Verein-en

KULTURPARK e. V.

A platform for culture in the east

Founded in 2020, Kulturpark e. V. is committed to creating and forming networks between cultural structures in eastern Germany. Kulturpark was set up to provide new platforms on which to explore the social and political history of the East, and above all to give it a new image through the medium of art.

While looking for a way to deal with the lack of communication between the urban centers and the rural areas of eastern Germany, the idea was born to go on the offensive. Kulturpark e. V. is an initiative in which artists work together with companies and institutions to reformulate the cultural landscape of eastern Germany.

One important goal is to create confusion. An image of the East has become stuck in the public consciousness (a consciousness still very much narrated from the perspective of the West), and our aim is to widen and change that image by applying other lenses: the historical, for depth of field, the international, for a wide-angle view, and the local for precision.

“Kulturpark” assumes that the culture is already there and sees its role as that of an amplifier. It is particularly interested in identifying or forging links between industrial and labour history, landscape and culture. It regards the influences of the past as a starting point for an idea of future, and most of all as a starting point for the invention of new formats of storytelling.

For this purpose, the association has designed the festival OSTEN in Bitterfeld-Wolfen, which took place for the first time in the summer of 2022.

The founding members of the association are (in alphabetical order): Sebastian Baumgarten, Aljoscha Begrich, Matthias Goßler, Ludwig Haugk, Çağla İlk, Sven Johne, Christine Leyerle