Talk in Berlin, on 7.12.2023
Welcome to the panel talk
Engage. Culture for all
We invite you to the studio of the DRIVE. Volkswagen Group Forum, in Berlin, on December 7, 2023, at 5:30 PM.
Experts and people with experience will talk about where we stand in our society when it comes to access to art and culture and the participation of as many people as possible in cultural experiences and cultural education.
What measures are helpful in breaking down inhibitions and how do we open the doors so that we come closer to our common goal of “culture for all”?
After the talk, we look forward to chatting over a glass of wine.
Prof. Dr. Birgit Mandel is Professor of Cultural Mediation and Cultural Management at the University of Hildesheim, head of the Master's degree program in Cultural Mediation and the Bachelor's degree program in Cultural Studies and Artistic Practice. She is also a member of the supervisory board of Berlin Kulturprojekte GmbH and a member of the board of trustees of the Commerzbank Foundation, for which she developed the “ZukunftsGut” award for institutional cultural mediation, as well as a member of the board of trustees of the Allianz Foundation. In addition, Birgit Mandel is a founding member of the Association for Cultural Management and conducts research at the interface of cultural mediation, cultural education, audience development, cultural management and cultural policy by conducting visitor studies and population surveys.
Elena Kountidou is the managing director of the NGO Neue deutsche Medienmacher*innen (NdM), which campaigns for more diversity in journalism and non-discriminatory media work and advises on how to deal with disinformation and digital violence. A graduate in journalism studies, she has worked at the interface of culture and media for the European broadcaster Arte, for the German Federal Cultural Foundation in cooperation with the Haus der Kulturen der Welt and for the Konzerthaus Berlin. She has developed mediation concepts in the digital space in interdisciplinary projects and has received numerous awards for her work.
Benita von Maltzahn, Director Cultural Engagement at Volkswagen Group, is responsible for the cultural and social engagement of the Volkswagen Group. Her work focuses on strengthening initiatives that open up cultural education and social participation to as many people as possible. To this end, she works actively with international institutions and players from the world of art and culture, which has enabled Volkswagen to offer a broad public a wide range of encounters with creative ideas and works. Long-standing partnerships with the New York Museum of Modern Art (MoMA/MoMA PS1), the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin and the collaboration with the Salzburg Easter Festival as well as the development of the Music Tech Symposia were initiated and expanded under her leadership. The Volkswagen Group also began collaborating with the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and renowned institutions in China and the Arab world, while also intensively promoting cultural projects at its company locations.
Till Fellrath has been Director of Hamburger Bahnhof - Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart in Berlin together with Sam Bardaouil since January 2022. Since 2009, they have collaborated with over 70 museums worldwide through their interdisciplinary curatorial platform Art Reoriented. Most recently, they were curators of the 16th Lyon Biennale in 2022 under the title “Manifesto of Fragility”. At the Venice Biennale 2022, they were curators of the French Pavilion, as well as the Pavilions of Lebanon 2013 and the United Arab Emirates 2019. In Berlin, they were associate curators at the Gropius Bau from 2017 to 2021, where they curated the exhibitions “Walking through Walls” (2019) and “Beirut and the Golden Sixties” (2022). Till Fellrath studied political science and economics and holds master's degrees from the University of St. Gallen and the London School of Economics. Until 2022, he was Professor of Design-Related Sciences at the Academy of Fine Arts in Nuremberg.
Claudia Ehgartner lives in Berlin, studied education and art history in Vienna and completed a postgraduate course in communication at the Institute for Cultural Studies. She worked for many years as a freelance art and cultural mediator and founded the trafo.K office with colleagues in 1999. From 2000 to 2007 she headed the art education department at Kunsthalle Wien and from 2007 to 2018 the art education and visitor service department at mumok, Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien. From 2002 to 2006 she was a member of the core team of the university course “ecm” at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Since 2018 she has been working as a research assistant for the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, and since 2023 she has been responsible for art education at Hamburger Bahnhof | Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart Berlin.
Moderation
Felix von Boehm was born in Heidelberg and grew up in Paris. After studying film studies, political science and history, he founded the communication agency art/beats, which specializes in digital communication for cultural institutions and museums and is active throughout Germany. After studying film production at the Filmakademie Ludwigsburg and La Fémis Paris, he founded the film production company LUPA FILM GmbH, with which he produced the Grimme Prize-winning television series EDEN (ARD) and the feature film FABIAN, which won the German Film Prize and the Günter Rohrbach Prize.
Culture for All - Photo credits: Credit Kountidou: © Kristina Frick, Credit Mandel: © Victoria Tomaschko, Credit Maltzahn: © Volkswagen Group, Credit Fellrath: Tim Fellrath © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin / Juliane Eirich, Credit Ehgartner: Claudia Ehgartner © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Credit: von Boehm Photocredit: art/beats
The DRIVE
The must-see attraction in the heart of Berlin: welcome to the Volkswagen Group Forum! Welcome to a place brimming with movement, meet-ups and mobility.