Our Dates

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.

Journalist Sylvie Kürsten accompanied the Neue Auftraggeber in Greifswald and Wietstock together with mediator Susanne Burmester. The result is a beautiful portrait showing the first projects in the north of the country.

Watch online (German)

“Why does the integration of art into society, which is otherwise so difficult and almost always doomed to failure, seem to work here, of all places? And how has the New Patrons bridged the gap between the elitist and navel-gazing art world on the one hand and the everyday life of so-called normal people, on the other?” 

This issue #59 of Spike Art Magazine looks at the non-heroic ways of doing things differently that can open our minds and make the world better. With an excellent text by Dominikus Müller about Neue Auftraggeber. Thanks to Spike for allowing us to publish this text online. Read.

Paneldiscussion in German with

Prof. Dr. Dr. Hans-Joachim Gießmann, Executive Director of the Berghof Foundation
Dr. Nicole Rieber, Project Manager in the field of Digital Peace Education at the Berghof Foundation
Prof. Dr. Angela Mickley emer., Conflict Management, Peace Education and Ecology in the Department of Social and Educational Sciences at the FH Potsdam, Head of Continuing Education Mediation at the FHP in cooperation with Konflikthaus e.V., Research/Development on Crisis Intervention with Social Focus, Dealing with the Past, Reconciliation. Co-Speaker of the Platform Civil Conflict Management
Mechthild von Schwerin, mediator, landscape planner, artist
Moderation: Alexander Koch, Director of Neue Auftraggeber

07.05.19, 7 pm, doors open from 6 pm, Ticket: 5 Euro / 3 Euro reduced fee

Paneldiscussion in German 

with Dr. Mark Terkessidis (freelance author and migration researcher), Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Merkel (Director of the Department of Democracy and Democratisation at the Social Science Research Center, Berlin), Dr. Juliane Stückrad (Büro für Angewandte Kulturforschung, Eisenach/ Lehrstuhl für Volkskundeat Friedrich Schiller University, Jena) and Alexander Koch (Director Gesellschaft der Neuen Auftraggeber, Berlin).

Moderation: Simone Miller (cultural editor at Deutschlandfunk Kultur).

12.03.19, 7 p.m., admission from 6 p.m., ticket: 5 euros / 3 euros concessions

Further information and tickets

3rd date: 07.05.19

With the kind support of the Senate Department for Culture and Europe and the Federal Agency for Civic Education.

Berlin's youngest street newspaper has published its 6th issue. Our mediator Gerrit Gohlke talked to author Dominikus Müller and explained who The new Patrons are. A very nice interview! By buying an issue you are also doing good! The complete proceeds stay with the sellers.

More info

Discourse
In German 

With Susanne Burmester, Denis Bury, Holger Friese, Gerrit Gohlke, Kathrin Jentjens, Alexander Koch and Lena Ziese
Presented by Antje Stahl

1st event: 19.02.19, 19:00 , Ticket: 5 Euro

Around 500 projects have already been commissioned in Europe. For this opening evening, we will discuss the motivations behind them, the topics that top people's lists, and how artists come up with answers to the challenges on-site. How do the projects work? How does one become a patron? Who pays for it? And how might art be able to assert itself in the midst of life as a contribution to democratic cohesion? On this first of six evenings in the “Whatever You Want!” event series in the Grüner Salon, mediators for the New Patrons report on civic projects with international artists.

2nd…

On 18.11.2018, Alexander Koch will give a lecture at the Athens Biennale as co-founder of the New Clients Movement in Germany. He will present particularly exciting projects from all over Europe and put them up for debate.

More info (in English)

From 26 to 27 October 2018, the artistic management team of the Berlin Bärenzwinger is organising a symposium in Neukölln. This event aims to bring together artistic, academic and urban policy positions to discuss the past, present and future use, function and significance of this place together. Alexander Koch is invited as a guest and will present Die Neuen Auftraggeber as a structural model for a contemporary culture on behalf of the citizens.

Further info and participation

"Tobias Asmuth retells a recent episode from the history of the small village of Blessey in the French province, how the collaboration with the world-renowned Swiss artist Rémy Zaugg changed the village and the self-confidence of its inhabitants. It is an outstanding example of the lasting effects that the NEUE AUFTRAGGEBER, which have also been funded in Germany by the Federal Cultural Foundation since spring 2017, can have." from the editorial of the magazine #31 of the Federal Cultural Foundation.

Read the article here