Hannover 2025 - Agora of Europe (English Version)

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

Kurt Schwitters Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (Leipzig, 1646 – Hannover, 1716), German philosopher, mathematician, lawyer, historian and political advisor. The polymath was one of the most important philosophers of the late 17th and early 18th centuries, and one of the key figures in the Enlightenment.

Kurt Schwitters (Hannover, 1887 – England, 1948), German artist who developed his own form of Dadaism, which he called MERZ. Today he is considered one of the most influential artists of the early 20th century.

The world’s largest collection of works by this multifaceted Hanoverian artist is one of the fundamental pillars of the Sprengel Museum Hannover. The centrepiece of the exhibition is the reconstruction of the ›Merzbau‹, a three-dimensional walk-in installation combining various art forms.

prologue

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the abyss

ou’ve come so far, travelled for so long. And then all of a sudden there it is: the abyss, yawning darkly in front of you. You stop at the edge, stare down and realise you can’t go any further, not a single step. Because this is not just some pothole you can skirt around or leap over in one determined bound. It’s a gaping chasm that disappears into the distance in both directions, and you can only guess at how far down it goes.

What has happened? An entire country – one of the most populous in Europe – has decided to leave the Union. And at the same time, more and more anti-EU parties are winning seats in European parliaments, eating into the heart of the Union. It’s faltering. After decades of existence, of growth and collective struggles to shape its future, its ability to survive has never been more in doubt. You ask yourself: is it possible, in light of all these upheavals, to carry on as normal? To do everything the same way we always have, as if nothing’s changed?

A nd then a consultant from an agency comes to see you, and tells you that

the deadline for bids for the title of European Capital of Culture 2025 is fast approaching. A very, very important deadline, he says. But you needn’t worry. He’s already written lots of Bid Books for various cities and he knows exactly what to do. He shows you the work he’s done over the past few years: dozens of bids, all highly original and attractively presented. His agency, he says, offers nothing less than a bespoke, engaging bid proposal featuring all the right buzzwords, with a catchy motto that will make a big impression on the jury. The previous examples he shows you talk about ›open spaces‹, ›open minds‹ and ›frameworks‹, about ›empowerment‹ and ›urban labs‹. And pretty much all the cities, you notice, are located ›at the heart of Europe‹ and are hubs of communication and cultural exchange. The consultant stands beside you, nods, and finally names a price for his art.

Is this what people want? Ready-made originality? Doesn’t this rob every word of its utopian potential? You ask yourself: doesn’t a bid written in 2019 need to strike a completely different tone from one written five years ago, after all that has happened?

Doesn’t it need to respond directly to the cultural and political realities of our continent, to the rift running through Europe? Shouldn’t it be about the genuine – and now so urgently necessary – coming together of people as equals?

The consultant stands there in front of you, waiting. You say nothing. Other voices than this one are called for, you decide. So you turn away, and before you know it there is Kurt Schwitters, the Dadaist, wearing a broad smile and a crumpled shirt. He greets you with a firm handshake. And he’s not alone: he’s accompanied by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, the great European and Enlightenment philosopher, in his trademark wig. Two men, surprise, surprise.

Europe is standing at the edge of a precipice, and they send two men to save the world. The three of you look doubtfully into the abyss.

But it seems the two men have a plan.

1 Why are they here, you ask the two men, and Kurt replies: »The residents of our native city have decided

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to bid for the title of European Capital of Culture. It was not local government, not political parties, not the mayor, but the people themselves – back in 2016, as part of the Mein Hannover 2030 civil dialogue series – who provided the impetus for this bid. It’s important to examine this more deeply.« »One thing is clear: Hannover needs Europe,« says Gottfried. The state capital of Lower Saxony has always been an international city, which throughout its history has benefited from exchanges with the wider world.

The city’s cosmopolitan character is not just due to the fact that it ranks among Europe’s top trade-fair cities, or that it is home to major multinationals, or that it is an important academic centre. Nor is it the historical personal union from 1714 to 1837, during which time Great Britain and Hannover were ruled by the same king. The main thing that makes the city so international is the people who live here. They come from 178 nations, and speak 72 different languages. Half of all the families living here are from a migrant background, and have relatives all over Europe and across the world. On Ernst-August-Platz Square outside the central train station, a young man is handing out leaflets to passers-by. They contain a utopian manifesto – nobody knows who wrote it, but it’s been causing uproar in the city ever since the application process began. »Why does Europe need Hannover?« it says. »Because Europe is at risk of falling apart from within; because it needs the courage to rethink the concept of the Capital of Culture. Instead of Europe strengthening its cities, Europe’s cities should strengthen Europe. In 2025, Hannover wants to try to bring about this bold paradigm shift by collectively transforming the city into the Agora of Europe.«

A new Agora for Europe

Agora. The Greek word hovers over 1 Why does your city wish the city. Hannover wants to be a modern version of that ancient meeting place, that to take part in the competition cradle of democracy. A forum where the for the title of European Capital of Culture? pressing issues of today’s Europe can be addressed in a joint, interdisciplinary effort, and where new visions can be tested without taboos. »We are aware,« says the manifesto, »that the big questions of our time are enormously complex and polarising: climate change and FridaysForFuture, social divisions and the gilets jaunes, populism and anti-corruption protests.

We are not claiming to have clear and simple solutions. Instead, in keeping with the spirit of the Agora, Hannover must be bold enough to experiment, to risk failure and try again. here, now, everyone for Europe!« That’s all well and good, you think. It all sounds very noble. But why Hannover, which is reputedly such a provincial, even faceless city? Hannover means nothing to you. Hannover has nothing. »We don’t even have a dialect here!« laughs a Hanoverian. »There’s even a song about it: I feel s o - s o , h e re in Ha n n over / I ha v e n o a cce n t a n d n o w i t / We ’ re v e r y a v e ra ge h e re i n H a n n o v e r / I n fa ct we ’ re fa m ed for i t / We d o n ’ t fa ll i n lo v e a t fi rst s i gh t i n H a n n o v e r / D o n ’ t l i ke t o st a n d o u t f ro m t h e crowd / We wear s e n s i ble clo th e s i n H a n n o v e r / H i gh fa s h i o n ’ s n o t wh a t we ’ re a b o u t . But I always say: you cry twice when you come to Hannover – once when you arrive and once when you leave.« Because although it may seem boring from the outside, the people who live here love this state capital with its green surroundings, its quality of life, its rich cultural scene, its infrastructure, its compactness and its cosmopolitanism.

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A strong centre

A city of balance, a city in harmony with itself; not a city of extremes. In the noisy clamour of today’s world, Hannover is a level-headed place. A place that doesn’t panic, but strides calmly onwards with a sure step and a steady pulse. Where voices do not talk over each other but find ways of communicating with each other. A city that is big enough to be heard, but small enough to take risks. A strong centre in which conflicting sides that are increasingly talking at cross-purposes can at least come together. Hannover as the Agora of Europe.

You’re still sceptical – you’ve still got a lot of questions. »That’s good,« says Gottfried. »A critical attitude is what is needed. Everything must be put to the test.« And in order to do that, it won’t be enough just to visit two or three places and have done with it. After all, the answers to your questions are not filed away neatly in some folder somewhere. They are spread all over the city and its environs, and some of them have yet to emerge. Time is short: there’s a lot to see. »So let’s get going,« says Kurt, slipping his arm through yours.

And off you go.

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2 Does your city plan to involve its surrounding

area? Explain this choice.

Key facts about Hannover

Inhabitants: 545,000 (Hannover Region: 1.1 million in total) from 178 countries Total surface area: 2,291 square metres Location: on the Leine river, in the transition region between the north German lowlands and the ›mountains‹ of Lower Saxony History: 1241: city charter, 1636: royal residence of the Guelph dynasty, 1714 – 1837: personal union with Great Britain, from 1866: capital of the Prussian province of Hannover, 1946: capital of the newly created federal state of Lower Saxony Scholarship: one university, many higher education institutions and libraries the 1756 Golden Letter and the letters of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz are on the UNESCO Memory of the World Register Culture: diverse cultural scene with world-renowned theatres and museums; annual international theatre, dance and music festivals; biggest marksmen’s festival and biggest lake festival in Germany (Maschseefest); UNESCO City of Music since 2014 Sport: about 1000 sportclubs in Hannover and the region, as well as football (Hannover 96), handball (TSV Hannover-Burgdorf) and ice-hockey (Hannover Indians) in interregional leagues Architecture: many post-war buildings in the city centre, much of which was destroyed in the Second World War; a substantial number of old buildings in other districts; lots of street art and numerous architectural monuments Economy: home of many world-renowned industrial companies, including Continental AG, Komatsu Hanomag and VW Commercial Vehicles; strong services sector with a focus on tourism (TUI AG); second largest insurance centre in Germany Trade fairs: leading international trade-fair location, boasting Deutsche Messe AG – the largest trade fair organiser in Germany – and the biggest exhibition centre in the world Administration: Hannover has 51 districts and is part of the collectively run local government association for the Hannover Region, which encompasses 21 towns and municipalities Nature: ›the Green City‹: high proportion of green spaces (11 percent); with numerous parks and historical gardens, including the Herrenhausen Gardens; Eilenriede, Europe’s largest urban woodland Infrastructure: excellent transport networks with links to a wide range of national and international destinations, thanks to infrastructure put in place in the run-up to the EXPO 2000 world’s fair

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2 To your surprise, the first thing the three of you do is get on a bus and travel out of the city. This was

Gottfried’s idea. It’s only logical, he says, to work from the outside in. »In this way one can begin to understand many things, including what connects the individual parts of the region as a whole. We must approach such an alliance starting from its edges.« So you travel all over the region, visiting every one of the 21 towns and municipalities that form the Hannover Region. »Nearly 50 percent of the region is made up of designated landscape and nature conservation areas,« the bus driver tells you. Gottfried promptly starts rattling off the Latin names of various small birds. Kurt gets impatient. »Enough with the birds. I want to know what’s going on round here in terms of art and culture.« »Oh, all sorts of things,« says a young woman sitting in front of you, who’s clearly overheard your conversation. »Is there anything in particular you’re interested in? The local councils in the region put on a wide range of different cultural events. There’s the Summer of Culture, for example, Hannover’s regional music festival; there’s the programme of musical and artistic events at Landestrost Castle, the visitor mine in Barsinghausen. And if you’re interested in visual arts, I can recommend the Open Studios art walk. Every spring, artists in the region open up their studios to the public for a few days and present their work. This gives people the opportunity to actually see art being created.« A sense of solidarity in local government Next, you find out the truly special thing about the area in which Hannover is located: its sense of solidarity. The establishment of the Hannover Region in 2001 is still seen as a milestone. The region became a model for how to design a shared living space bringing together a city and its surrounding local councils – the only one of its kind in Germany. What is so unusual about it is the way elected representatives from the local councils work together to address and respond to social changes. services for 1.2 million people across The idea: to organise public 21 towns and municipalities in a neighbourly way. Since the Hannover Region was founded, Hannover and the other towns and municipalities have formed a strong unit. And if you look closely, you will see signs of this unity everywhere. The same buses and waste removal trucks operate inside and outside the state capital, for example. But the region is also responsible for social welfare at the local level, as well as vocational schools and public hospitals. Everything is thought about in a joined-up way. The idea is, you begin to realise, that all of the region’s local councils engage with each other on an equal footing.

The region as Europe in miniature »However! There is something else I want for our region,« says the young woman. »Because here’s the thing: we do have a rich and diverse cultural scene. However! What I feel is missing is visible cultural cohesion. That might just be because it’s so hard to keep track of all the different cultural offerings and events that are going on. Possibly. But I don’t really feel like everything belongs together culturally.« A nd all of a sudden it strikes you that in this respect, the Hannover Region is like a kind of Europe in miniature: an economically successful union, but one which lacks a shared cultural identity. Hannover and Europe both need a more visible sense of cultural connectedness. »After all, you cannot fall in love with a single market or a governance model,« you say, and Kurt replies: »Or, in the words of the great European Jean Monnet: ›If I were to rebuild the European Union from scratch, that’s precisely where I would start – culture.‹« You learn that this is why, while working on its bid, the city of Hannover held a series of workshops with all the mayors and cultural development officers of the region’s 21 towns and municipalities. The goal: to think collaboratively about cultural development and lay the foundations for future co-operation in the field of culture.

