Über Lebenskunst: the Call For Future
Urban beekeepers, carrot mobs or Wiki woods: The two-year program Über Lebenskunst is underway with the Call For Future which marks the start of the joint project of the German Federal Cultural Foundation and the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin. This project aims to find groundbreaking initiatives for new models of ecologically sustainable living both in and for Berlin with partners from around the world.Anyone who submits their application form by May 24, 2010 has the chance at both conceptual and financial project support. Up to 20,000 euros will be awarded to projects that convincingly bring together culture and sustainability and defy odds to put new ecological models for thought and action to the test for the 21st century.
Curator Paula Marie Hildebrandt: “We don’t want to capitulate in the face of environmental catastrophe nor do we want to preach that everyone needs to learn to downscale. What we need is a fundamental cultural shift at all levels of society.”
The Call For Future is a key element in this project that aims to create new spaces for researching and testing out forward-looking activities. Its jury is made up of figures from the realms of art and culture, politics and media, civil society, science and business. The following have already confirmed their participation: Ole von Uexküll, Executive Director of the Right Livelihood Foundation (alternate Nobel Prize) from Stockholm, the London-based urban and creativity researcher, Charles Landry, and Daniel Boese from the Berlin city magazine, zitty.
The Über Lebenskunst initiatives chosen will invite visitors to experience and try out new spaces for thought and action in the summer of 2011. This will take place as part of the Über Lebenskunst theme festival in the Haus der Kulturen der Welt and in various locations in Berlin.
Starting September 2010, a group of artists and creative individuals will receive training in cooperation with the Future Institute (Institut FUTUR) of Berlin’s Free University in a newly developed program to practice a future art of sustainable living with children and young people in schools. The question is also asked here: how can a productive exchange of ideas be initiated between the realms of art, science, civil society and education, an exchange that brings new ideas for environmentally sustainable living and incorporates them into social practice?
An initiative project of the Federal Cultural Foundation in cooperation with the Haus der Kulturen der Welt.
Contact:
Andrea Peschel
“Über Lebenskunst” project
c/o Haus der Kulturen der Welt
John-Foster-Dulles-Allee 10
10557 Berlin
presse@ueber-lebenskunst.org
