Who does (not) play a role?

Summer 2011. A hot Saturday afternoon on the glass top floor of Düsseldorf's Ministry of Culture and Education - in every aspect. Politicians, artists, cultural managers passionately discussing structures and chances of our local cultural landscape. Kaspar König couldn't help but start an argument all of a sudden: the director of the Ludwig Museum - an icon among the internal museum scene - known as disputatious and impulsive can become both loud and personal.

His rage is aimed at a pale man in the audience who is roughly in his fourties. Yet it stands for an entire attitude that questions established structures of the cultural industry with other criteria than art - and not even with economic ones but with those of justice, empathy and solidarity. The rather cautiously put almost appealing question is as follows: Where do immigrants have a space in the cultural framework?

They aren't hard to find in the streets and open spaces in Northrhine-Westphalia but this changes instantly if you enter the representative buildings of the state - even in culture. Theatres, museums, libraries are - apart from international artitsts and tourists - zones that are almost free of foreigners. This might be exaggerating a bit since there are a few good projects and some best practice examples from urban centres and the countryside. Yet the speaker at the politico-cultural dialogue in Düsseldorf meant everydaylife, the average, the mainstream. And: If it wasn't up to art and culture to lead the way rather than to follow as it still seems to be the case? The obvious no from the grand professor in Cologne is exemplary: You didn't hire or fire people because they came from here or there. Quality is what mattered in the end, this has always been the credo of the established. And since everyone got a chance it was only fair if...

Where are the immigrants, the foreigners?

Before we nodd or shake our head let's wait for a moment and avoid lamenting on the unjust cultural world or the evil world in general. Let's take a look at this world and into the scene for the next three months: Where are the immigrants, the foreigners? Are they getting up or are they sitting in front of the stages? Do they only put up pictures on their walls or do they help determine what is to be shown in our museums? Are the adults sending their children to the library or do they go as well? What do they read - and who picks it? In the end we take a look at who is deciding on all this - in ministries, regional authorities and cultural offices.

We can already say this much: The answers won't come easily! "Oh well" is what you tend to say as they are never easy if you take a closer look.  But this is exactly why we want to do it at the end of 2011. And to check if the cultural scene - with regards to worldwide mobility and freedom of establishment - is as modern as it is trying to convey to us and maybe even to itself. Or - with regards to German everydaylife - it might even be more so than it wants to be. We will at least know more about the role of immigrants in a few weeks time.

 to be continued ...

Photo:

body painting © Andrey Kiselev - Fotolia.com