50 Years of the Kulturpolitische Gesellschaft – Shaping the Cultural Policy Debate in Germany

This year marks the convergence of two significant milestones in cultural policy and for me personally: The Kulturpolitische Gesellschaft (KuPoGe) is celebrating its 50th anniversary, and its founding president, Olaf Schwencke, turned 90. He is a great role model for me in his commitment as a European politician and cultural figure, and he also had a decisive influence on my active time as a cultural policy maker in the Bundestag.

KuPoGe was founded in 1976 in the wake of the reformist political engagement of the 1970s — all social classes should have access to art and culture, and appropriate policies should make that possible. To this day, and hopefully for a long time to come, the KuPoGe remains an important voice, a dynamic shaper of discourse, and an attentive companion to social processes. This January, the 71st Loccum Cultural Policy Colloquium in Loccum focused on analyzing the past 50 years and assessing the impact of the KuPoGe — and on defining its role today.

For in today’s digital age, social currents, trends, and cultural developments usually evolve in parallel with cultural policy—and at a breakneck pace. Can cultural policy, then, only adapt rather than set the agenda? And how can it, with its short-term funding models, serve as a constant in the world of artists and cultural practitioners?

Markus Hilgert, who is currently president of KuPoGe, coined the term “resilient cultural policy” to describe this, meaning that cultural policy should provide stronger guidance. It should be oriented toward supporting “sustainability, diversity, redundancy, capacity building, and institutional stability.” In doing so, it “simultaneously strengthens the resilience of society as a whole and thus also contributes to securing democratic capacity for action in the long term.”

Click here for Markus Hilgert’s article in “Politik & Kultur” (German)

I agree with him. In my view, culture is the foundation for all the debates we have. A society’s culture determines which values are important to us and how we act or react in certain situations. The framework we are given shapes whether and how we get involved. All issues of sustainability and climate protection must also be viewed through this interpretation of the concept of culture—that is, culture broadly understood as the totality of the spiritual, material, intellectual, and emotional aspects that characterize a society. Expanding the concept of culture to encompass this broad self-understanding has made it possible to view culture as the foundation for sustainable development. Olaf Schwencke, too, always considered culture and nature as inseparable. However, it took years for the topic to gain relevance within KuPoGe. Since the late 1990s, sustainability and climate protection have been an integral part of the KuPoGe program.

What role should cultural policy play today? My approach falls within what Markus Hilfert describes as “resilient cultural policy.” Cultural policy must promote what allows people to develop as creative beings who think and act with a serious commitment to sustainability. This means it must foster the ability to identify problems and find potential solutions, to act according to ethical principles, and to connect one’s own initiatives with the opportunities for action available to others, while supporting these efforts. It must promote education and participation in this direction, for example through the strategy of future workshops in educational work. I am not only concerned with children and young people here, but also with implementation in companies or government agencies. This would also be a new source of income for cultural professionals! Through its two pillars of scholarship and political work, KuPoGe is ideally suited to advance this focus and shape the discourse.

Book “50 Years of KuPoGe” in the KuPoGe online shop (German)