Following the line

"A line is a dot that went for a walk." — Paul Klee

Paul Klee's deceptively simple observation opens into a world of extraordinary complexity, and it is here that AWE 2026 begins.

At every scale of life, there are lines. Some are drawn in ink or light. Some are etched into landscapes by rivers, winds, or tectonic plates. Some are invisible but deeply felt: the boundaries of culture, the edges of morality, the thresholds we dare to cross. Nature is full of lines: coastlines, fault lines, horizon lines, the migration routes of birds, the strata of rock recording millennia of pressure and transformation. In each, a line implies both division and connection, separating yet joining, defining each side by contrast. In that way, the line is always a threshold.

In art and music, a line carries us. A melody pulls us forward through time, leaving traces of emotion and memory. A brushstroke defines a form. A sentence cuts to the heart. In music especially, independent lines coexist, diverge, and reunite, voices in constant dialogue, shaping one another through proximity and encounter. Whether woven into something greater than the sum of its parts, or suspended in radiance along the threshold between presence and distance, to follow a musical line is to be drawn into a world where boundaries are not walls but bridges, and where music does what little else can: connect us to one another across time, place, and human experience.

The human element becomes most vivid when we confront the lines we draw in our own lives. Cultural lines define belonging and exclusion. Diplomatic lines can build understanding between communities and nations. Personal boundaries mark the limits of what we will give, endure, or accept. And moral lines, perhaps the most fragile and consequential of all, define who we are in moments of courage, compromise, and choice. Sometimes we hold the line. Sometimes, as history repeatedly reminds us, a line is crossed, redrawn, or broken entirely. And sometimes, against all odds, it remains unbroken, a testament to the enduring power of human creativity and resilience.

AWE 2026 traces these boundaries and bridges across seven programmes and four locations within the breath-taking landscapes of Central Otago, Aotearoa New Zealand, from what lies between the lines of music's surface, to the cosmic vastness of the line itself in its most elemental form.

Which lines protect us?

Which lines confine us?

And which lines are waiting to be redrawn?