Workshop of Cultures
The Workshop of Cultures was an event center in Berlin . It was the only Berlin cultural institution that focused on transculturality and thus represented the diversity of migrant and minority forms of culture, art and action. The house was funded by the Berlin Senate and was assigned to the area of integration and migration. The Workshop of Cultures is organized as a registered association, the sponsorship lies with the Verein Brauerei Wissmannstraße e. V. The workshop was opened on October 23, 1993 and was located on Wissmannstrasse in the Neukölln district , in the building of the former Bergschloßbrauerei.
management
According to the Berliner Zeitung, the first manager of the workshop was dismissed by the association in January 1994 after about six months of work due to "improper management". From 1994 to 2008 the cultural manager Andreas Freudenberg headed the Werkstatt der Kulturen.
Philippa Ebéné was the managing director and artistic director of the workshop from 2008 to 2019 . Ebéné studied ethnology and folklore, worked as an actress and PR consultant, founded the acting studio for professional actors forum für filmschauspiel e. V as well as the acting ensemble abok. For her achievements as managing director of the Werkstatt der Kulturen she was awarded the honorary prize of the M Berlin Marketing Award in 2010, because the transcultural orientation of the house strengthens the liberal image of the capital and thus the Berlin location. With numerous in-house productions and various festivals, the Werkstatt der Kulturen depicts the cultural creations and perspectives of Berliners from over 180 nations.
Event program and projects
According to its own account, the Werkstatt der Kulturen “stood for the celebration of cultural difference like no other institution in the city - it is their raison d'etre ”.
One of the main events of the workshop until 2014 was the organization of the Berlin Carnival of Cultures , which is attended by around one million people every year. At the Carnival of Cultures there is a street parade on Pentecost Sunday, a street festival lasting several days, a children's carnival and various parties. Around 4800 people were involved in the street parade in 2012 and 800 artists performed at the street festival. The event reflected the diversity of Berlin and was launched by the workshop in 1996. In February 2015, the organization of the Berlin Carnival of Cultures became the responsibility of Kulturprojekte Berlin .
According to a study by the Investitionsbank Berlin (IBB) from 2011, the additional gross domestic product generated by the Carnival of Cultures for the period of five years amounts to 53.2 million euros. "Every euro invested [in the Carnival of Cultures ] brings five times the income," says the study. In addition to gastronomy and the hotel industry, the event also benefits retailers, other cultural institutions and service providers. In addition, the Carnival of Cultures creates or maintains 220 jobs in Berlin. The image of the capital also benefits immensely from the street move. In the media, the Carnival of Cultures is not only represented nationwide, but globally and shows Berlin as a young, happy and cosmopolitan metropolis and thus contributes significantly to the Berlin hype.
In addition to the Carnival of Cultures, other festivals were organized, including Black History Month and the Creole Festival - Global Music Contest from Germany. In 2010/2011 the bands Cyminology , Kavpersaz and Kellerkommando won the nationwide competition. In the workshop itself there is a comprehensive cultural program all year round, e.g. B. concerts, theater, conferences or discussion groups. There were also regular series of events such as the World Wide Music and World Wide Cinema concert series .
History and music project "1884"
At the invitation of the workshop, the history conference "1884" took place in Berlin in February 2010. Musicians of African origin were invited to lectures, film screenings and discussions on the topics of the history of Africa before the colonial invasion, language politics in Africa, colonialism in film and African resistance movements against colonial submission. This historical, linguistic, cultural and film studies input, as well as biographical experiences, formed the basis for the production of CD 1884 .
Working group workshop religions and world views
The workshop religions and world views (WRW) is an open working group for the expansion of the interreligious dialogue . It was founded in 2000 by the Werkstatt der Kulturen, meets regularly once a month and publishes the results. In addition, specialist conferences are organized that are particularly aimed at teaching staff. There is a dominant annual theme that determines the exchange, such as “Religion and the digital media world” (2012), “Faith, knowledge, fanaticism” (2011) or “Empathy, compassion, charity” (2010). People who associate themselves with the following religions or have specialist knowledge in them are involved in the working group: Evangelical , Catholic and Serbian-Orthodox Christianity , Sunni and Sufi Islam , Judaism , Hinduism , Buddhism , Sikhism , Baha'i , neo-paganism and secular humanism . The WRW is still active in Wissmannstraße.
Exhibition conflict
In September 2009 there was a discussion about the exhibition The Third World in World War II , which was originally supposed to be shown in the Werkstatt der Kulturen, which was accompanied by wide media coverage .
Support and funding
The sponsoring association "Brauerei Wissmannstrasse eV" is responsible for the Workshop of Cultures. The workshop received grants from the Senate Department for Culture and Europe to finance its infrastructure until the end of 2019. Third-party funding is requested for individual projects and programs. In addition, the workshop generated income from renting its premises.
The Berlin Senate wrote the cultural location Wissmannstr. 32 / Neukölln .
literature
- Workshop of Cultures in Berlin Brauerei Wissmannstrasse e. V. , Berlin 1993 (opening brochure) online (PDF; 1.9 MB)
Web links
- Homepage of the Workshop of Cultures , accessed on December 16, 2012
- Page about the workshop at Karneval-Berlin.de , accessed on December 16, 2012
- Website of the festival creole - Global Music from Germany , accessed on October 5, 2013
- Blog of the history and music project "1884" , accessed on October 5, 2013
- Video interview with Philippa Ebéné [1] accessed on October 20, 2013
- History of the Workshop of Cultures
- Company brochure from 1993 about the beginnings of the Workshop of Cultures PDF
Individual evidence
- ↑ Antje Gragley: No Understanding - Tensions in the Neukölln Workshop of Cultures. In: Berliner Zeitung
- ↑ global music academy ( Memento of the original from October 6, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Video interview with Philippa Ebéné, Werkstatt der Kulturen
- ↑ "We need a quota for diversity" . In: the daily newspaper , October 20, 2008
- ↑ Self-presentation & mission statement. Workshop of Cultures, June 2015, accessed on August 30, 2019 . P. 14.
- ↑ Carnival of Cultures: Parade of Diversity in Berlin saved. In: Der Tagesspiegel. May 6, 2015, accessed October 4, 2019 .
- ↑ Study by the Investitionsbank Berlin
- ^ Workshop Religions ( Memento of the original from October 21, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ About us. Workshop of Cultures. Art Culture Action 2018. In: www.werkstatt-der-kulturen.de. July 10, 2019, accessed October 4, 2019 .
- ^ Neukölln cultural institution: What does the Senate have against the Workshop of Cultures? In: www.tagesspiegel.de. July 10, 2019, accessed October 4, 2019 .