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if the city is designated as European Capital of Culture.

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There’s the large Maschsee Lake, the grand City Hall and the baroque Herrenhausen Gardens, which in 2015 were deemed the ›Best Historical Gardens in Europe‹, and which attract 600,000 visitors a year with their International Fireworks Competition and the Herrenhausen KunstFestSpiele arts festival. ›An absolute must-see!‹ There’s lots about music too, of course. After all, the city has been a UNESCO City of Music since 2014. And not just because the vinyl record and the gramophone were invented here, but because Hannover still has a thriving creative industry to this day. »We have the second-biggest music college in the country, as well as the famous Staatsoper and the Kuppelsaal, the largest classical concert hall in Germany!« the brochures say. And what about pop culture? »Hannover is not lacking in that department either: you may have heard the rock band the Scorpions on the radio?« Full to the rafters with culture And so it goes on. You read about the SchauHidden Gems spielhaus theatre, about the big independent theatre scene with the ›Theaterformen‹ • PLATZprojekt an independent festival and the Arabic Theatre Meeting – hub bringing together arts, culture to name just a few. About the wide range of and the creative sector as part of an museums, particularly in the area of visual experimental urban development for arts (›the Sprengel Museum Hannover, the young people Kunstverein Hannover and the Kestner • TuTschool for dance, clowning & Gesellschaft‹). The world-famous, colourful,

theatre the larger-than-life Nana sculptures by the artist

first school in Niki de Saint-Phalle – in 2025, it will be

Germany to 25 years since these works were generously

offer an accredited donated to the city of Hannover. You read training course to become a qualified about Hannover’s slam poetry scene, which performer in clown theatre and comedy played host to the German championships • Klatschmohnfestival [Red in 2017, and about the fact that in 1961 Poppy Festival] an inclusive theatre Hannover opened the first neighbourhood festival for creative people with and cultural centre in Germany; the city now without disabilities has over 23 of these centres, providing • Jugend spielt für Jugend [Young a wide range of cultural activities for People Acting for Young People] a children from Hannover’s various districts. successful school theatre festival which You also read about a former factory site has been running for over 30 years which now houses a venue called Faust, • Rosebusch Verlassenschaften and about Hannover being the secret [Rosebush Estates] an art collection and capital of cabaret and a city of nationally record of Hannover’s industrial past and renowned choirs, and … forced labour; a place of remembrance documenting the city’s industrial heritage »Stop, stop, stop,« Kurt cuts in. »Hannover is the state capital. Of course and the Nazi era it has all those kinds of institutions. That • Musik-Gulli [Music Drain] a manhole won’t come as a surprise to anyone. We cover in the city centre that plays music – should be looking for the hidden gems, aka the world’s smallest disco the underground cultural scene. Where • Niki de Saint Phalle Grotto a can we find that? unique fusion of cultural heritage and contemporary art in the Herrenhausen Gardens • Fuchsbau Festival [Foxhole Festival] a new avantgarde art and music festival

4 Explain the concept of the programme which would be launched

3 Explain briefly the overall cultural profile of your city.

3 Back in the city, glossy brochures are pressed into your hand. They’re full of tourist attractions.

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Gottfried doesn’t contradict Kurt, but he does suggest that we try to find out more about the cultural landscape of the city not by simply listing all the special things it already possesses, but by asking creatives what they think is missing. And so, wherever you meet someone who is involved in the creative scene, you do just that. »Many of our institutions,« says an art student, »are housed in old buildings from the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s that are in need of renovation.« But more importantly, says a gallery owner, new concepts are needed to promote collaboration between the existing cultural institutions of the city, the state of Lower Saxony, the Hannover Region and the independent cultural scene. »Although there are lots of art museums, for example, there is no academy of fine arts in Hannover to act as a link between museums and the independent scene. At the moment we are rather passing each other by.« And the same thing is happening, she notes, in the world of theatre, where the Staatstheater and the independent theatre scene seldom meet. »I also don’t think we have enough going on in terms of literature!« »A nd in spite of our rich dance tradition – Mary Wigman’s New German Dance originated here, after all! – there is no professional dance school in the whole of Lower Saxony,« complains a choreographer. »A nd don’t even get me started on digitalisation,« says a retired maths teacher who now works as a volunteer at a museum. »Our institutions are still stuck in the Stone Age in that respect.« But Hannover is aware of these shortcomings, which is why it is currently working on a long-term cultural development plan based on a detailed analysis of its own strengths and weaknesses. Again and again, wherever you go and whoever you speak to, you come across this new desire to change things. All over the city there are new ideas for an even broader, better connected and richer cultural landscape. And all this – this vision of dialogue, debate and connectedness – is summed up by one motto…

Europe!« you read on countless posters in 4 »here, now, everyone for the city centre, on big banners hanging above the Staatstheater, the New City Hall and the Norddeutsche Landesbank. The motto is everywhere.

It’s displayed on the TV screens in the trams, it’s discussed on the radio. You see it in shop fronts, in the windows of police stations, at the Fairground, in places of worship and in cafés. You see it on city buses and taxis, on the aeroplanes at Langenhagen Airport. It’s emblazoned on the front page of the Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung, which features a critical analysis of its message. here, now, everyone for Europe! That is the call to action and the agenda to which an entire city has committed itself.

HERE in Hannover, the new Agora (ἀγορά) of Europe is being created. In Ancient Greece, the Agora was a meeting place for the people and functioned as a marketplace, a political centre and a theatre all in one. Here people debated, voted, celebrated. The Agora was thus the embodiment and at the same time the most important

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instrument of direct democracy in Athens. It enabled a form of public participation which is unrivalled to this day: every (free) citizen was allowed to participate in political and legal assemblies and was entitled to hold public office.1 To mark the 40th anniversary of Athens holding the Capital of Culture title, Hannover wants to revive this idea and this legacy. Here in Hannover, John Cage’s appeal is being heard and put into practice: in his famous 1927 speech ›Other People Think‹, the then fifteen-year-old discussed the ongoing political crisis between the USA and Latin America, and called for people to pause and listen to each other.

And that is exactly what the Agora enables us to do: to debate, to negotiate, to experiment and to celebrate as equals. For 2025, therefore, we want to create new participatory and interdisciplinary spaces all over the city in which the big questions facing Europe can be discussed: one big central Agora in the heart of the city (Agora of Europe), but also lots of localised and temporary Agoras (Europe on Stage). The idea of the Agora will not be confined to 2025, however, but will become a long-term principle of cultural practice in Hannover, which will also entail the creation of digital meeting places beyond the physical realm (Europe on Line).

NOW is the time to radically rethink and examine the important issues facing Europe, using art and culture as tools. From social divisions to climate change, the pressing questions of our time will be addressed in a new way. No stone will be left unturned. In its critical engagement with these issues, Hannover 2025 will use its own historical and local anchors as the starting point for addressing pan-European themes through the medium of art.

EVERYONE is invited to come together in and through culture. Instead of audiences simply turning up to fully formed cultural events, they will get the chance to help develop those events. Everyone will be invited to take part in the process of creating Hannover 2025. In addition to the many artist-led projects, for example, there will also be a range of events and initiatives with Hannover’s citizens themselves as the driving force (Europe at Home).

EVERYONE doesn’t just mean the arts and culture scene, but also civil society and interdisciplinary collaborations with the Digitalisation business community, academia Sustainability and social institutions.

Audience-building Participation: barrier-free and inclusive participation Cultural marketing, in particular networking and exposure 1 Mediation and cultural However, women, education slaves and metics Internationalisation (residents without citizenship status, Construct Develop and ProfesAdapt such as migrant and expand customise sionalise funding workers), were not infrastructure programmes personnel considered to be citizens in the poliThe business community and the creative, social and science sectors work tical sense, and together and offer their know-how to the performance and innovation were not allowed sectors. Organisational structures are being put in place for this purpose to participate. (e.g. a coordination office, workshops and individual consultations).

Upgrade Hannover

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5 You walk through the busy Welfengarten park behind the university and through the adjoining Nordstadt

district with its many student pubs. Here you pass an unprepossessing sports hall, from which loud voices can be heard. Hundreds of people have gathered inside and are debating with each other – something that seems to be happening all over the city at the moment. They are talking (of course) about Hannover’s cultural future, which has yet to be written. For to your astonishment, you learn that the state capital of Lower Saxony has no cultural development plan. They want this to change. »But isn’t that a task for the politicians and local government?« Gottfried muses. »350 years ago, maybe,« Kurt replies.

You sit down in the back row and listen to a talk being given by a man from the city council. »Today we are talking about two particularly ambitious plans: on the one hand, Hannover’s bid to be European Capital of Culture 2025, and on the other hand the long-overdue creation of a cultural development plan. Our idea is to develop both projects in tandem from the outset, so that they can feed into and enrich each other.« The first stage of this process has already begun: joint consultations were held where creative professionals, committees and local government worked together on both Hannover 2025 and the cultural development plan. »At this point I should remind you that we have also held an independent public consultation for the cultural development plan. It was impressive to see how engaged people were: we surveyed 400 creatives and people working in the administrative side of the cultural sector. 170 strength-and-weakness analyses emerged from this. And from these analyses we derived a number of areas of action, in which urgent issues for the future – such as participation, democracy, the design of the cityscape, opportunities, diversity and Hannover’s international character – will be addressed. These issues will be taken into consideration when reviewing and developing the city’s cultural activities, as will the cross-cutting issues of cultural marketing, sustainability and digitalisation. These categories are currently being further refined.« Kurt turns to Gottfried and says in an amused whisper: »Ha, interesting choice of words: ›cross-cutting‹ issues‹, ›areas of action‹, ›diversity‹ – isn’t that just the same old consultant-speak?« »Before I hand over the microphone,« says the speaker as he comes to the end of his talk, »there is one more thing to note: we will be working with you to develop concrete measures relating to these issues by spring 2020. In particular, we want to develop a targeted capacity-building programme to enhance the potential of our cultural institutions and of individual artists and creatives, and thus take collective responsibility for Hannover’s cultural development. We are calling this programme Upgrade Hannover.

Such a programme will, of course, tackle the issues I just mentioned,« says the speaker, displaying a new slide.

5 Describe the cultural stra»This programme comprises two aspects. On the one hand, we want to improve our tegy that is in cultural ›hardware‹. This will involve infrastructural measures like the sustainable place in your renovation of buildings, the expansion of digital infrastructure and the creation of new city at the spaces. On the other hand, we want to enhance Hannover’s cultural ›software‹. This time of the includes our programme of cultural activities as well as the staff of our cultural instiapplication, tutions. Both hardware and software must move forward in terms of sustainability, including digitalisation, audience-building and internationalisation. Audience-building is particularly the plans for important to us. We can distinguish between the sub-areas of participation, cultural marketing sustaining and dissemination. We want to do something for the development of culture in our city, and the cultural we want to do it in a sustainable way. It is also important, when working on such a programme, activities to consider how the cultural sector can be enriched through the transfer of expertise from the beyond corporate sector, the social sector and academia. For example, we can make use of marketing the year of and management tools from the corporate sector for cultural purposes. Social institutions could the title?

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Describe the city’s plans to strengthen the capacity of the cultural and creative sectors, including through the development of long term links between these sectors and the economic and social sectors in your city. / How is the European Capital of Culture action included in this strategy?

