Opening of the event series "DEMOKRATIE FEIERN - D.EINFEST" from November 2024 - April 2025 in the Social Innovation Lab of the HWG LU.
A cooperation project between HWG LU and Kultur Rhein-Neckar e.V. (KRN e.V.)
The Social Innovation Lab of the Ludwigshafen University of Business and Society (HWG LU) is located in a previously vacant store in the centrally located pedestrian zone of Bismarckstraße. Since the opening of the new campus in Ernst-Boehe-Straße, the Social Innovation Lab has been something of a satellite of the university in the city center. In addition to its lively use as a teaching space, the Social Innovation Lab (SoIL) is intended to be a place where the university can make its presence felt and become visible as an actor in urban society.
On the basis of a cooperation between the HWG LU and the association "Kultur-Rhein-Neckar e.V.", which has existed since the summer, the continuation of the event series "DEMOKRATIE FEIERN - D.EINFEST" was opened there last Monday evening (28.10.2024). Against the backdrop of increasingly right-wing populist to far-right social trends and growing concern about the threat to democracy, more than 200 cultural activists in the metropolitan area Rhine-Neckar signed a declaration "For a strong democracy" initiated by Kultur-Rhein-Neckar e.V. in March 2024. Since then, 22 artistic events have taken place in public places in Ludwigshafen.
The new program follows the line of addressing issues of democratic coexistence from both artistic and scientific approaches. The program is aimed at the public and consists of a mixture of different formats such as film screenings and aesthetic interventions, moderated dialogues and artistic works, music events and discussion rounds. Musicians and visual artists from the metropolitan region as well as students and educators from HWG LU and Heidelberg University are involved. Also involved in the program are representatives of Ludwigshafen's urban society, such as Kerstin Bartels as pastor of the city center and Osman Gürsoy as head of the northern city center, Miriam Alberti, managing director of Local Agenda 21 Ludwigshafen and Rosanna Cavallaro, head of the international women's meeting place Ludwigshafen.
On the opening evening, the Social Innovation Lab shone out into the pedestrian zone in bright colors. The artists Sabine Amelung and Michaela Jäkel from the JaaH collective, together with filmmaker Klaus Woller, had impressively staged the space with a walk-in installation documenting the artistic actions "DEMOKRATIE FEIERN - D.EINFEST" that had taken place to date. The invitation to the opening ceremony was accepted by numerous cultural activists from the region as well as a number of actors from the city. The university was represented not only by university management and teaching staff, but also by students, as well as residents from the immediate neighborhood - who are always particularly welcome at SoIL - and 'random' passers-by.
Dr Andrea Lutz-Kluge (Professor of Aesthetic Education and Socioculture) and Heike Arend (Director of the Landkreistag Rhineland-Palatinate and Chair of the University Council) gave welcoming speeches; Eleonore Hefner (Chair of KRN e.V.) presented the new program "DEMOKRATIE FEIERN - D.EINFEST" for November 2024 to April 2025. The group "Ethnofolk" led by Bernhard Vanecek and Tayfun Ates enriched the evening with great dance music.
More information about the association: https://kulturrheinneckar.de/
Professional contact:
Ludwigshafen University of Business and Society
Department of Social and Health Care
Prof. Dr. Andrea Lutz-Kluge
Andrea.Lutz-Kluge@ 8< SPAM protection, please remove >8 hwg-lu.de
"Kultur-Rhein-Neckar e.V."
Eleonore Hefner
info@ 8< SPAM protection, please remove >8 kulturrheinneckar.de
