Inspiration

Art and cultural institutions are coming under increasing political and societal pressure — a point made clear by Christoph Möllers in his online keynote.

Moderated by Dr Jeanne Bindernagel, Programme Developer at the German Federal Cultural Foundation, Borisav Matić (NEBITEF Belgrade), Jakub Depczyński (Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw) and Natalie Giorgadze (Culture Action Europe) shared and discussed their personal experiences of authoritarian interventions in artistic freedom during a panel discussion.

In her lecture, Prof. Dr. Teresa Koloma Beck highlighted how global political conflicts are increasingly shaping the everyday working lives of cultural and academic institutions.

In conversation with Cornelia Walter, Esme Ward, Director of Manchester Museum, explains how she has moved closer to realising her vision of a museum for everyone.

In her keynote, Nicole Ebber, Head of Governance & Movement Relations at Wikimedia Germany, explains how participatory strategic processes can be mastered in business and what she herself has learned from this.

How can institutions become more vibrant through change? And how might we develop a language that is grounded in scientific and planetary contexts, rather than viewing society through a dogmatic lens of innovation? Caroline Paulick-Thiel, Director of Politics for Tomorrow/nextlearning e. V., takes these questions as her starting point...

Professor Dirk Brockmann, Director of the Center Synergy of Systems at TU Dresden, takes the evolutionary success of fungi as the starting point for a conceptual approach. To him, “thinking like a fungus” means nothing less than communicating, building networks, and exploring despite blindness...

Aric Chen’s lecture is a compelling call for a culture of action. According to Chen, Director of the Zaha Hadid Foundation, museums must recognise themselves more clearly as agents of change – not least because, as publicly funded institutions, they already serve as “third places” with the potential to act as testing grounds or experimental spaces...

In her welcome speech, Katarzyna Wielga-Skolimowska, Artistic Director of the Federal Cultural Foundation, invoked a quote from the economist and science theorist Otto Neurath to capture the current state of cultural institutions...