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contribute expertise relating to participation. And academia could help with the evaluation of our own cultural policies. In order for this to happen, however, the relevant organisational structures must be put in place, such as coordination centres, workshops or individual consultations. We definitely believe it is worth the effort. This transfer of expertise could greatly enhance the potential of our cultural landscape.« Kurt leans over to you and says: »It could enhance it immeasurably. Onward, ever onward!« The speaker is wrapping up. »That brings me to the end of my talk,« he says. »Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to you today. I wish you a day full of many more exciting discussions.« 6/ 7 You carry on walking, and end up in the district of Linden. Here too, as elsewhere in Hannover, you get the sense that culture is being examined and reimagined on every street corner.

In a café on Lindner Markt you meet a small working group pondering the question of how to use the principle of the Agora to strengthen the existing cultural landscape: »Our key focus: Upgrade Hannover. We believe that enhancing Hannover’s cultural and artistic capacity calls for intersectional collaboration.« To Gottfried’s delight, they suggest that people should be thinking not only about how to link culture to the economic and social sectors, but also about how to involve academia: »After all, Hannover is one of the most important centres of research in Germany.« You ask for concrete examples. How will the Upgrade Hannover programme you heard about in the speech just now be implemented in practice, you ask? You’re given the addresses of several other working groups who are engaging with precisely this issue in different cultural fields. And so you finish your coffee, say goodbye and head off to visit these addresses one by one.

This journey of discovery takes you all over the city.

You learn about all sorts of initiatives that are already underway: International Center of Music & Sounds: The record, the graUp to eleven – vocational training in the creatimophone, CDs – Hannover is the birthplace of some groundve industries for young people: The aim of this breaking inventions. Innovation is part of our heritage. And programme, launched as part of the Hannowe want to continue to honour this legacy by founding the ver 2025 bid, is to link the social sector with International Centre of Music & Sounds. The goal of this the cultural and creative sectors. Up to elejoint initiative – a collaborative effort by the region, the civen aims to widen access to the creative inty, industry, academia and the independent music scene – is dustries for young people, and thus nurture to make their own activities in the cultural and creative secemerging talent. This, in turn, will enhance tor more interconnected in order to give rise to even mo- the long-term capacity and innovative potenre globally significant innovations. The existing Hörregion tial of the creative sector. The programme has initiative brings together participants from the corporate been jointly developed by the city’s Culture Desector (including Sennheiser and Kind) and academia (in- partment, the Cultural Office and the kre|H|cluding the German Hearing Centre at the Hannover Me- tiv network, which includes 350 companies in dical School, and the HMTMH [Hannover University of the creative sector. Other partners include the Music, Drama and Media]), who are already collaborating Landesvereinigung Kulturelle Jugendbildung with great success. Complemented by the UNESCO Ci- Niedersachsen e.V. [State Association for Culty of Music events, the International Centre for Music & tural Youth Education in Lower Saxony], higher Sounds will become a place for new experiences, exhibi- education institutions, the Employment Agentions, learning and encounters, with international signi- cy, Pro Beruf GmbH, ArbeiterKind.de, a number ficance in the fields of ›music and music technology‹ as of schools, the Hannover Chamber of Craft Trawell as ›listening, acoustics, sound and tone‹. des, and many more.

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Aufnahmezustand – connecting the independent scene: Over the course of the application process, the local independent cultural scene has come together across genres for the first time to set up the Aufnahmezustand network. Almost all the major players in the independent cultural scene are part of the network, which has a total of 160 members. The goal is to encourage further innovative collaborations in the future, to increase visibility for all members, and to further professionalise the scene. One thing is for certain: regardless of the outcome of Hannover 2025, the Aufnahmezustand initiative will have a lasting impact on the city’s independent cultural landscape.

Academy – connecting the visual arts: Since there is no art school in Hannover, a project spaces interest group is proposing, as part of the bid, to set up an academy to act as a link between museums, galleries and the independent scene. The academy will have both a local and an international focus, and will offer broad accessibility. The aim is to make Hannover more attractive as a base for artists who work in an interdisciplinary way. The academy will represent an alternative form of learning and exchange and will try to create non-hierarchical structures. Themes such as gentrification and creative production in urban society will be explored through international exchange programmes, residencies, lecture series, workshops, working groups and publications, which will be made accessible on a digital platform. The knowledge thus acquired will be presented and broadened at a biennial conference.

8 If your city is awarded the title of European Capital of Culture, what do you

think would be the long-term cultural, social and economic impact on the city (including in terms of urban development)?

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Economic impact: higher numbers of tourists thanks to the image of the city as a European cultural metropolis; Hannover becomes more attractive as a business location; businesses feel a greater sense of responsibility for urban and cultural development and take a more positive approach to the issue of sponsorship for arts and culture Social impact: accessible and inclusive participation and the development of new target groups who could not be reached before due to cultural, linguistic or financial barriers; public spaces are revitalised and awareness of European issues is raised through the principle of the Agora Cultural impact: development and implementation of a cultural development plan; capacity-building in the fields of digitalisation, sustainability, audience-building and internationalisation; expertise transfer from the corporate sector, the social sector and academia into the cultural sector; development of new structures for collaboration between the city, the region, the state and the independent scene; forging connections between the local and the international cultural scene; a new participatory culture of dialogue and debate in keeping with the concept of the Agora; (see above under Economy) Impact of the involvement of academia: the connection and collaboration of the cultural sphere, the business community and the social sector generates potential for innovation; partnerships for the later evaluation of the Capital of Culture year and to ensure long-term impacts; opportunity for international exchange and increased attractiveness as a business location

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8 »Are you alright to keep going?« asks Kurt. You nod, though Gottfried looks a little exhausted. »That’s

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9 Outline briefly the plans for monitoring and evaluation.

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what age does to you,« he says. You walk on along the bank of the Leine river, talking to passers-by as you go. You soon realise that, despite the enthusiasm many people have shown for the bid, there are others who don’t have a good word to say about it. The press is critical too. Hannover 2025 is a controversial topic.

This is also illustrated by a conversation you have with a young couple: when you ask them what they think about the European Capital of Culture bid and the idea of Hannover as the Agora of Europe, they immediately start arguing. »Leaving aside the fact that until recently I’d never heard of this Agora thing before in my life, I just think: how are we going to benefit from it all? What good will it do us,« asks one of them scornfully, »apart from Hannover’s hotels making a ton of money for a year and a few people in foreign countries hearing about us, for the first time?« H is partner agrees that these are valid questions, but counters: »Thinking of a city as an Agora, as a meeting place, isn’t just about encouraging tourism. Thinking of a city as an Agora means much more than that: it’s a paradigm shift in the way we go about dialogue and debate. The idea of the Agora symbolises a new way of working together, a new attitude, a greater sensitivity to European issues and the courage to try something new – even if there’s a risk it might fail.« Gottfried is pleased to hear supporters and opponents of the bid engaging in open debate about it: »Cities are enriched by the act of engaging critically with themselves – Hannover included. How else can we learn lessons for the future?« 9 The three of you decide to split up. You go to Fössestraße to talk to the people from PLATZprojekt, an experimental development project on a formerly derelict site which provides an outlet for offbeat creative visions. Kurt and Gottfried, on the other hand, head to the Ihme Centre, that surreal yet somehow appealing concrete brutalist behemoth in the middle of town. When you meet up again in Küchengarten Square, Gottfried and Kurt are engaged in a heated argument. »But you can’t measure everything, because not everything is binary. Yes/no, good/bad – it doesn’t work like that,« says Kurt crossly. »Not only can one measure everything: one must,« replies Gottfried who, in his fervour, has even gone so far as to take off his wig. »It is nothing less than our intellectual and scholarly duty! If only because of the vast sums of money involved.«You sit down on a bench and listen rather wearily to the men’s quarrel.

They are debating how all the initiatives and projects that are undertaken should be evaluated later on, in order to ensure their long-term impact from the outset, create learning opportunities and relate them to the wider context. Kurt and Gottfried both agree that the process – from the writing of the bid to the presentation of the outcomes – must be transparent. They also agree on what it is that needs to be assessed. The increased capacity of the city’s cultural sector, for example, and the question of whether the Agora was the right approach to adopt. But they do not agree on how these things should be measured and evaluated. Should they mainly be measured qualitatively? Or in a neatly quantitative way, as Gottfried would prefer? The two men go back and forth for a while. You go and get yourself an ice cream from Giovanni L., and when you come back they’re still arguing. Eventually you intervene and tell them it’s perfectly possible to use a combination of both methods. »Empirical social scientists call it triangulation.« Kurt and Gottfried look sceptical. »And how do they collect their data?« It usually comes from project partners, those involved in marketing the city and its cultural life, statistics on city tourism, surveys, interviews and media-resonance analysis. »And what gets compared?« It all starts with a baseline measurement at the end of 2020. Between that point and 2025, two more assessments are made. Then another one in the year of the title, another in 2027 and a final one in 2030, when the implementation of Mein Hannover 2030 will also be evaluated. »And how are the results presented?« In online publications and through knowledge sharing and conferences between the cities and the researchers.

»Ah, I see.«

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Three-part 1. Capacity in the cultural sector in terms of: Digitalisation Sustainability Audience-building Internationalisation

2. Evaluation of the agora method e.g., Is the agora the right method to achieve the desired outcome?

Has the agora method been correctly applied and implemented?

Have the corporate, social, cultural and academic sectors been brought together?

Has a new awareness of European issues been created?

3. Qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the events and projects e.g., Evaluation as a long-term and short-term management tool: the outcomes of Hannover 2025 and the cultural development plan will feed into the city’s long-term strategic planning Have new ideas about important European issues been developed, and incorporated into social processes?

How extensive and diverse was participation in this process?

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10 »Europe, we need to talk,« says a slam poet on an improvised stage in lively Limmerstrasse. »Because

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strategy for the cultural programme of the year?

10 What is the artistic vision and

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how can it be that people are being criminalised for saving other people’s lives in the Mediterranean? How can it be that there are places in Europe where journalists fear for their lives? How can it be that we need young people and FridaysForFuture to remind us that there is no Planet B? How can it be that countries like Germany are in danger of being left behind in the digital transformation? How can it be that, after the atrocities of the 20th century, more and more populist and nationalist parties are gaining ground in Europe’s different parliaments every year?« You think back to the abyss. It’s still there. Where else would it be? You can’t just wait for the problem to go away. This is no quick rain shower passing briefly overhead. »I think,« says Kurt, as you cross the Dornröschen Bridge from Linden to Herrenhausen, »that no matter which city ends up being European Capital of Culture in 2025, all our cities will have to respond to the political and cultural upheavals in Europe one way or another.« A frank and open discussion about the democratic future of the Union is needed, he says.

To this end, Hannover is developing the vision of a modern Agora where Europe’s crises can be addressed through art in an interdisciplinary and collaborative way, in order to come up with new ideas for the future. »But where should we start, when there are so many questions?« muses Kurt. »I suggest starting with those issues that can be anchored locally here in Hannover,« says Gottfried. »These local reference points can be used as a springboard for wider debate.« At any rate, it needs to be an open process in which both international experts and local people can participate. »And art provides the platform for these encounters and this tangible engagement with the challenges of our time. Art takes these discussions to the street, and channels the emotions people feel about these European issues. It’s the Agora at its best.« You’ve heard it so many times now. Agora, Agora, Agora. What will this Agora look like in practical and spatial terms? Where in the city will it be located? »Once again you’re asking the right questions,« says Gottfried. On a large billboard that is normally used for advertising, there’s an artist’s impression of what Hannover will look like in the year 2025. You see that people will be able to experience the Agora via four different pillars of the programme.

Agora of Europe

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The main Agora will be like a sort of small village in the centre of the city. It is the heart, the powerhouse of Hannover 2025. Its temporary structures, which will be characterised by unique and sustainable architecture, will serve as meeting places and event venues. The Agora of Europe is a creative melting-pot of ideas where international artists, local creatives from all over the city, the state, the region and the independent scene, and experts from the corporate, academic and social sectors can come together with voluntary-sector organisations. The Agora of Europe is an incubator where people can experiment, debate, practise, learn, eat, sleep, celebrate and argue. At its centre will be the production house: a space for the development of experimental formats for which there has been no venue in Hannover until now. What is produced here will also be shown at other venues across the city and the region. Surrounding the production house there will be smaller stages, studios and workshops as well as restaurants, bars and lounges. In 2025, the Agora of Europe will become the centre of the festival where the teams of organisers and curators will also be based, and which will be buzzing with life around the clock.

