Call for Future

The ÜBER LEBENSKUNST project, an initiative project of the Federal Cultural Foundation in cooperation with the House of World Cultures, is turning the city of Berlin into a showcase for initiatives that bring together culture and sustainability and experiment with new models for action. They are looking for artistic projects and social initiatives that turn the impossible into a reality.

Whether neighborhood gardens, urban beekeepers, Wiki woods or climate pirates on Berlin’s Spree River: Models that put new forms of ecologically sustainable living to the test can be found everywhere in the world.

With the Call for Future, the ÜBER LEBENSKUNST wants to strengthen the dedication, spirit of innovation and expertise of local initiatives, bring these initiatives together and give them a broader public platform. To achieve this goal, a call for artistic and social initiatives has been put out to apply for project funding. Both conceptual and financial support will be provided (up to a maximum of €20,000 per project) for selected projects through to the final ÜBER LEBENSKUNST Festival to be held in the summer of 2011. Artistic projects are expressly welcomed, social initiatives and ideas from elsewhere that are carried out jointly with local partners both in and for Berlin. The application deadline is May 24, 2010.

The environment you work in is one that inspires groundbreaking new ideas. Which is why it’s important to pass the Call for Future along to your networks and contacts. Call For Future has been translated into 9 languages so that we can reach all of Berlin’s larger communities – Arabic, English, French, Polish, Russian, Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian, Spanish, Turkish and Vietnamese. The application form is available for downloading from www.ueber-lebenskunst.org/call.html.

ÜBER LEBENSKUNST is looking forward to receiving your utopian designs, project ideas and (im)possible suggestions.

By Sacha Kagan

Research Associate at the ISCO - Institute of Sociology and Cultural Organization (ISKO - Institut für Soziologie und Kulturorganisation), Leuphana University Lueneburg, Sacha Kagan founded the International level of Cultura21, Network for Cultures of Sustainability, as well as the International Summer School of Arts and Sciences for Sustainability in Social Transformation (ASSiST). The focus of his research and cultural work lies in the trans-disciplinary field of arts and (un-)sustainability. Doctor in Philosophy (Leuphana University Lueneburg) with a thesis on the subject of culture, the arts and sustainability under the perspective of complexity ; M.A. in Cultural Economics (Erasmus University Rotterdam) ; and Graduate of Sciences Po Bordeaux (political sciences). For Cultura21, Sacha is also coordinating the eBooks series, the regular updates on our multi-lingual website, the English section of our webmagazine and the work of our Lueneburg-based interns.