Inspiration

What it means to embrace your own dilemmas as a core competency of effective cultural leadership, Troidl and Zierold explain in their inputs.

In his keynote, Beat Fehlmann shows why transparency about impact is not an end in itself, but the foundation for genuine cultural policy dialogue.

The Gdański Archipelag Kultury (GAK) is no conventional cultural centre. Rather, it is a network of eight venues spread across seven city districts — decentralised, deeply embedded in its neighbourhoods, and very much in flux. Director Monika Dylewska-Libera and her deputy Jakub Walczyk are working to move the institution away from passive presentation and towards genuine participation. Their conversation offers a revealing glimpse into that process.

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...

As part of the accompanying programme of “Übermorgen”, a series of research trips – tandem visits by institutional directors and representatives of local cultural policy – will take place in five major European cities. Here, programme director Cornelia Walter shares her insights.