Europe on Stage

In addition to this large centre, there will also be a number of local Agoras scattered across the city and the region. These venues will form the second pillar of the programme, entitled Europe on Stage. For this element of Hannover 2025, productions and co-productions will be developed in conjunction with creatives, and performed on existing stages from the Staatsoper [State Opera] to the little Feinkost Lampe basement

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club; from the Sprengel Museum Hannover to the Gartentheater. New temporary stages will also be created through artistic interventions in unusual places, lost spaces and hot spots. Despite their temporary nature, these interventions will be sustainable: they will use environmentally friendly construction methods and will be designed from the outset with possible future uses in mind. In order to symbolically embed the lasting significance of Hannover 2025 in the cityscape, these temporary structures will leave behind visible traces and make a permanent mark on the city, even after they have been taken down. Local creatives will work together and with international artists to develop the concepts for these stages.

Europe on Line

Beyond these physical venues, the Agora will also have a digital home. 300 years after the polymath Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz laid the foundations here for our modern computer technology with the invention of the binary system, Hannover wants to open up new, digital ways into conversations that currently seem more closed off than ever. This is the idea behind Europe on Line. Because the great hope and promise of an open and connected global community is far removed from the reality. Fake news and hate speech are dividing our societies. In 2025, Hannover will play host to a digital Agora, a communication platform based on the European values of freedom and community spirit. The idea: to create a public space in which (like in a formal debating club) opposing views can be put forward in such a way as to promote a civilised debating culture. The core concept of the platform is to bring together Europeans who have the courage to discuss the issues Europe needs to work through – and to discuss them in a rational, thoughtful manner, without hitting below the belt. In doing so, Hannover 2025 is aiming to connect with Europe in a way that reflects the openness, the sense of community and the freedom that make our city so special.

Europe at Home

In addition to the new structures and interventions, the principle of the Agora will also filter through into the homes and gardens of the city’s residents. This fourth pillar of the programme is called Europe at Home, and will breathe new life into Hannover’s historic tradition of private salons. It will enable citizens to initiate their own cultural projects on a smaller scale and thus get involved in shaping the cultural programme of Hannover 2025.

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programme, including the range and diversity of the activities/ main events that will mark the year.

11 Give a general overview of the structure of your cultural

11 You carry on into the Welfenschloss (or Guelph Palace), the main building of the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz University. »Pretty ostentatious – but I’d expect nothing less of you,« says Kurt, nudging Gottfried in the ribs. »Help me out here, Kurt: how many universities have you had named after you again?« You’ve been told the university is hosting an exhibition exploring the work of the ten interdisciplinary think tanks, and that their representatives are here to discuss their project ideas for the 2025 cultural programme.

They’re particularly interested in the question of different formats and how they can be used to explore European current affairs through art. You walk through the long west wing of the building until you come to a big wooden door. Kurt knocks, and someone tells you to come in. You’re a bit late – the discussions have already started. The participants are going through the timetable. »As soon as the curators have been introduced, the four-year preparations for 2025 will begin. During this period, the formats for our four programme pillars will be developed: Agora of Europe, Europe on Stage, Europe at Home and Europe on Line. For this purpose, a temporary Agora of Europe will be set up where the curators can work in the run-up to 2024.

Then in the summer of 2024 we’ll have the pre-opening of the real Agora of Europe, followed by the grand opening event on the city ring-road in early 2025. We’ll hear more about the city ring in a minute. The year 2025 itself will then be divided into four ›circles‹, each with a different thematic focus to be decided by the team of curators. Another idea behind the four circles is that there will be a brief period of reflection after each one, during which we will look back at our experiences so far and discuss best practice. That’s the plan.«

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Europe as a peace project

International Congress of Writers 1935 From 21 until 25 June 1935, the First International Congress of Writers for the Defence of Culture took place in Paris. It was attended by over 250 participants from 38 countries, including notable German-speaking exiles. They discussed ways to counter the threats and dangers posed by National Socialism. Although the congress had no concrete impact, it was felt by many to have been very positive. Between 1936 and 1938, three more conferences were held in London, Valencia and again in Paris.

»Hello everyone! Our group has been looking at how the theme of peace can be addressed through art. Because the EU is one thing above all else: the most successful peace project in recent history.

Following the traumatic and catastrophic events of the 20th century, the Union is nothing less than the realisation of a centuries-old utopian vision – that of a united Europe. We want to celebrate this with an International Music Festival of Peace in the summer of 2025. Not only is music – as a universal language that brings people together across national and linguistic borders – the perfect art form for this purpose, but Hannover as a UNESCO City of Music is the perfect place for it. By the end of the 17th century the city was already a melting-pot of European music, with the court conductor Agostino Steffani (1654 – 1728) bringing together French and Italian music and laying the foundations which Bach would later build upon. Hannover has an extremely diverse music scene to this day, featuring everything from choirs, classical and contemporary classical music to jazz, electro, world music, rock and pop. And as you all know, one of Europe’s most famous songs about peace was written here: Wind of Change by the Scorpions.

The song is an ode to unity between East and West Germany – although it was actually written before the Wall came down, when singer Klaus Meine, after performing two concerts in the USSR, sensed that the Cold War was coming to an end. Luckily, these major shifts were largely peaceful. The festival we are planning will also take place under the shadow of a new world order: the USA is increasingly turning away from Europe, and the transatlantic alliance is weakening. We are hoping that this change will play out peacefully too, and with our festival we want to celebrate and promote international understanding. Instead of classical concerts we are planning a contemporary multi-genre music parade which will wend its way through the city like a snake and fill every corner of Hannover with music. Possibly even the city ring.«

Literature conferencE

One of the ideas for the preparatory phase is to hold a writers’ conference inspired by the first International Congress of Writers in 1935. This conference took place in Paris under the shadow of Hitler. 250 writers came together to share their vivid memories of the First World War. Paul Nizan, Bertolt Brecht, Anna Seghers, Heinrich and Klaus Mann, Lion Feuchtwanger, Robert Musil and many others attended, with the shared aim of ›saving culture‹. »Hannover, too, will invite writers from all over Europe in the run-up to 2025. They will discuss the current crises facing the Union and refine the European themes for our programme. We hope that over the course of the conference, a European manifesto will emerge similar to the anti-nationalist pamphlet Fight for Europe, which was published in early 2019 by Milan Kundera, Salman Rushdie, Elfriede Jelinek, Orhan Pamuk and other intellectuals and writers.« After the preparations leading up to 2025 have been discussed, the various think tanks start presenting their ideas for Hannover 2025. In developing their projects, they have all followed the same basic methodology: the goal was to address major European issues, and in each case to link them with a local anchor in Hannover. The different projects were developed on the basis of these two components (European theme and local anchor). The discussion is kicked off by a young women wearing a suit and an extremely wide tie.

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city ring

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»Great. That leads directly onto what I’m going to talk about,« says the woman. »Hello everyone. I’m an architect and I represent the think tank on urban development and mobility. Our goal is to reimagine the city ring! But before we start talking about that, perhaps we should go back to the beginning. Hannover is a prime example of a European city whose evolution has been continually shaped by social changes. In the Middle Ages, for example, Hannover was surrounded by a city wall to protect it from attack. Under court architect Georg Ludwig Laves, the city was completely reconfigured. A new business district subsequently sprang up around the railway station, while the importance of the old town waned. After the Second World War, much of Hannover lay in ruins and was again completely redesigned. The aim of the city planner at the time, Rudolf Hillebrecht, was to create a city that was organised along functional lines and was car-friendly. This radical restructuring was dubbed ›the Miracle of Hannover‹ by Der Spiegel in 1959. In the course of this reorganisation, the multi-lane city ring was built to act as a link between Hannover’s different neighbourhoods, but it actually ended up dividing the city too. So to come back to my initial thoughts: just as the urban planning of the Middle Ages and subsequently that of the early modern period were both eventually transcended, today the vision of the car-friendly city is outdated and needs to be rethought. We are proposing, therefore, to use the city ring as an Agora and to transform it into a space for negotiation and experimentation, in which new concepts of urbanity and mobility for the European city of the 21st century can be tested in a process-oriented way. This means asking ourselves how the European city of the future needs to change in the light of current social developments. Let’s take digitalisation, for example: how is the city centre, as a retail hub, going to change given that retail is increasingly moving online? Or mobility: what will traffic management need to look like once environmental concerns have resulted in a massive reduction in the use of private transport? Or sustainability: what will the liveable and ecologically sustainable city of the future look like in an era of climate change? For 2025, in order to answer these and other questions, we want to turn selected parts of the city ring into performance spaces and art venues. In addition to temporary installations and experimental interventions, we may also create permanent objects.«

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The Beauty of Failure

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»Hi. I’m from Aufnahmezustand, the newly founded network for the independent scene. In connection with the theme of housing and urbanism we’ve been thinking about Hannover’s most beloved monster: the Ihme Centre. This gigantic building complex from the 1970s – with the largest concrete foundation in Europe – was once considered an architectural showcase for how to combine living, working and socialising in one place. Today, its decline symbolises society’s failure to develop contemporary living concepts appropriate to our times, and our neglect of the idea of solidarity in the way we live together. The problem is that investors in the Ihme Centre come and go, and thus far have only been interested in profit, not in ensuring a sustainable future for the entire complex. But we still believe in the potential of the Ihme Centre and we want to breathe new life into this sleeping giant. In order to do this, creatives from the independent scene will work together with local residents. Ideally, as part of Hannover 2025 the Ihme Centre will become a blueprint for diverse coexistence and modern urban development in Europe. The idea is to inspire a sense of community in the city’s residents, out of which something great can emerge. From the beauty of failure to the beauty of community. This new strength of community will be expressed through a large-scale light show put together by all the residents, and will bring the grey colossus to life again.«

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Green city

»Our think tank has also been looking at city planning, but focusing on another specific question: how green can/should Hannover be? Hannover is already one of the greenest cities in Germany, thanks to its many parks and landscaped areas – the Eilenriede urban forest, the Herrenhausen Gardens, etc. However! We don’t want to see green spaces only in fenced-off areas: we want to colour the whole city green. That’s why we’re returning to a concept that was developed for the EXPO 2000 world’s fair – the city as a garden. The idea was to develop visions for a radically green city that combined the advantages of urbanity and garden culture.

What was described back then as a utopian vision has, in these days of climate change, become a necessity, if we don’t want to end up living in urban ovens. For Hannover 2025, therefore, we want to experiment with various measures to make the city greener and cooler. The flat roofs in the city centre, the facades of buildings, the tram and train tracks – everything. Because time is running out. As the European Capital of Culture, we will do everything we can to promote this idea. We see three opportunities for Hannover 2025.

Firstly, we must use art and culture as a different way to make people more aware of and emotionally invested in this issue. Secondly, we must encourage residents to get involved themselves, through Europe at Home. And thirdly, we must use Hannover 2025 as a big testing ground for visions of a green city!«

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Poverty and social integration

»I’ll go next,« says a colleague from the city council. »Poverty in Hannover has many faces. That’s why we’ve come up with two projects. The first deals with the question of how we can highlight poverty in our city through art. Our local anchor is the photography of Walter Ballhause (1911 – 1991).

His major work, created between 1930 and 1933, documents the social situation of the ›lumpenproletariat‹ of the day: the conditions faced by the unemployed, by disabled war veterans, by beggars, but also the life of proletarian city children and old people in Hannover. He also photographed the workers« housing estates in Hannover-Linden and documented the existential fears of small tradesmen. We want to build on this idea of making poverty visible through art, and use artistic interventions in public spaces to make poverty visible as a socio-political and societal failure. That’s one of our projects. The other focuses on child poverty.

