On 10 September, HKW Artistic Director Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, Assistant Artistic Director Henriette Gallus, and Co-Curators Ibou Diop and Max Czollek introduced the project heimaten, which is supported by the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW). heimaten seeks to redefine the term Heimat (roughly: homeland, hometown, with strong emotional and often identitarian associations often exploited by the far right) with a view to the real, plural composition of Germany’s society, beginning with a four-year, Germany-wide programme.
The project will be carried out by a network of civil society initiatives and cultural institutions in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, including (besides the CPPD) DialoguePerspectives. Discussing Religions and Worldviews and many other CPPD network partners such as Decolonize Berlin e.V., ausARTen, Each One Teach One (EOTO) e.V., Schauspielhaus Wien, Wertansich(t), fluctoplasma, Initiative 19. Februar Hanau, RomaTrial e.V., and many others.
The programme has many plans, including a discourse series (2025), which will bring together strategies of Heimat-isation with questions of plural remembrance work, as well as two festivals: the De-Berlinisierung Festival in March 2025 at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt Berlin, and the dezentrale heimaten Festival, which will take place in collaboration with cooperation partners from all German-speaking countries over the course of September up until the German Federal Elections.
Further information on ‘heimaten’, the network, and the opening programme (13-15 September 2024) can be found here: heimaten. We look forward to the next four years of collaboration!
