Climate Camp Vienna 2025 “City for All Camp”
From May 25 to 31, 2025, this year’s climate camp took place under the motto “City for All Camp” on the last large open space in Vienna near St. Marx. Under the motto ‘Education, Utopia and Action’, we created a week full of discussions, lectures, workshops, exchanges, concerts and much more. This year it was again organized by the “Association for the Implementation of Climate Camps in Austria”.
This historic site in Vienna’s 3rd district was once home to large slaughterhouses before it became Vienna’s largest free experimental area. In the meantime, several initiatives (garden community, skate park, basketball court, art association, etc.) have dedicated themselves to interim use. The area also offers space for many individual activities – from flying kites to playing cricket.
Without a planning office, people work together to create spaces that meet their needs while remaining adaptable to accommodate newcomers. People learn to appropriate public spaces in which care and togetherness replace profit maximization – just like that, without planning, in lived practice.
However, this valuable open space is now to come to an end: the municipal, privately organized Wien Holding AG has chosen the site for the construction of a new event hall and, contrary to the prevailing opinion in the district and without any semblance of participatory, transparent planning, plans to have a commercially used mega-event hall built. In solidarity with the “St. Marx for all” initiative, the Climate Camp team wants to raise awareness of this special place.
This year’s camp focused on the theme of ‘City for All’. It was about struggles for communally designed and consumption-free spaces and against gentrification and other forms of exclusion and displacement. Over the course of the week, more than 35 workshops and lectures were offered. The topics ranged from feminist urban planning, anti-racist perspectives and care in public spaces to issues of solidarity economy and practical skill-sharing on media work, bicycle safety and action climbing. A central panel discussion with experts from academia, activism and urban politics provided space for in-depth discussions and controversial debates. The evening program, consisting of concerts, theater, cinema and performances, rounded off the days harmoniously. Our vegan KÜFA (Kitchen for All) catered for the physical well-being of the many people on site during these days with at least 1500 meals.
The camp not only offered space for political education and networking, but was also experienced as a lived utopia – with jointly supported infrastructure, an awareness concept and collective care work. Thanks to the central location in the city and the reach of the various local initiatives, we reached a wide audience. The reporting by various media (including Kurier, Krone Zeitung, ORF heute, Mosaik) also ensured broad attention.
The camp was completely free of charge for visitors; this was made possible by voluntary work, donations and financial support. With its support, the Care for Future Foundation made a key contribution to ensuring that the camp was able to offer a diverse, inclusive workshop and evening program with a strong content. We would like to express our sincere thanks on behalf of the entire organization team.
For the climate camp organization team, a voluntary planning process that has been going on for many months has come to an end. We are all extremely proud of the successful week and are looking forward to next year, but also to a relaxing summer without the stress of planning the climate camp behind us.