With Asphalt Kids, we’ve created Germany’s first street magazine for children. Based on Walter Ballhause’s work, Hannover 2025 aims to highlight the issue of poverty in all its aspects – child poverty, homelessness, hidden poverty – in a dignified way, and to raise awareness of it. In the best-case scenario, we hope that some of the projects will also provide relief to those affected by poverty. We’re also planning a collaboration in this area with the Per Mertesacker Stiftung, a charitable foundation based in Hannover, which was established in 2006, presently helping about 100 disadvantaged children in Hannover by offering learning support as well as sporting and cultural activities throughout their school lives.

Per Mertesacker The Fair Play Centre for Europe, a project currently planned by the A German footballer who played for the foundation, combines football with education and culture. Young German national team over 100 times people of different backgrounds get encouraged to learn teamwork and was part of the World Cup-winning and fair play. squad in 2014. He grew up in Hannover and began his career playing for the youth The circus could be another starting point and a chance to access culture for disadvantaged children and young people. Circus is team of the Hannover 96 club, before an art form without barriers. There’s no other place, where so going on to play for them as a professional many languages, ethnic and cultural milieus come together. In footballer. Since the end of his playing Hannover there are over twenty circus groups for children and career, he has been Academy Manager of young people.» the Arsenal Academy in London.

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local cultural heritage and traditional art forms with new, innovative and experimental cultural expressions?

12 Explain succinctly how the cultural programme will combine

12 »People are always saying things like ›Europe, we need to talk.‹ That’s fine by me,« a sceptical voice

chimes in. »But why do we have to turn half the city upside down to do it? People are talking about staging performances on the city ring. That’ll cost a fortune. Why not just use our lovely Fairground?« For a moment the atmosphere in the room is tense, until an elderly lady answers calmly but firmly: »Because social debates never begin in an airless room – they’re rooted in reality. That’s why we should, wherever possible, use our local heritage as a jumping-off point for conversations with and about Europe, and enable people to experience the European Union at a local level.«

Women in art

»What about the visual arts: the famous Hannover of modernity?« asks Kurt. »We need to incorporate that somehow, if we’re talking about local heritage.« »Quite right,« says the elderly lady. »But what we’ve been discussing is the fact that it’s mainly Hannover’s male artists who’ve enjoyed widespread recognition. I’d like to remind you of a quote from Grethe Jürgens (1899 – 1981), who once said: “We weren’t taken seriously at all. Nobody knew about us – they went straight to Schwitters and the others at the Kestner-Gesellschaft. We weren’t modern enough.« Kurt nods

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and looks at the floor rather sheepishly. »Female artists still face the same unequal treatment to this day.

Though progress has been made, and there is far greater awareness of the problem now. This year, for example, the Tate Britain in London only exhibited work by female artists. And the Kestnergesellschaft in Hannover launched a collaboration with the Guerrilla Girls, an anonymous group of feminist activists.« »I n fact there were many female artists who shaped Hannover’s arts scene yet didn’t, and still don’t, get the recognition they deserve. There’s Mary Wigman (1886 – 1973), pioneer of the world-famous New German Dance and a trailblazer for expressive dance. Or her student Yvonne Georg (1903 – 1975), who combined classical ballet with expressive dance for the first time at the Landestheater. And what about the painter Käte Steinitz (1889 – 1975)? Her private salon was the meeting place for artists in the 1920s, and a vital hub for the arts scene: an Agora of art.

It’s largely thanks to her that salon culture is still thriving in Hannover today.« Based on the work of these and other prominent female artists, Hannover 2025 is planning the European Festival of Women in Art, Edition Zero. The hope is that it will become a permanent fixture in the city’s cultural calendar. In exhibitions, performances and shows, we will celebrate the entire spectrum of historical and contemporary art by women – from Hannover, Europe and the rest of the world. One special feature of this interdisciplinary festival will be the fact that the events won’t be confined to cultural institutions and public spaces: they will also take place in residents’ homes, in a way Käte Steinitz would have wholeheartedly approved of.

Upgration

»Or take the baroque ›Große Garten‹ of the Herrenhausen Gardens, one of Hannover’s greatest historical treasures: it’s impossible to imagine the city without them.« The fact that they were largely designed by the Frenchman Martin Charbonnier (1655 – 1720) during Hannover’s cultural heyday can be used as a historical starting point for a creative engagement with the social benefits of migration and intercultural exchange. To this end, Hannover 2025 is planning a collaboration with the Cameo Kollektiv. This Hannover-based charitable foundation aims to give migrant and post-migrant perspectives a new voice, and in 2018 was nominated for the Chancellor’s Integration Award for its work in this area. As well as putting on exhibitions and publishing cultural magazines, the collective also operates a co-working space. The collective’s interdisciplinary work draws on its idea of upgration – the belief that migration should be seen as a social upgrade because it increases diversity and encourages social innovation: »We believe that 1 + 1 = 3. It’s exciting when people from different backgrounds work together. That’s how new ideas come about! All people enrich the world, no matter where they come from. By working together we can create wonderful things. An upgrade through migration – upgration.« Hannover 2025 is planning a collaboration with the Cameo Kollektiv to engage with the city’s long and varied history of migration – from Hannover’s heyday in the 17th and 18th centuries through to the post-war period and into the present day – using experimental art forms. The aim is to retell those stories that show how newcomers have enriched the city.

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Can art be dangerous?

»On the subject of art, we’ve been discussing a rather different idea in our working group. It began with a conversation about Wilhelm Busch (1832 – 1908) and his caricatures, and an exhibition in the Wilhelm Busch Museum about the magazine Charlie Hebdo, which had to be put under police protection in 2015.

The Museum is also the German Museum of Caricature and Drawing, by the way! So we’ve been thinking about an artistic engagement with the question: can art be dangerous? Our idea is to confront artists with this question and give them a space in which to engage with it creatively. There will be a particular focus on inviting artists from countries where art really is dangerous – where art is potentially explosive and where there is active censorship.«

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Search for the lost words

Next to speak is a tall, wiry-looking man: »Since we’re working with the UN’s wider definition of culture, I want to encourage us to see our cultural heritage as more than just the arts: Hannover’s interreligious tradition can be considered part of it too. The city is still home to a House of Religions, in which Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Orthodox and Eastern religious communities as well as non-religious people can come together. The project was launched as part of the EXPO 2000 world’s fair and, until recently, was the only one of its kind in Europe. The House of Religions is now run by a Council of Religions, which has been liaising with politicians and residents to represent the interests of Hannover’s religious communities since 2009. In our interreligious think tank, we asked ourselves which values and ideas are shared by all religions.

We thought of big words – like dignity, charity or compassion – which so often seem to be under threat these days, or even to have been abandoned entirely. And so we came up with the idea of a museum of disappearing words, which searches for lost words and rediscovers the roots of a shared language and culture. In that which seems lost there is an awareness of what underpins our society and makes it sustainable. We then thought about artistic interventions based around these words. One of our project ideas, for example, is to use installations and social actions to shine a light on places in Hannover where there is a lack of dignity; places where both human suffering and political failure are made manifest. Raschplatz Square; the red-light district. This might be done by commissioning poets or through performances, light installations or sculptures. We’ve announced an ideas competition with the aim of working together with young artists from across Lower Saxony to identify these places and make them visible through art.«

13 How has the city involved, or how does it plan to involve, local artists and cultural organisations in the conception and implementation of the cultural programme?

13 You’d assumed that initially the only people working on a bid like this, on a programme like this, would

be a team from the city’s culture department, commissioned by the mayor to spend months closeted away in an office somewhere with an endless supply of flipcharts and coffee, before eventually venturing out into the city with a ready-made cultural programme. Instead, what you see time and time again is that Hannover has involved local artists and cultural institutions in developing the programme right from the start – from the bottom up. This has been done partly through think tanks, like the ones you’ve just seen, and partly by small working groups in Linden. There is an official Capital of Culture team, of course. And it’s true that this team, in their efforts to bring together the many ideas coming from the cultural scene and from residents over the past few months, have worked their way through several hundred litres of coffee. But in their presentations, the team have always let the art speak for itself: through plays, poetry slams and photography instead of PowerPoints, dry speeches and tourism brochures. They even commissioned a writer to produce the Bid Book – a writer who has read a little too much Italo Calvino. And the team will continue to abide by this principle, not least because they believe that if the arts and culture scene is closely involved in the development process then it will benefit even more from Hannover 2025 – and vice versa.

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Involvement of the local arts and culture scene

Bid phase (2018 – 2019)

Preparation (2020 – 2024)

Advisory groups: establishment of three commit- Curator team: commissioning of a curator team tees made up of local creative artists, including an made up of local, national and international creaarts council featuring 24 creatives from across all tives; it will cooperate with Hannover’s cultural the artistic disciplines; advises the Hannover 2025 scene from the outset bid team on a regular basis and works closely with Cultural programme: close collaboration with the it; creatives are also represented on the advisory local culture scene in all programme strands board and the board of trustees Boards: formation of a single advisory board for Aufnahmezustand [Admission Mode]: at an opening the Hannover 2025 GmbH. This advisory board event for the Capital of Culture bid, the independent will be made up of members of the former adscene came together to set up the Aufnahmezustand visory committees for Hannover 2025 (advisonetwork, comprised of 160 creative professionals ry board, board of trustees and arts council).

Out of the Box event series: workshops with creatives from many different fields (120 to 150 partici- Capital of Culture year (2025) pants per workshop); diverse and experimental ideas for Hannover 2025 are discussed Programme: creatives will produce and present projects they have developed themThink tanks: establishment of ten interdisciplinary selves (production, cooperation, third-parthink tanks as the result of a broad public consultatity production) on process; each think tank consists of 5 to 15 people, including representatives of important local networks ›Venue hopping‹: all cultural venues will such as the Architects’ Association, the Association of host performances with the aim of atProtestant Churches, the Allotment Holders’ Associa- tracting new audiences; staging an opetion and the LGBTQ community; collaborative work on ra in an alternative venue like the Faust major European themes, in-depth dialogue with the arts cultural centre, for example, will help incouncil and presentation of the results in an exhibition troduce citizens to different art forms and themes Culture Jour Fixe: monthly event as a platform for the free exchange of ideas and suggestions by Hannover’s arts and culture scene; changing locations (suggested by participants) so people can get to know different venues across the city AG Kultur: the culture department of the state capital Hannover has met regularly to work on the content of both the cultural development plan and the Capital of Culture bid

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14 Give a general outline

of the activities foreseen in view of: a) Promoting the cultural diversity of Europe, intercultural dialogue and greater mutual understanding between European citizens; b) Highlighting the common aspects of European cultures, heritage and history, as well as European integration and current European themes; c) Featuring European artists, cooperation with operators and cities in different countries, and transnational partnerships.

14 The vision of Hannover as Europe’s Agora fills the city with life. There’s no doubt about it. At City Hall too, a palpably European wind is blowing through the corridors. You climb the spiral staircase to the second floor. There you meet the team who have been preparing the bid for months now. Their office is a hive of activity. This is where the many ideas and project proposals you’ve encountered throughout the city so far are brought together. Here they are pooled, combined and fleshed out. The walls of the room are covered in posters full of notes and sketches. One of them says: »Capital of Culture should hurt!« There’s always someone coming in, giving updates on various milestones, refilling the coffee pot. »One of our big advantages is that we’re not starting from scratch: Hannover’s cultural institutions have been working with European creatives for decades. Take our international festivals, for example, like the Herrenhausen KunstFestSpiele or the Arabic Theatre Meeting. In 2025, we want to intensify this cultural diversity and European dialogue in order to promote mutual understanding even further. And this will happen mainly in our Agora of Europe,« says a young woman from the team, pointing to a miniature model of a village-like structure standing on one of the tables. »Here, visionaries and original thinkers from the fields of culture, philosophy, business, politics and more will come together. I’m sure you’ve already noticed the strong emphasis on the European dimension: almost all our projects rely on a local anchor to help make current, topical European themes tangible for people.« On one poster next to the door you see the phrase ›The Salvation of 2023‹, and you wonder what it means. »That’s a special project,« explains one of the other members of the team. »Because in 2023, something unusual is going to happen: the Hungarian city of Veszprém will be the only Capital of Culture that year.

