21.03.2024

Every year, the projects for the coming year are selected at a general assembly of nGbK members. Participation in the general assembly is open to all members while guests can attend the event without voting. On March 15 and 16, the 165th general assembly of the nGbK took place in the Stadtwerkstatt right next to the new nGbK premises, where it took place in the last two years already.

This year, there were 23 projects to choose from, each applying for an event or exhibition project to occupy the new exhibition spaces in 2025; as well as three applications in the recently introduced „third-party funding category“ with which the nGbK provides start-up funding for larger-scale projects.

Not least, the project general assembly is always an opportunity to discuss the nGbK’s common principles and aspirations. On the first day of the two-day event, the nGbK’s climate officer presented an input on climate neutrality; and the new focus group on anti-discrimination presented its plans for a series of talks on the current cultural climate surrounding issues of anti-Semitism and racism.

On the second day, the applicants briefly presented their projects and answered questions from the membership. All projects had already been visible for a week on the nGbK website in a short version, and the full applications were available to all members. From the large number of submissions, three proposals were finally selected for realization in 2025: „Viral Intimacies“, which deals with the current conditions of HIV/AIDS, „East UnBloc Chain“ on experimental media art works and practices from Central and Eastern Europe, and „Activist Choreographies of Care“, which aims to open a satellite studio of the perfocraZe International Artist Residency (pIAR) from Kumasi in Berlin. The third-party funding project „Dissident Paths: Walking together as a Method“ was also selected.

In addition to discussing the content of the individual projects, the assembly also provided a framework for more fundamental debates: What are the demands on the annual program as a whole? How much digital participation, how much joint discussion in the room should be possible? Do strategic planning considerations overlook the independent quality and urgency of the individual projects? In keeping with the polyphony of the nGbK, such questions are constantly being renegotiated and updated.

15.12.2024

2023 marked the beginning of a new chapter for the nGbK in various respects: in addition to the move, the nGbK set out to position itself more clearly in sustainability discourses and to use its multiplier effect as an art institution. Through artistic-curatorial work, an aesthetic of sustainability is to be developed on a human, non-human, social, economic, and ecological level, opening up new perspectives on future forms of coexistence.

For the project SALT. CLAY. ROCK. (2023-2024), nGbK received funding from the “Fonds Zero” of the German Federal Cultural Foundation, a funding that aims to support cultural institutions in testing climate-neutral forms of cultural production and new aesthetics with the lowest possible carbon-footprint. To this end, project-related emissions are to be avoided, reduced, or compensated according to nationally or internationally certified standards.

Tackling the pasts and futures of nuclear infrastructures in Germany and Hungary and thus linking the topics of climate and nuclear power, the project presented its first results in a research assembly in November 2023. Activists, artists, researchers, and thinkers here shared their insights on nuclear cultural heritage, anti-nuclear resistance, energy futures, and the ‘green transition’, illustrated by a research display in the exhibition space.

In addition, the “Fonds Zero” funding made it possible to create the position of a climate officer, who prepares a climate balance sheet for the entire institution and looks for potential savings in emissions. As one of the first concrete measures adopted in summer 2023, the nGbK voted for a volontary commitment to avoid flights for routes that can be covered in less than eight hours by train.

Similarly, the move to Karl-Liebknecht-Straße was all about sustainability. The space in an existing building from the 1970s was reconstructed in an environmentally friendly manner. With a view to future reuse, interventions in the existing building were kept to a minimum and spatial interventions were reduced to the essentials – a decision that hints at the interim use of the building and keeps resource consumption low. Ecological materials such as straw panels and clay were used for all new installations.

The façade work living elements by Folke Köbberling also uses recycled materials. Geometrical objects made of wood and raw wool attached to the outside of the building, reminiscent of the letters nGbK, provide a nesting place for birds. The curtain HEXAGON on the window front, created by Köbberling in collaboration with Alexa Kreissl, makes use of discarded drinks cartons – towards a more sustainable materiality.