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[Translate to English:] Die Neuen Auftraggeber von Eberswalde

Gesellschaft der Neuen Auftraggeber Receives Award

The Gesellschaft der Neuen Auftraggeber has won the Zukunftspreis KULTURGESTALTEN award in the “initiative and network projects” category. The award, which honors forward-thinking cultural policy initiatives and is sponsored by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, was presented yesterday.

We are extraordinarily pleased by the news that we have been honored with this award. It honors an entire network of civic associations, creative artists, and their partners, whom we at the Society of the New Patrons advise and support as they embark on ambitious projects to transform a piece of their surroundings and communities.

Developed by Kulturpolitische Gesellschaft e.V., the new award honors exemplary initiatives and outstanding projects that put forward-thinking cultural policy ideas into practice. It is designed to generate attention for innovative practices, visions, and paradigms in cultural policy and spotlight the honorees’ distinctive contributions to civil society. The award is given out every two years in the three categories “standalone projects,” “initiative and network projects,” and “(pilot) projects in municipal self-government” and comes with a total prize money of €15,000. Established in 1976, Kulturpolitische Gesellschaft e.V. (KuPoGe) is a nonpartisan alliance of individuals and organizations throughout Germany who take an active interest in cultural policy. It is the leading platform for debates around cultural policy in Germany and guided by the conviction that “cultural policy is social policy.”

“The New Patrons are an innovative and participatory model for a cultural policy that is designed to meet the sociopolitical needs of the day and facilitates a democratic production of ‘culture for all by all.’ Their approach provides a thematically open framework that allows for a discourse to be cast into concrete form, and is scalable and adaptable to a variety of contents and structures. The organization of the project’s work in several model regions throughout Germany ensures its broad-based impact,” Dr. Tobias Knoblich (president, Kulturpolitische Gesellschaft) explained the jury’s decision during yesterday’s award presentation ceremony.

“The New Patrons’ winning this prominent accolade makes us optimistic that their model project of a democratic culture aspiring to the highest standards of artistic quality will be adopted more widely in Germany as well. The Federal Cultural Foundation believes that the award acknowledges a successful partnership between art and politics in which all parties’ actions are guided by the interests of civil society.” Hortensia Völckers, artistic director, Federal Cultural Foundation.

Image: Die Neuen Auftraggeber von Eberswalde. Photo: Victoria Tomaschko

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A person, Ruth Buchanan, in winter clothing stands in front of a bush and picks something

We kick off Ruth Buchanan's work A garden with bridges (spine, stomach, throat, ear) for the New Patrons of Moenchengladbach with a three-part workshop series starting in June 2021. In collaborative formats, Ruth Buchanan will introduce the content of the commission and the center points of the patrons group. Topics such as work and working life, health and movement, experience of self and other come up in the workshops and enable a temporary coming together of different groups and people on the Abteiberg in Moenchengladbach.

The events take place as a cooperation of the Kunststiftung im Museum Abteiberg with the Arbeitslosenzentrum Moenchengladbach e.V. and the Stiftisches Humanistisches Gymnasium.

WORKSHOPS

No such things as weeds: Care, growth, regeneration.

SATURDAY, 26.6.2021, 10…

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Group photo of the New Patrons of Züsedom with artist Jakub Szczęsny and mediator Holger Friese

Clandestine - that's what we call something that takes place in silence, in secret, in a familiar circle. In 2020, the projects of the New Patrons continued clandestinely – and quite cheerfully – despite and because of the special challenges of the year.

Long before the artistic projects commissioned by citizens become public with a big whoop and a tare, they mature in dialogue, experience twists and surprises in the conversation between commissioning groups, artists, and take one step back and two steps forward. That was also the case in 2020. During on-site meetings outside, in online conferences, at the digital studio visit.

The New Patrons received a lot of support last year. In addition to the Federal Cultural Foundation, also the municipal administrations and individuals from…

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Thank you very much for your support in the past year! We wish you peaceful and healthy holidays and look forward to seeing you again in the new year.

Have fun with these impressions from 2020!

WATCH VIDEO

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Video/Preview

PETITIONS, PROTESTS, LIQUIDE DEMOCRACY – FANTASIES OF EMPOWERMENT OR MUCH-NEEDED DEMOCRACY UPDATE? 

