Patrons: Jenny Edel, Wanda Szumlewski, Mary O’Rourke, Marianne Stein, Kerstin Frey, Carsten-Armin Jakimowicz

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Commission: We would like to commission an artwork that places the spirit of solidarity and standing together and the people who are committed to it at its center. It should reflect our history as a community of shared destiny at Bergsteig and offer impulses for how we can develop and sustain new forms of togetherness in light of today’s social challenges.

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Mediator: Bianca Kruppa

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Artist: Julian Warner

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Local Project Lead: Bürgerverein am Bergsteig e. V.

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Period: From 2025

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Partner: Kulturstiftung des Bundes

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Program: Citizen-Commissioned Dance and Performance

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The Amberg neighborhood “Am Bergsteig” in Eastern Bavaria looks back on a complex and moving history. After the war, refugees and displaced persons from around 60 nations found a new home here. In 1952, they made up more than half of the approximately 3,000 residents. Many were affected by poverty and existential hardship. Issues such as discrimination and crime in the neighborhood were often pictured exaggeratedly by outsiders.

The difficult living conditions and social exclusion at the time led to the emergence of a strong sense of solidarity and shared destiny. People supported one another through mutual aid, engagemnet in associations, sports, and shared everyday life. Many residents still remember a special spirit of togetherness.

“Togetherness has always been important to us. We believe it will remain essential—not only at Bergsteig, but far beyond.”

From the commission

The commission

Today, Bergsteig is once again at a turning point. Six people with various ties to the neighborhood have come together, observing how the places and moments where community was once lived are increasingly disappearing. People are withdrawing, many feel overwhelmed—and the kind of civic engagement that was once taken for granted is fading away.

Traditionally, local clubs and associations were a cornerstone of community life at Bergsteig. Now the question arises: how can that spirit be carried into the present and reimagined—towards future forms of solidarity and neighborhood connection?

The group has decided to launch an artistic commission as the New Patrons of Amberg – Am Bergsteig. At its heart lies the question: how can we retell our story of solidarity and draw inspiration from it for the future—so that conflicts can be addressed, prejudices reduced, and cohesion strengthened? Their civic commission aims to remind people of how vital commitment and mutual support have always been and should continue to be for life at Bergsteig.

“We are looking for an artistic position that takes Bergsteig seriously as a place of lived experience and reflects the diverse perspectives of its people.”

From the comission

The Artist: Julian Warner

They have entrusted their commission to the German-British artist and curator Julian Warner. His previous work offers numerous points of connection to life on the Bergsteig: in many of his research-based projects, Warner involves clubs, associations and local communities as central partners—both on and behind the stage. He has collaborated with wrestling and boxing communities, the Alevi community in Augsburg, as well as gymnastics and traditional associations, for example for folk dance from Bavaria. He also brings extensive experience working in public space, including outside major urban centres. Moving fluidly between performance, curation, music, and academic inquiry, Julian Warner creates broad points of access and builds bridges to themes and audiences beyond a classical high-culture mainstream.

From 2023 to 2025, Julian Warner was Artistic Director of the Brechtfestival Augsburg, and in 2022 he curated the Festival of the KulturRegion Stuttgart. Prior to that, he developed formats for institutions such as Mousonturm Frankfurt and the Münchner Kammerspiele. He is the editor of After Europe. Beiträge zur dekolonialen Kritik (Verbrecher Verlag, 2021) and has been in training as a group analyst at the Seminar für Gruppenanalyse Zürich since 2019. He also teaches as Professor of Transdisciplinary Artistic Practice at the State University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart.

“I am deeply honoured to work with the patrons from the Bergsteig and especially grateful for the framework provided by the New Patrons model. For the political dimension of art lies less in its ‘message’ than in the way it is held.”

 Julian Warner

The Artwork: Kampf am Berg

For Bergsteig, Julian Warner is developing the multi-day spectacle Kampf am Berg, featuring two wrestling shows. It is being carried out in cooperation with local clubs and initiatives. In Kampf am Berg, Warner uses the format of wrestling as a stage to make visible and condense the contradictions and forces of the neighborhood. Wrestling is both sport and theater, physical combat and narrated story. This dual nature makes it the ideal format for staging and making tangible the tensions between past and future, long-time residents and newcomers. The venue for Kampf am Berg is a purpose-built circus tent in Bergsteig.

Bergsteig loves sports. From rhythmic gymnastics to mixed martial arts, boxing, Greco-Roman wrestling, and football, people here are committed to their sport in clubs and initiatives. Kampf am Berg brings their passion together with that of local athletes, musicians, and professional wrestlers. In the process, the residents themselves become hosts and authors of their own story.

In the lead-up to the event, seven La TamBA storytelling cafés will take place between June 2026 and June 2027 as open formats for Bergsteig residents and anyone else interested. La TamBA stands for Tanz und Treff am Bergsteig Amberg (Dance and Gathering at Bergsteig Amberg). Here, Julian Warner, together with the patrons and mediator Bianca Kruppa, will present plans and ideas for Kampf am Berg. The storytelling cafés offer an opportunity to exchange ideas, share stories about Bergsteig, and build connections for the spectacle.

The local project lead of Kampf am Berg is the Bürgerverein am Bergsteig e. V. (Bergsteig Citizens' Association). Founded in 2007, it supports civic engagement as well as the clubs and institutions active in the district. At the neighborhood office run by the association, the Stadtteilbüro am Bergsteig Amberg (SamBA), residents of Bergsteig receive support, for example with filling out applications and forms or preparing job applications. In special life circumstances, neighborly help is organized, for example, or contact is made with suitable counseling services and further assistance.