That hasn’t happened since 2004. A British city was supposed to be awarded the title too. But then Brexit happened. It was especially tragic for the cities who’d been bidding for the title. Because Leeds, Nottingham, Belfast, Dundee, Milton Keynes – all of them had already written their Bid Books. They were completely finished, everything was ready, hundreds of projects. A week before they were due to submit, they were told to get the fuck out they’d no longer be allowed to take part in the competition. All those years of work, all those resources invested. Whoosh. All gone. But that’s where we come in. Because Hannover wants to join forces with these cities.« A s an example, you’re told about the World Future Festival of Creativity in Dundee, which aims to forge links between different creative industries in Europe. Dundee (as a UNESCO City of Design) and Hannover (as a UNESCO City of Music) are already linked through the Creative Cities Network. Hannover wants to build on this connection and create a small Agora in Dundee in 2022, which will be primarily targeted at young people; the aim is to bring the whole festival over to Hannover in 2025. This would not only be

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Bridge to England Hannover has a unique relationship with the United Kingdom: in 1714, due to a change in the succession rules (the Act of Settlement), Georg Ludwig von Braunschweig-Lüneburg, the elector of Hannover, also became king of Great Britain. Thus he founded the personal union which would last until 1837. During this time, Britain became a global power and a role model for other parliamentary democracies.

This special link also became apparent after the Second World War, when the United Kingdom helped rebuild Hannover by promoting international trade through the development of the trade-fair centre and the free press (Der Spiegel and stern), as well as making Hannover the capital of Lower Saxony in 1946.

Hannover has been twinned with the city of Bristol for over 70 years. There is a lovely anecdote about the origins of this partnership: shortly after the end of the Second World War, when the people of Bristol heard that lots of children in war-ravaged Hannover couldn’t go to school because they had no shoes, they sent more than 200 big sacks of shoes, clothes and sweets to Lower Saxony in 1947. Because Hannover couldn’t afford to send a physical gift in return, the city gave Bristol the gift of music: from 16 until 30 November 1947, musicians from Hannover performed in various schools in Bristol to thank the British people for their extraordinary generosity.

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hugely enriching for both parties, but would also enable British cities to participate in the European Capital of Culture year 2025. But Hannover will also work together with the former ECoCs Glasgow (1990) and Liverpool (2008) in order to learn from their success; after all, Glasgow’s Capital of Culture concept serves as a model for the incorporation of sustainable urban development, and Liverpool as a model for the evaluation of one’s own programme. »And who if not Hannover, with our historic link to England, is better placed to build such bridges?« What else? »2025 is a year of multiple anniversaries. We’ll be celebrating the 25th anniversary of the EXPO 2000 world’s fair held in Hannover, for example. We’ll take this as an opportunity to look back and reflect. The exposition was a huge event, from which we learned a great deal that’s proving incredibly helpful to us now in our preparations for Hannover 2025. So often, when I’ve asked some organisational question or other in the past few months, I’ve been told: ask the people who worked on the EXPO, they’ll be able to help you. But we also want to build thematic links with EXPO 2000. Its motto was ›Mankind – Nature – Technology‹. We will pick up on this major complex of themes with our overarching theme of ›Sustainability in Europe‹. But we’ll use different means: art and culture.« 2025 is also the anniversary of a much more important event: it is 80 years since the end of the Second World War and Europe’s liberation from Nazism. »We are going to mark this anniversary with two projects.« There are currently 33 European Cultural Routes highlighting the shared cultural identity of European citizens. Seven of these have thematic connections with Hannover, although there has been no direct link until now. One of them is the Route of Jewish Heritage. Hannover wants to be part of this route, and is already in discussions with our European partners. »Our new route will lead right across Lower Saxony and will commemorate the local history of Jewish culture. It will link together key locations in Jewish life, such as Villa Seligmann, now home to the European Centre for Jewish Music, and the Ahlem Memorial on the premises of the former Jewish School of Horticulture, which was founded in 1893. Under the Nazi regime, this site was turned into a detention centre where people were held before being deported, as well as a prison and place of execution. The route will also include the Bergen-Belsen memorial site.«

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This is one of the projects to mark the anniversary. »And then we have

another local anchor which we want to engage with through the medium of art,« says the colleague, pointing out of the window. »Out there, not far from City Hall, is the famous Maschsee Lake which is mentioned in all the tourist brochures. This artificial lake was constructed in the mid-1930s, and the Nazis organised a big propaganda ceremony to mark its opening in 1936.

There will be two projects focusing on the lake. The first will look at the sculptures erected all the way around the lake. Since the end of the Second World War there has been heated debate about whether some of these sculptures constitute National Socialist art. In 2025 we want to invite European artists to engage with the history and creation of the Maschsee Lake in general and the sculptures in particular, in order to pose questions about the responsibility of art in public spaces. The second project will look at the cemetery on the northern shore and its history.«

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The idea behind the project is to develop a piece of documentary theatre about the history of the cemetery

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on the northern shore of the Maschsee Lake, which will be performed in 2025. Documentary theatre is a type of theatre which is based not on a fictional plot but on real historical events. It is usually the product of extensive research. Documents, reports, trips and films, as well as eyewitness accounts and files, all serve as evidence.

Gottfried has just popped to the toilet – when he comes back, he tells you he was surprised by all the children and teenagers he saw wandering around the corridors of City Hall. »At first I thought it must be a school trip. But then I saw some of them, with briefcases under their arms, disappearing into meeting rooms with politicians. When I asked one of the young people what they were doing here, he replied drily: ›Politics. What do you think?‹« All this, the team explain, is part of Pimp Your Town, a democracy simulation game for children and young people in schools, organised by the Politik zum Anfassen association. The pupils take on the role of local politicians, and discuss and make decisions about their own proposals. Over 10,000 young people have already taken part, and over 50 proposals have been implemented.

As a special Capital of Culture assignment, the bid team discussed real proposals for Hannover 2025 with the pupils beforehand, and debated them at committee meetings. »For 2025 we are launching a Europe-wide version of the project, in which we will involve our twin cities.« »But that’s not all, of course. In 2025, we want to connect Hannover with Europe in any way we can, and vice versa«

Cemetery on the northern shore of the Maschsee Lake Shortly before the end of the war, on 6 April 1945, a group of 154 prisoners from Ahlem were murdered in a mass shooting. Only one of them managed to escape. After Hannover was liberated on 10 April, he told the Allies about the massacre. The occupation forces had the victims exhumed, along with 232 others who had been murdered.

On 2 May 1945 – in the presence of Hannover’s citizens – the bodies were transported along a busy central street into the heart of the city and buried with dignity on the northern shore of the Maschsee, close to City Hall.

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Pimp Your Twin Town European version of the original concept. In 2025, a temporary pop-up youth parliament will be set up in Hannover for Pimp Your Twin Town, in which pupils from Hannover will discuss, negotiate and explore political issues along with pupils from Hannover’s European twin cities. Pupils from Bristol have already visited Hannover and tested out the concept of the Agora. The return visit to Bristol is due to take place in autumn 2019 – together with pupils from Bordeaux. For Hannover 2025, the aim is to involve as many twin cities (and twin cities of twin cities) as possible, in order to create a kind of snowball effect. The hope is that the project will become established throughout Europe over the next few years.

Safe haven for persecuted artists Hannover is a co-founder of the International Cities of Refuge Network (ICORN), an independent organisation of cities and regions which offer protection to writers and artists at risk of persecution.

ICORN aims to promote free speech, defend democratic values and demonstrate international solidarity. To this end, Hannover set up the Hannah Arendt Grant for Persecuted Writers during the EXPO 2000 world’s fair. For 2025, former and current recipients of the grant will be invited to come to Hannover and contribute to the creative process of developing the Agora of Europe.

Beyond European borders Cultural collaborations with countries outside Europe are already being actively developed. In 2020, Marrakesh will become the first African Capital of Culture. The Arabic Theatre Meeting, which takes place annually in Hannover, is planning a close collaboration with Marrakesh. In addition to its existing network of partners in the Arab world, the Arabic Theatre Meeting is now forging new links with the Dream City festival in Tunis. Based on this network, Hannover 2025 will also focus on this area. We are also currently in discussions with the Mauritanian city of Nouakchott, which is planning an art project called Tyres and Wires: a huge circular structure made of tyres, designed to serve as a cultural venue that will promote civic engagement. An Agora, in other words. Hannover 2025 wants to use this Agora to forge connections with Nouakchott.

15 Can you explain

your overall strategy to attract the interest of a broad European and international public?

15 »The Agora of Europe must not be a monologue – it has to be of interest to the people of Europe more

broadly,« says a young team member who is mainly responsible for communications. »In our strategy we draw a basic distinction between two target groups: settlers and nomads. Settlers are people who live and work in Hannover and are active in the life of the city, whether over the course of generations or because they’ve recently arrived here. What unites them is the fact that they are building their own futures in and with the city. The nomads, on the other hand, only stay in Hannover temporarily. Some of them have been coming for years to attend the international trade fairs and festivals, while others visit only once. Widening participation so as to get the nomads interested and involved in Hannover 2025 will be one of our biggest challenges. But we’re not alone in this task.« He points to an organisational chart with the heading: »Positioning Hannover as an international cultural metropolis’. The chart includes partners from the fields of tourism, culture, academia and the social sector, who will work together with the city to come up with an international communications concept. TUI AG, Deutsche Messe AG, Hannover Airport and Hannover Marketing & Tourismus GmbH have already pledged their support. International networks like the Goethe Institute, the Directorate-General for Culture and Communication at the Federal Foreign Office, the German National Tourist Board and the people responsible for the EXPO 2000 marketing programme are also on board. The communications strategy will be drawn up during the preparatory phase (alongside the programme highlights) in order to create tourist attractions that will draw interest from all over Europe – in plenty of time for 2025.

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International communication Connecting via communication platforms to discuss the big issues facing Europe // Focus on key European themes // Creating a digital Agora (Europe on line) // Involving media partners such as Bertelsmann, the biggest media company in Europe // Activating existing international networks such as the UNESCO Creative Cities Network, the network of ECoCs or the network of international garden culture // Activating existing international networks from the cultural sector, the corporate sector and academia, e.g. TANZtheater INTERNATIONAL, Leibniz University Hannover, Messe AG and TUI AG // Supporting organisations that operate across Europe, such as the Goethe Institutes, the Cultural Communication Department of the German Foreign Office and Deutsche Welle

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There are also plans to bring the nomads and the settlers into contact with each other – in the gardens of the city’s residents. Almost 30 years ago, Hanoverians opened up their gardens to the public for the first time as part of the Open Gates cultural initiative. From small allotment plots to the grounds of mansion houses, a huge range of private green spaces were made publicly accessible. This tradition will come alive again in 2025. In the European Capital of Culture year, 2025 gardens in Hannover could be opened up to international visitors. People would be able to welcome visitors from all over the world to their own gardens. The tourists would register with an app and sign up to visit residents« gardens, where they could spend time relaxing, chatting and getting to know each other, playing football and making barbecue.

16 To what extent do you plan to develop links between your

cultural programme and the cultural programme of other cities holding the European Capital of Culture title?

