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Nuray Demir & Minh Duc Pham: Performing the Unfinished – Day 1: Dreams Convention

The second production within "Citizen-Commissioned Dance and Performance" is coming up. Unfolding in three parts, "Performing the Unfinished" by Nuray Demir & Minh Duc Pham for the New Patrons of Pinneberg connects local history with global contexts—from the ceremonial inauguration of the Square of Children's Rights to the working conditions behind Pinneberg's rose industry and the entangled histories of colonialism and care embedded in Northern Germany's tea culture. On Saturday, September 12, 2026, the series kicks off.

The New Patrons of Pinneberg commissioned an artwork that would make the transformation of their downtown visible and foster a new Pinneberg feeling. Performing the Unfinished by Nuray Demir & Minh Duc Pham is their artistic response. The title points to the fact that many social struggles remain unresolved. Human rights, social achievements, and practices of care must continually be renegotiated, defended, and made visible. Against this backdrop, the work explores questions of children's rights, labor migration, care, and postcolonialism. Over the course of one weekend, it brings together artistic and scholarly contributions in Pinneberg's public spaces while creating opportunities for a renewed sense of community. 

In 2018, Pinneberg's Drosteiplatz was officially renamed the Square of Children's Rights—but it has never been formally inaugurated. This will finally take place with Dreams Convention! Through music, lecture performances, and participatory actions, invited guests examine the tension between legal promises and social reality. What does it mean that the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is the most widely ratified human rights treaty in the world, while children's rights continue to be systematically violated?

Dreams Convention within Performing the Unfinished
Inauguration of the Square of Children's Rights, Pinneberg
Saturday, September 12, 2026, 3–5 pm 
Featuring contributions by Kien Nghi Ha, Nahed Samour, Meryam Schouler-Ocak, and Derya Yıldırım.
Free of charge and open to the public without registration

On Sunday, September 13, 2026, the program continues with a performative rose parade and an interactive tea salon. More information is available here.

Credits
Performing the Unfinished by Nuray Demir & Minh Duc Pham for the New Patrons of Pinneberg
Patrons: Saim Kadir (Kasi) Cetinkaya, Heja Ibrahim, Anke Marckmann, Julia Miahipour, Deniz (Bosslo) Salakoslu, Gina Lea Schwan, Cosmo Stadie
Artists: Nuray Demir & Minh Duc Pham
Mediation: Michael Annoff
Contributions: Kien Nghi Ha, Nahed Samour, Meryam Schouler-Ocak, Derya Yıldırım, douniah, much cooler than yours x My Migrant Mama, and Tanasgol Sabbagh 
Local Project Lead: Förderverein Stadtmuseum Pinneberg e. V.
Graphic Design: Jihee Lee
Technical Lead: Falk Stapel
Artistic Collaboration: Hava Erica Zeytin
Sound Design Bread & Roses: Frieder Blume

Initiated and premiered within Citizen-Commissioned Dance and Performance, a program of Gesellschaft der Neuen Auftraggeber. Funded by Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural Foundation). Funded by the Beauftragter der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien (Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media).

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Mariana Castillo Deball will develop a work for Friedland. The starting point will be the hiking trails and the treasures of the villages that the clients of Friedland have already collected. The first visits and walks have already taken place.

The artist explores ideologically constructed conditions under which artefacts appear in today's culture. To do this, she gathers information from various disciplines such as archaeology and science. Through research and collaboration, she creates works that emerge from the collision and recombination of these different languages.

Mariana Castillo Deball lives and works in Berlin and Mexico City. Her work has been shown at MUAC Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo (Mexico City, 2021), Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen (Siegen, 2021), Modern Art…

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With Jakub Szczęsny, the people of Züsedom developed a bench which, in bright signal orange, places unmissable meeting points in the village landscape, can be used by every age group and, in its design, also offers the younger generation an opportunity to meet. The Züsedom bench. 

On 22 and 23 July, four charity auctions will be held at Broellin Castle to finance the new village benches in Züsedom.
More than 150 objects from the former Erich Kühl secondary school and the stock of the Züsedom countrywomen will be put up for auction.
Bid for a piece of history and support the production of our Züsedom commission!

Visit the auction website here: auktion.neueauftraggeber.de

Auction 1 : Friday 22 July 2022 15:30:00 - DDR teaching aids (focus on technology & audio)
Auction 2 : Friday 22…

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From 14 to 29 May, the new patrons of Steinhöfel told stories, designed, planned and built. Together with Constructlab, the Kistenflitzer was created - a mobile meeting point that is now available to the twelve villages of the community as a mobile cinema, rolling cocktail bar, church on wheels and much more.

A project within the framework of pilot funding by the Federal Cultural Foundation. The realisation is supported by the Fonds Soziokultur, the Fondation de France and the Brandenburgischer Kunstverein Potsdam.

Photo: Victoria Tomaschko

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The question of how technological developments influence our everyday and community life has occupied Simon Denny (*1982, Auckland, New Zealand) for many years. For the New Patrons of Beeskow, he is designing a sculpture series that makes information accessible and visible in the public space and at the same time promotes the community of citizens in this very space and beyond. 

Themes of personal identity and integrity are addressed, as are social debates about data protection and the use of human experience as a raw material.

Photo: Simon Denny visiting Beeskow Photo: Victoria Tomaschko

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It took a few years - but in March, the first project of the New Patrons on the African continent was inaugurated in Cameroon! It all started in 2014, together with the Goethe-Institut Cameroon. The Baka pygmy community in the country's southern rainforest had declared their urgent desire to deal with the fundamental changes in their culture and way of life, and they took the initiative and commissioned a cultural project, which mediator Germain Loumpet has been accompanying and mediating with great patience and passion ever since.

More info on the project can be found here, among other places: www.goethe.de/ins/cm/de/ueb/prn/lbaka.html

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Thursday, 18.11.2021, 2–5pm (in German)

An online event for planners and decisionmakers at the municipal and state levels and everyone interested in civic participation and decision-making processes.

We want to exchange ideas with you about how the New Patrons model offers unconventional insights into community processes and guidance on how to address even complex issues without intimidating would-be local activists. We throw open the door to our workshop and look forward to learning about your perspectives on and suggestions for what we do. We hope to launch a dialogue on how we can engage people in new conversations and on the key role that culture and art play for an innovative practice grappling with societal concerns.

What?
We introduce you to a unique approach to civic…

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Saturday, 4.9.2021, beginning: 2 pm

Presentation of the artistic concept to the public with welcome addresses from Dr. Reinhard Kubat, District Administrator of Waldeck-Frankenberg and Ljubica Nikolic, University of Göttingen.

Meeting place: Dorfgemeinschaftshaus (Village community center), Torweg 8, 35110 Ellershausen, coordinates: 51°04'46.9"N 8°53'34.9"E

The unusual art project commissioned by the Waldeck-Frankenberg Water Initiative makes visible the threat to water as a resource and commits the people of the region in a movement to protect water as the source of all life.

The citizen-commissioners and the artists will present their initiative to the public together. In a subsequent performance, exemplary first marks will be set, whose signal effect gives expression to the fleeting…

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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.

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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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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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