Berlin wants to work on a large “freedom exhibition” this year with a view to the 40th anniversary of the peaceful revolution in the GDR in 1989. In three years it may replace the Berlin Global exhibition in the Humboldt Forum.
Berliners interested in culture can also look forward to a festival marking the 65th anniversary of the building of the Wall on August 13th. Other highlights include the Long Night of the Museums on August 29th and the 15th edition of Berlin Art Week from September 9th to 13th.
The 20th anniversary of the state-owned company Kulturprojekte Berlin, which is behind these major events, actually calls for champagne. Given the current austerity measures, it’s fitting that a press conference in Podewil on Wednesday morning will be celebrated with nothing but pretzels and coffee.
The cuts remain serious
Culture Senator Sarah Wedl-Wilson (independent) once again confidently emphasized that she had succeeded in limiting the originally planned cuts in Berlin’s cultural budget from 160 to 105 million euros. The cuts, including in cultural projects Berlin, remained “significant”.
Managing director Moritz van Dülmen cannot hide the fact that the cuts have cost jobs and made individual projects impossible. Despite the enthusiasm with which he usually speaks of around 500 projects and 20,000 events, there is a touch of melancholy in the air this Wednesday morning.
Loss of low-threshold projects
In fact, it is primarily the loss of low-threshold projects that has a bitter aftertaste. One look at the Cultural Projects Berlin brochure is enough to make you feel nostalgic. The cultural summer and the youth culture card were introduced after the corona pandemic to support cultural workers and young people interested in culture – and were later abolished again, as if the struggle for existence of creative people and young people’s cultural participation in a city that is becoming increasingly expensive wasn’t becoming increasingly difficult.
Museum Sunday at least once a quarter
Corinna Schedel, Kulturprojekte Berlin
The situation is similar with the admission-free Museum Sunday, which was used by 2.2 million people between 2021 and 2024. As Corinna Schedel from the Berlin Cultural Projects emphasizes, it primarily attracted Berliners. The figures show that an audience was reached that would otherwise hardly have found their way to the museum.
“We miss the museum Sunday sorely,” says Schedel. Despite the coffee and pretzels, her words set a hopeful tone: they were working on finding private money for it and being able to implement it “at least once a quarter,” says Wedl-Wilson at the end.