16 The conversation Gottfried is having with some of the team members turns to Athens, ›venerable Athens‹. The Greek city was not only the cradle of democracy and the site of probably the most famous Agora in the world, but was also the first ever European Capital of Culture in 1985. »In 2025, we want to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the competition. But not just with a big exhibition or something. It needs to be discursive, in keeping with the spirit of the Agora. We want to hold a conference at which artists, academics and politicians from the 70-plus former Capitals of Culture will look back over the past four decades, reflect on successes and failures, and put forward visions for the future of the European Capital of Culture. A grand retrospective. The British cities that are no longer able to take part because of Brexit will also be invited. Not least because we believe that politics cannot divide what is held together by culture.« Hannover also wants to forge new links with Eastern Europe.

I f Hannover were to be made European Capital of Culture, a new opportunity would also present itself: the opportunity to bring together two major networks via the medium of music. Hannover is the only applying city that is also part of the Creative Cities Network. Of the 70-plus former European Capitals of Culture, only 20 are currently part of this network. Its potential can be realised more fully by Creative Cities and ECoC cities working together in a multidisciplinary and mutually enriching way. »A nd although we don’t yet know which of the Slovenian cities will make the shortlist, we’ve been in discussions with them too. To reinforce the spirit of co-operation, we’re also aiming to produce a joint presentation. Either way, the cultural programmes of the two ECoCs for 2025 will be closely linked. But we won’t talk about concrete projects until we know who’s on the shortlist.«

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Collaboration with future Capitals of Culture Rijeka 2020 and Kaunas 2022 In view of the new ECoC guidelines on independent evaluation after 2020, it will be useful to collaborate with other Capitals of Culture in this area. To this end, Hannover is already in discussions with Rijeka 2020 and Kaunas 2022 in order to share expertise and best practice and initiate learning processes. This will not only give us something to compare our results against, but will also help to ensure the legacy of the ECoC project over the long term and promote cooperation on a pan-European cultural policy.

Veszprém 2023 and Tartu 2024 It will be helpful to collaborate with these two cities when it comes to thematic content. The cultural programme for Veszprém 2023 will focus specifically on dialogue culture, in a similar vein to Hannover’s Agora principle. And one of the main themes of Tartu 2024 will be Eastern European pop music, which of course is very exciting for Hannover as a UNESCO City of Music.

17 Explain how the local population and your civil society have been

involved in the preparation of the application and will participate in the implementation of the year.

17 Participation is central to the ethos of the programme – but where, you ask the bid team, does this participatory culture come from? »Well, Hannover has a tradition of public participation going back a long way – it’s been an integral part of our local politics for over 30 years. What we often see in these situations is that Hannover’s residents tend to be sceptical at first. We call this the Nana complex.« When Niki de Saint Phalle wanted to donate some of her Nana sculptures to the city, there was initially a huge outcry. So the council quickly organised a literal tug-of-war, which was narrowly won by those in favour of the sculptures. »And today they’re one of the most popular cultural projects in the city.« The same thing happened with the EXPO 2000 world’s fair. A local referendum was held to decide whether Hannover should bid to host the expo at all. Only a small majority voted in favour – there was a great deal of scepticism. It wasn’t until the EXPO 2000 opened its gates that people started getting enthusiastic about it. »And then there was City 2020+. Another example of civic engagement – this time a discussion about future-proofing the inner city. That must have been in 2007. And most recently we had Mein Hannover 2030. That’s the reason we’re all sitting here today talking about Hannover being the European Capital of Culture.«

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Public participation and cultural development

Despite the sceptical attitudes of many of Hannover’s residents, a total of 17,000 people took part in Mein Hannover 2030. From the list of suggestions made by the public, 43 concrete proposals emerged, including

the European Capital of Culture bid and the formulation of a cultural development plan. »And the plans 5 for these 43 proposals didn’t just disappear into a filing cabinet somewhere; they’re being worked on as we speak. Everything is completely transparent: people can go onto a website and check the status of each of the projects.« Lunchtime. There are only a few days left until the Bid Book is due to be submitted. With a mixture of nervousness and anticipation, the Capital of Culture team makes the most of a rare moment of calm to 10 reflect on where it all began. »I remember we set a public consultation process in motion even before we started talking about official mottos and concepts. And this was also underpinned at the political level by a council decision at the beginning of 2018. The mandate: to start developing outreach plans immediately.

Shortly afterwards, our four committees set to work.« Advisory committees »But the work of the committees was just the beginning. during the bidding process Because that really only allows us to reach people who are already civically engaged. We wanted to reach a wider public.

Advisory board So we asked ourselves: how can we deliver Hannover 2025 25 representatives from a wide variety of to people’s front doors? And then we had an idea: a mobile ation civil-society groups, such as an associ kiosk! After all, kiosks play a very important role in the local for people with disabilities, the Women’s life of Hannover’s various neighbourhoods – every kiosk is a Emergency Hotline, the Asphalt street magazine, the city’s Pupils’ Council, the City little island of neighbourliness. There’s a reason we have the highest concentration of kiosks in Germany, and we like to Sport Association, and Friends of the Earth call ourselves the kiosk capital. Kiosks are places where people Germany (BUND). Its task: to launch and meet and chat; they’re where the night begins and ends. That’s support formats, including those aimed at why we wanted to use the kiosk as both a real and a metaphomarginalised groups rical site for social engagement. Come on, I’ve got something Board of trustees to show you.« 15 members from the cultural sector, the You’re taken to a small structure not far from City Hall. It’s corporate sector and academia. Its task: a sort of pop-up pavilion made of white painted wood. »This to provide strategic advice on financing, is our mobile Capital of Culture kiosk. A mobile Agora, as communications and evaluation, and to it were. It was created in collaboration with the Unter Einem refine the core concept Dach initiative, which supports refugees by offering vocational apprenticeships and language lessons. We took this kiosk Arts council on a tour of Hannover’s 13 districts. We were purposefully 24 well-known experts from different to task: Its seeking out contrasts, so we visited both deprived neighbourtions. institu and cultural scenes l cultura the hoods and middle-class ones. We asked residents to share their for provide advise on the visions ts visions for the city and Europe. We asked them: ›What would programme and on the artistic projec you change about your neighbourhood?‹ and ›What does Steering committee Europe mean to you?‹ Everyone who answered our questions Representatives from the city, the region, got a little bag of sweets as a thank you. Just like the ones you the state and political parties, as well as get from a real kiosk! In total, we handed out 9,224 bags of the other committees. Its task: to promote sweets. We evaluated the individual answers and clustered dialogue and ensure that the bid process them, so they became part of the application process. remains transparent The realisation that residents identify strongly with their districts, for example, inspired the concept of the temporary,

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decentralised Agoras that will pop up around the city for Hannover 2025.

These spaces will be highly participatory and neighbourhood-oriented. But the most important thing was that the residents showed us the idea was starting to take hold. The Agora is at home in Hannover.« »Our kiosk also featured at an outreach event which we worked on with the Hannover 96 football club. The club organised a pop-up amateur football tournament where children got the chance to play with some of the professional athletes.

We brought our kiosk to the tournament, with the aim of accessing new target groups for Hannover 2025 through the medium of football. We wanted to talk to individuals and families who are often hard to reach via conventional cultural marketing. Amateur football pitches are important local hubs for bringing communities together. That’s why we’re keen to continue this collaboration with Hannover 96. Among other things, the club wants to get involved and help fund much-needed modernisation work to some of the pitches by running a big charity tournament in 2025.« Judging by everything you’ve seen so far, getting the local population involved is a recurring theme in the preparations for Hannover 2025. »Altogether, around 14,000 people from Hannover and the region have participated in the Capital of Culture bid at over 340 events, workshops, talks, panel discussions and committee meetings.«

Capital of Culture Kiosk As well as touring Hannover’s 13 districts, the Capital of Culture kiosk also appeared at many major events in the city and the region, including the first Hannover Kiosk Day, the Hannover Marathon, the Europe Festival at Opernplatz to mark the European elections, the Festival of Cultures at Trammplatz and the city’s New Year’s reception at the New City Hall.

The team also attended various music festivals, the world’s biggest marksmen’s festival and the European Handball Cup. There was a little kiosk magazine to tell people about the status of the bid and about past and upcoming events.

The plan is to continue this participatory kiosk tour, and from 2023 onwards real kiosks will also become information points and meeting places that keep residents in all the city’s neighbourhoods informed about Hannover 2025 and encourage them to get involved.

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18 here, now, everyone for Europe! Okay, but what does everyone mean, you ask. »Well,« says an older

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man from the team, »as part of its cultural development plan, Hannover also wants to turbocharge its own capacity-building efforts in order to –« »Stop!« a female colleague interrupts him, pointing to a large glass jar on the table. The man fishes out his wallet, withdraws a five-euro note and drops it in the jar. »It’s our buzzword swear jar. I already got caught out this morning with thinking outside the box. It’s not my day, clearly. But anyway. What I was going to say was, Hannover wants to build on its tradition of public participation. We will focus in particular on involving marginalised groups in cultural policy. Because participation calls for accessibility and inclusivity. This cross-cutting theme will be at the heart of Hannover 2025.

Oof, this is getting expensive. I’ll be broke by the end of the day at this rate.« This aspiration is the driving force behind the establishment of the participatory advisory board and the formation of an administrative working group in which all the department heads on the city council regularly meet to discuss Hannover 2025. »Essentially, the openness and transparency of all our events should encourage people from all walks of life to participate in the development and implementation of the cultural programme.«

Our offer to everyone

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Revitalising neighbourhood culture Hannover’s 23 local cultural centres play a crucial role in the city’s neighbourhoods and are very important to the people who live there. In many areas this includes disadvantaged groups. In 2025, therefore, community centres will become hot spots – places for people to come together in their own neighbourhoods – and thus the most important anchor points for cultural education across all social milieus.

Multilingualism From the outset, Hannover has attached great importance to multilingualism both in its communications and in its marketing. Many of the information materials and the questions for the kiosk tour were available in Hannover’s four most widely spoken languages: German, English, Turkish and Arabic. Going forward, communications will also use simple language that is easy to understand.

18 Explain how you intend to create opportunities for

participation of marginalised and disadvantaged groups.

Involving the kiosks In the Capital of Culture year, Hannover’s many kiosks will also become points of contact, getting local people interested in Hannover 2025 and encouraging them to get involved.

Volunteer programme When recruiting volunteers, special care will be taken to ensure that the group of volunteers is as diverse and mixed as possible, and that it includes people with disabilities. We are already engaged in a productive dialogue with the city of Leeuwarden (European Capital of Culture 2018) about their highly successful volunteer programme. By directly involving people from marginalised groups in the volunteer programme, the hope is that these individuals will act as ’ambassadors’ within their own cultural milieus, helping to involve a wider public in Hannover 2025.

Digital formats By developing event formats that include gaming, virtual reality and augmented reality, we hope to appeal to target groups who do not usually tend to be interested in traditional cultural events.

Aktion KulturLeben In order to make the cultural programme of Hannover 2025 accessible to people from all walks of life, entry to most of the events in the Agora of Europe will either be free or very inexpensive, and we want the majority of the events in the smaller Agoras to be affordable for everybody too. To achieve this aim, the city will work with a charity called Aktion KulturLeben, which already gives many people on low incomes the chance to attend cultural events for free. Registration is anonymous so as to take into account any anxieties or inhibitions people may have.

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19 Explain your overall strategy for audience development, and in

particular the link with education and the participation of schools.

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19 How time flies. It’s dark outside now. You can hear a hubbub of voices outside the windows. This evening, you learn, there’s a free open-air opera being performed in front of City Hall – an annual event in the city’s calendar. On the programme this year are Cavalleria rusticana by Pietro Mascagni and Pagliacci

by Ruggero Leoncavallo. Not really your cup of tea, but never mind. Through the large windows you can see almost 20,000 people, armed with picnic rugs and tents, gathering in Maschpark to listen to the music. »Getting art out of institutions and into public spaces. That’s how you reach as many people as possible.

