporary poets, Andreas Unterweger, Patricia Mathes and Carla Lorenz, come to London as part of the European Poetry Festival curated by SJ Fowler.

This special evening celebrates one of the continent’s most dynamic and original literary scenes. New collaborations with British compatriots will be presented, made for the night, ably supported by many poets visiting the festival also collaborating.

Cleaning, the newest publication by Austrian art duo Honey & Bunny, takes a closer look at everyday life in Western societies. Culture takes place every day: in every household, with every bite, with every piece of clothing; it is negotiated through the products we choose and how we use them. The book sets out to highlight cleaning as a cultural technique through which culture is lived and nature is vanquished, through which hierarchies are created, social rankings manifested, and traditions implemented.

The Austrian Cultural Forum London invites professional and aspiring translators to participate in the sixth biennial competition held for the best German to English translations of contemporary Austrian prose writing. This year’s texts for translation are excerpts from “Sie wollen uns erzählen” by Birgit Birnbacher and “Tod bei den Salzburger Festspielen” by Sophie Reyer.

The jury for this year's competition is: Jamie Bulloch (translator, head of jury), Shaun Whiteside (translator), Tina Hartas (founder, Trip Fiction), Ella Harold (editor, Fig Tree).

Entry deadline: 2 June 2026, 5 pm BST