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Dance group in a public place in Marl

New Patrons: Dance and performance commissioned by citizens

Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural Foundation) again supports New Patrons

There is reason to celebrate at New Patrons! We are delighted that the Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural Foundation) today announced its decision to fund a nationwide program for dance and performance commissioned by citizens.

Around 15 artistic projects can be initiated from 2023 to 2028 by civic groups and implemented together with international artists. The German Federal Cultural Foundation is providing five million euros for this purpose.

The funding is an important step toward expanding and establishing citizen-commissioned art in Germany – and a recognition of this innovative model, which was already successfully funded by the Federal Cultural Foundation in a pilot phase from 2017 to 2022.

Tanz und Performance im Bürgerauftrag (dance and performance commissioned citizens) is an offer to civil society groups to lend visibility to their urgent concerns through the possibilities of performative forms of expression. They can direct their civic commissions to international artists, who react to local issues precisely where something should also move in the literal sense. This creates new perspectives and dynamics of civic engagement.

In line with the New Patrons model, in Tanz und Performance im Bürgerauftrag the civic groups, as New Patrons, take responsibility for the projects they initiate. Throughout the process, they are accompanied and advised by mediators who contribute their experience in producing ambitious artistic projects. They connect the New Patrons groups with artists, each of whom responds to the commissions with specific concepts, involving citizens in the development and implementation of the projects.

Starting in the fall of 2023, the mediators will enter into dialogue in various regions of Germany with people who want to help shape their living environment through Tanz und Performance im Bürgerauftrag. A consultant with proven expertise in the field of dance and performance will additionally accompany the program. Overall management and coordination are the responsibility of the non-profit Gesellschaft der Neuen Auftraggeber (Society of New Patrons) in Berlin. In order to strengthen the commitment of local cultural actors in Germany, associations, cultural centers, institutions or even public bodies are to be involved as local partners for the implementation of the projects.

Nowadays, dance and performance are associated with a broad spectrum of equally classical as well as experimental and innovative artistic forms of expression and possibilities for action, the boundaries of which are constantly expanding. Artists for whom the body and its relationship to the social and material environment are essential, who give shape to movement in time and space, who work on living forms of the common or negotiate the boundaries of what can be moved, can explore new paths of artistic participation and production at specific locations within the framework of the program. Places of action can be the street, the public space, but also physical and virtual stages of all kinds. At the same time, this creates opportunities to examine the potential and limitations of performance venues.

Both in the international New Patrons network and in the pilot phase in Germany, civic commissions in the past already exemplified the potential of performative disciplines to bring people together regardless of age, background, and prior knowledge and to address their concerns artistically. For In C – Marler Partitur by Sasha Waltz (photo), around one hundred citizens danced together with 16 internationally working dancers at architecturally significant locations in the city of Marl in September 2022. The exemplary project was developed together with the company Sasha Waltz & Guests and local actors. Tanz und Performance im Bürgerauftrag consolidates experiences from the pilot phase of the New Patrons and the international context. The program builds on previous successes, opens up citizen-commissioned art to other aesthetic forms, and expands the radius of the projects to places with less cultural infrastructure throughout Germany.

During the pilot phase, from 2017 to 2022, a total of around 700 patrons and active participants were directly involved at 17 locations of action. They worked there with 31 international artists. Over 20,000 people were reached as an audience – even under difficult Corona conditions. The New Patrons also became visible in the cultural-political discourse. This included the 2021 project being awarded the Innovation Prize of the Deutsche Kulturpolitische Gesellschaft (German Society for Cultural Policy).

Following the pilot phase, the Gesellschaft für Kunst und Mediation im Bürgerauftrag e.V. was founded in 2022 to represent the interests of New Patrons mediators in Germany. The association offers its members peer-to-peer consultations and organizes training and continuing education in the New Patrons mediation model. The association and the non-profit organisation Gesellschaft der Neuen Auftraggeber promote the model throughout Germany to local authorities, institutions and funders and provide advice on adapting the model to local conditions and needs. They are part of an international network that is implementing the model in a growing number of countries and regions.

Since 1991, first in France and later in other regions of Europe and beyond, thousands of people have already commissioned over 500 projects in all possible fields of contemporary arts. Together with outstanding contemporary artists, they have given form and shape as well as weight to the art commissioned by citizens and thus also to a new cultural-political idea.

Image: Presentation of Sasha Waltz: In C – Marler Partitur, for the New Patrons of Marl, project from the pilot phase of the New Patrons, Marl 2022, Photo: Florian Wagner

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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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