Our Dates

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

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

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…

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…

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.

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…

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…

Thank you very much for your support in the past year! We wish you peaceful and healthy holidays and look forward to seeing you again in the new year.

Have fun with these impressions from 2020!

WATCH VIDEO

PETITIONS, PROTESTS, LIQUIDE DEMOCRACY – FANTASIES OF EMPOWERMENT OR MUCH-NEEDED DEMOCRACY UPDATE? 

PANEL DISCUSSION AT GRÜNER SALON OF VOLKSBÜHNE BERLIN

With
Lewamm Ghebremariam, campaign strategist at Change.org e. V., founder of the network Wake Up Eritrea, board member of Clubcommission e. V.
Christopher Lauer, publicist and former member of the Berlin House of Representatives
Alexander Koch, director of the Gesellschaft der Neuen Auftraggeber (Society of New Patrons)

Moderation
Christine Watty, Deutschlandfunk Kultur

We are pleased to present the 8th edition of our event series Whatever you Want! in collaboration with Volksbühne Berlin as an online format.

WATCH DISCUSSION

Online petitions, iconoclasms and toppling monuments, civil disobedience and bottom-up processes—current…

Empowerment fantasies or an urgently needed democracy update? Online petitions, iconoclasm and monument overthrow, civil disobedience and bottom-up processes - current models of participation have one thing in common: they think civil society voice beyond representative democratic processes. For example, the Fridays for Future movement and Black Lives Matter protests have raised public awareness of demands to deal with climate change and racism in recent months. Are these mobilisations an expression of the often cited "crisis of democracy" or, on the contrary, a sign of the vitality of the democratic model?