Idea
All participants are going to be cultural ambassadors, diplomats of special operations. In addition to activities of the Christian churches, there is a need for both an internal Christian reprocessing and intercultural dialogue of worldviews, with the intention to cause and create peace. The KulturBotschaft also identifies itself as a representative of the large population in Saxony-Anhalt (and elsewhere), which is religiously unaffiliated, however often on a spiritual quest.
Paradigms, beliefs and convictions should not coexist parallel or fight against each other, but endure tensions and benefit from differences. Whether to strengthening the own profile or seeing positions from a different and reconsidering-or even to embrace.
The KulturBotschaft stands for education, humanism and new impulses in traditional line: the Reformers Philipp Melanchthon, Luther, Katharina von Bora and the Cranachs - but also the "historical Dr. Faustus", Prince Hamlet (as a student in Shakespeare’s world drama), Thomas Müntzer, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Giordano Bruno, Novalis ("Every human is his own center"?), Anton Wilhelm Amo (Germany’s first professor of African origin) - and many more have marked Wittenberg as cultural world heritage.
The KulturBotschaft’s headquarter is located in Jüdenstrasse 5, vis-à-vis to the Stadtkirche, in the immediate vicinity of the pulpit where Luther preached from. Located to the ground floor’s salesroom is the former bookstore and publishing house "Max Senf".
The former bookstore may be used as an event space; the store is set in its historical context and revived after several years of vacancy and other use as a place of intellectual exchange. A large garden and yard are providing space for projects and meetings. The Max-Senf-House is going to be a project house, a Permanent Representation of the cultural scenes of Berlin, of Wittenberg’s twin towns and the world. It’s place of mutual respect. This central "power/spiritual spot" in the former Jewish quarter, located between two Christian churches and the former observatory allows to connect up to history and to experience how history imprints on our life here and now.
Despite the financial crisis the KulturBotschaft believes in the European idea. The European idea-following the ancient idea of universality, which found a home in Wittenberg during the Renaissance-must also apply to religious practices and discourses. An "inter-religious dialogue", or a "dialogue of worldviews" is inseparable from cultural and sociological issues. The power lies in the combination of these approaches.
In addition to religions and beliefs, which will be set in connection and need to be discussed during the following years, the KulturBotschaft is interested in art, cultural studies and sociological issues as a second main pillar-which might be completed by a scientifical discourse later. Here theoretical concepts are illuminated just as seemingly mundane everyday things with interdisciplinary resources; the gained knowledge is edited artistically and presented for discussion. Programmatically to this conflict the KulturBotschaft started in 2013 provoking with the event series "Province and Precarity/Precariousness" with various individual projects.
Initial point will be the look at the concrete living conditions of citizens from different social classes and age groups. How is everyday life in Saxony-Anhalt, which problems do the people of the region have to face, what they are dreaming of, what are they establishing by themselves? The perception of the own city shall be documented with various media. Stereotypes of small towns and Eastern Germany/the former GDR are defeated. What makes Wittenberg beyond the historical backdrop will be pointed out?