PANEL DISCUSSION AT GRÜNER SALON OF VOLKSBÜHNE BERLIN

With
Lewamm Ghebremariam, campaign strategist at Change.org e. V., founder of the network Wake Up Eritrea, board member of Clubcommission e. V.
Christopher Lauer, publicist and former member of the Berlin House of Representatives
Alexander Koch, director of the Gesellschaft der Neuen Auftraggeber (Society of New Patrons)

Moderation
Christine Watty, Deutschlandfunk Kultur

We are pleased to present the 8th edition of our event series Whatever you Want! in collaboration with Volksbühne Berlin as an online format.

WATCH DISCUSSION

Online petitions, iconoclasms and toppling monuments, civil disobedience and bottom-up processes—current…

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Empowerment fantasies or an urgently needed democracy update? Online petitions, iconoclasm and monument overthrow, civil disobedience and bottom-up processes - current models of participation have one thing in common: they think civil society voice beyond representative democratic processes. For example, the Fridays for Future movement and Black Lives Matter protests have raised public awareness of demands to deal with climate change and racism in recent months. Are these mobilisations an expression of the often cited "crisis of democracy" or, on the contrary, a sign of the vitality of the democratic model?

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+++CANCELLED+++

According to the recommendations of the Robert Koch Institute on the COVID-19 virus, the event has unfortunately been cancelled. We will inform you promptly about a possible new date for the event. You can find detailed information about the refund modalities of already purchased tickets HERE.

Tuesday, March 24, 2020, 7pm
@Grüner Salon/ Volksbühne Berlin
Panel discussion, in German

With
Alexander Koch, Director Gesellschaft der Neuen Auftraggeber
Christopher Lauer, publicist and former member of the Berlin House of Representatives
Paula Peters, Chief Global Officer Europe at change.org
Host: Pia Rauschenberger, journalist (Deutschlandfunk Kultur, amongst others)

From online petitions, a democracy festival in the Olympic Stadium, demands for liquid democracy, and civil…

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Tuesday, 14 January 2020 at 7:00 pm

@Grüner Salon/ Volksbühne Berlin

In cooperation with ARCH+

"Architecture is the ordering of social relations through what is built," says philosopher Christian Posthofen. And so architecture is also a social battlefield: Who owns and who uses what is built? Who plans it, who needs it - and what for? And public building? Who decides on the programme, the financing, the design when new schools and town halls, streets and squares are built? Who owns the city, who owns the village? This evening's discussion aims to show new perspectives and progressive examples of a new public architecture on behalf of citizens. Projects and debates from the past and present will show ways in which new builders from all parts of society can make public building their…

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Tuesday, 12th November at 7 p.m.
Tickets and more info

It can get loud with everyone screaming and shouting. Sometimes it’s healthy but overdoing it can poison the social climate. Meanwhile we might miss something much quieter, yet incomparably more powerful: action. Precisely when we act, without too many words, is when we can accomplish something powerful. This evening's Diskurs is about action and how it transforms. How can we take action against our problems, and conflicts, instead of only talking about them? How can action be used to change society? Does art, especially, contain within it a promise of transformation? While screaming mouths fight for dominance, perhaps the ground is already being dug up around them. 

Discourse in German with:
Alice Creischer (artist, author)
Dorothea…

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15th October 2019, starting at 7 p.m. (entry at 6 p.m.)
@ Grüner Salon/ Volksbühne Berlin

Which new strategies does politics offer to cities and towns, and to their civil societies? How can filter bubbles and echo chambers be opened up, creating new chances for democratic compromises? What kind of language must we invent, which would allow us to understand each other better, to endure and overcome our conflicts? We would like to listen to people who can report from their own practices, describing how they involved whole towns in their discussions, sketched plans for a new community consciousness, or reached new public audiences. A workshopping conversation with representatives from the laboratory of local politics.

Discourse in German:
Steffi Wiesner, Koordinatorin für Freiwilligenarbeit…

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Cover page of the Atlas of Innovation magazine

The Atlas of Social Innovation series provides a comprehensive overview of the multifaceted manifestations and practices of social innovation from a global perspective. This second volume brings together leading experts of the field. In 43 articles, the atlas gives new insights into current trends of social innovation research and its connection to other schools of thought and research traditions. A global project by Sozialforschungsstelle Dortmund. Including an essay by our director Alexander Koch about the New Patrons/ Neue Auftraggeber.

Find more information here.

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