And that’s why, in our programme for 2025, we attach so much importance to the local projects and events under the Europe on Stage and Europe at Home banners.« »To stick with that thought: participation is one of the three major themes of Hannover’s cultural development plan – with good reason. And this participation needs to begin in schools. You’ve already seen schoolchildren taking City Hall by storm as part of the Pimp Your Town initiative. But we also have two other projects aimed at schoolchildren. We want European issues to be discussed in schools in a way that’s in keeping with the spirit of the Agora, so we’ve developed a new programme to promote cross-curricular teaching. Most importantly, however, we want schools – when their pupils are studying topics like migration, demographic change or war – to invite people from the local area to come in and speak to the children. People from nursing homes and refugee shelters, for example. The idea is to put a face to issues which can often seem abstract, and to bring a new urgency to the way that European themes are addressed in schools.« »We also want to offer training courses at Ada and Theodor Lessing Adult Education Centre to enable citizens from different backgrounds to work as cultural guides. With their local connections, they’ll be able to act as intercultural mediators and raise awareness of Hannover 2025 amongst people who are otherwise difficult to reach. The idea is also that tourists will be able to book these people for guided tours in their own language. This will promote –« Suddenly, there’s a knock on the door. A woman in overalls comes into the office and says: »Lights off! It’s ten o’clock, the opera’s starting.« The team give her an incredulous look. »You can see the lights in this office from outside,« she says. »It’s very distracting. All the lights in City Hall are off except yours.« »But we’ve got a couple of hours« work to do yet. We’ve got a deadline coming up.« »Too bad. I’m just relaying the message. Lights out,« she says, flipping the light switch. Then she’s gone as quickly as she arrived. And you’re all left sitting in the dark. »No-one’s going to believe us when we tell them about this,« somebody pipes up, and everyone starts laughing. The team switch on the torches on their phones and carry on working. »Today we finally finished the organisational questions – all the sections about funding and so on. That was quite a controversial issue in the run-up to the application process. But the best thing was seeing the city’s creatives come together to advocate for the funding of the cultural development plan. And we’re particularly grateful to the independent scene, represented by a 100-strong contingent who came here to attend the committee meeting and fight for the funding.

If you’re interested in the management side, you’re welcome to take a look in here,« says one of the team members, handing you a descreet-looking pale folder.

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Chapter 5: Management a. Finance • City budget for culture: 20. What has been the annual budget for culture in the city over the last 5 years (excluding expenditure for the present European Capital of Culture application)?

(Please fill in the table below).

Year

Annual budget for culture in the city (in euros)

n-4 (2015) n-3 (2016) n-2 (2017) n-1 (2018) current year (2019)

57,007,178 61,229,739 64,244,635 65,368,106 73,212,076

Annual budget for culture in the city (in % of the total annual budget of the city) 2.71 2.67 2.71 2.72 2.88

The city’s culture budget as shown above focuses in on the promotion of culture in the narrower sense; spending on education, academia and research, lifelong learning and the University of Music has not been taken into account. The city’s annual budget for culture includes the following items: - Hannover City Archive - Visual arts and media art - Sprengel Museum Hannover - Museums of cultural history (Historisches Museum Hannover [Hannover History Museum], Museum August Kestner, Museum Schloss Herrenhausen) - Art in public spaces - Performing arts - Cultivation of the city’s music scene (UNESCO City of Music) - Music College Hannover - City Library - Neighbourhood cultural projects - Education networks - Local cinema and Künstlerhaus - Miscellaneous cultural conservation - Culture of remembrance - Herrenhausen KunstFestSpiele arts festival - Little Festival in the Großer Garten (Herrenhausen) This budget does not include the cultural institutions of the state of Lower Saxony in Hannover, such as the Staatstheater Hannover [Hannover State Theatre] with the Staatsoper [State Opera], the Schauspiel [Performing Arts Theatre], or the Landesmuseum Hannover [National Museum Hannover].

Development of the city’s culture budget: From 2015 to 2019 (including the twin budget for 2019/2020) the city’s budget for culture has increased by 31% in total (around 5.6% per year). This huge increase in culture funding relative to the rest of the budget (which only increased by around 23%) was due to special expenses, e.g.: - building an extension to the Sprengel Museum Hannover, - setting up two new specialist areas within the Culture Department (International Culture and Young Culture), - renting another building for the Culture Department, and - converting a building for the ZeitZentrum Zivilcourage [Civil Courage Centre] 21. In case the city is planning to use funds from its annual budget for culture to finance the European Capital of Culture project, please indicate this amount starting from the year of submission of the bid until the European Capital of Culture year.

We are not planning to use funds from the city’s annual budget for culture to finance the Hannover 2025 European Capital of Culture project.

22. Which amount of the overall annual budget does the city intend to spend for culture after the European Capital of Culture year (in euros and in % of the overall annual budget)?

Year

Annual budget for culture in the city (in euros)

2026

81,816,594

Annual budget for culture in the city (in % of the total annual budget for the city) 3.13

In line with a decision made in June 2019 (council document no. 1387/2019), the city’s budget for culture will increase by 1.5% every year from 2021 until 2026. That equates to a total sum of around 1.1 million euros per year. For the purposes of comparison: the city’s overall budget will only increase by 0.61% during the period from 2020 to 2023. By 2026, this will bring the budget for culture up to 81.8 million euros. Compared with the forecasts for the overall budget, the culture budget will increase almost seven times as much (4.6% compared to 0.61%). Thus it is only in the field of culture that planning security is guaranteed until the year 2026.

Out of this 1.1 million euros a year, there are no costs related to buildings to be covered, but there will be rising staff costs (according to the city’s projections, around 650,000 to 700,000 euros per year). This means that there will effectively be around 450,000 euros per year available for the cultural development plan. If, once the plan has been drawn up, concrete projects and measures are envisaged that fall outside the scope of the existing indicative framework, the finance management department will take any financial readjustments into account.

•

Operating budget for the title year § Income set aside to cover operational expenditure: 23. Please explain the overall operating budget (i.e. funds that are specifically set aside to cover operational expenditure). The budget shall cover the preparation phase, the year of the title, the evaluation and provisions for the legacy activities. Please also fill in the table below.

Total income to cover operating expenditure (in euros) 80 million

From the public sector (in euros)

69 million

From the public sector (in %)

86.25%

From the private sector (in euros)

From the private sector (in %)

11 million

13.75%

Income from the public sector: 24. What is the breakdown of the income to be received from the public sector to cover operating expenditure? Please fill in the table below: Income from the public sector to cover operational expenditure National Government State of Lower Saxony City of Hannover Hannover Region EU (with exception of the Melina Mercouri Prize) Other Total

in euros

in %

20 million 18 million 18 million 7.2 million 3 million *

25 22.5 22.5 9 3.75

2.8 million **

3.5

69 million

86.25

*EU subsidies: Application for external funds based on existing networks, which contribute to the long-term development of the city and are also related to a thematic focus of the Capital of Culture year. It is possible to apply for external funds for the Creative Europe programme, for example: - Europe on Line (digital Agora) - Enhancing the potential of cultural operators in the area of internationalisation; developing and expanding existing networks (linking the UNESCO Creative Cities Network with the ECoC title-holder network) - Enhancing capacity in the field of audience-building ** Including ticketing income

25. Have the public finance authorities (city, region, State) already voted on or made financial commitments to cover operating expenditure? If not, when will they do so?

-

-

State capital Hannover: 18 million euros from 2021 to 2026 to fund the European Hannover 2025 project (council resolution in June 2019, council document no.

1387/2019, subject to Hannover being awarded the title).

Hannover Region: 7.2 million euros from 2021 to 2026 to fund the Hannover 2025 project (decision via letter of intent in August 2019, subject to Hannover being awarded the title).

State of Lower Saxony: in-depth discussions are ongoing regarding the State’s financial contribution; a decision will be made in autumn 2019. So far the State has supported the bid in principle: the applying cities Hannover and Hildesheim will present themselves jointly in Brussels and Berlin in the Lower Saxony representative offices.

National government: the bid team from Hannover is spearheading a joint initiative by all the applying German cities to reach an agreement with the German government on federal funding for the ECoC project. All parties have mutually agreed to continue these discussions during the second phase of the application.

Income from the private sector: 26. What is the fund-raising strategy to seek support from private sponsors? What is the plan for involving sponsors in the event?

In total, 11 million euros will be received from the private sector; of that sum, 2 million euros will come from private foundations and 9 million euros will come from the corporate sector.

Involvement of the corporate sector in the pre-selection phase Corporate Sector Supporters’ Circle The corporate sector has been included in the bid from the start and is kept updated at every stage. The Corporate Sector Supporters’ Circle includes representatives from the 25 largest commercial enterprises and industry associations in Hannover and the Hannover Region.

The following initiatives have emerged from the Corporate Sector Supporters’ Circle: 1. A team made up of various corporate representatives regularly advises the bid team on strategic communications issues, and helps with operational implementation (all on a voluntary basis).

2. An outreach event with colleagues on the premises of Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles VWCV (a subsidiary of Volkswagen AG, with almost 14,000 employees). Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles’ statement of support: ‘As a long-established Hannover company, it’s only natural that we should want to support the bid’.

3. The Plastic-Free Hannover joint initiative brought together various operators in the spirit of the Agora to come up with new ideas on this subject, including the city of Hannover, the aha Zweckverband Abfallwirtschaft Region Hannover [Hannover Region Waste Management Association], the international drugstore chain Rossmann (Dirk Rossmann GmbH), the Hannover History Museum, Hannover Zoo GmbH, the Catholic Church and the üstra Hannoversche Verkehrsbetriebe AG [transport company].

4. Joint events with the members of the following major industry associations, from which further joint marketing and communications measures for the Capital of Culture bid have emerged: - Breakfast meeting with Pro Hannover Region e.V. (a network for the development of the regional economy, with 400 member companies); around 100 participants.

- Event to mark Europe Day, organised by the Industrie-Club Hannover e.V. (an association founded in 1887; its 220 members are all representatives from the executive level of the regional economy) together with EU commissioner GĂźnther Oettinger and the CEO of the Bertelsmann Foundation, Aart de Geus.

- Meeting of the Hannover Chamber of Industry and Commerce (a regionally organised, cross-sector self-governing organisation for commercial enterprises, with 156,000 member companies); approx. 100 participants.

- Presentation of the bid to the CEOs of all local insurance companies (Hannover is the second-largest insurance centre in Germany).

Project-based funding from the selection phase onwards: Funding from the corporate sector is derived from three sources: main sponsors, co-sponsors and project-based sponsorship. After the title is awarded, the sponsors will be able to use the new logo (yet to be created) as part of their sponsorship contracts. A credible link between the projects and the image of the companies funding them is central to sponsorship. Particularly once the projects have been clearly defined in the pre-selection phase, a more in-depth exchange of ideas will be needed. The following additional sponsorship activities are also possible: involving academic institutions in the evaluation, or borrowing employees from companies (expertise sponsorship). §

Operating expenditure: 27. Please provide a breakdown of the operating expenditure, by filling in the table below.

Programme expenditure (in euros) 50 million

Programme expenditure (in %) 62.5%

Promotion and marketing (in euros) approx.

12 million

Promotion and marketing (in %) 15%

Wages, Wages, overheads overheads and and adminiadministration stration (in euros) (in %) 8 million 10%

Other (please specify) (in euros) 10 million*

Other (please specify) (in %)

12.5%

Total of the operating expendi ture 80 million

•

Budget for capital expenditure*: 28. What is the breakdown of the income to be received from the public sector to cover capital expenditure in connection with the title year? Please fill in the table below:

Income from the public sector to cover capital expenditure National Government State of Lower Saxony Hannover Region City of Hannover EU (with exception of the Melina Mercouri Prize) Other

in euros

in %

Total

The bid focuses on the development of the programme, the projects and their artistic realisation.

During the selection phase, the project ideas will be refined and concretised. Capital expenditure plans might potentially emerge from this process. If this is the case, the investment projects will be outlined in the cultural development plan in the spring 2020 and agreed upon the political level. The main Agora (Agora of Europe) will remain in place after Hannover 2025 as a symbol of the ECoC title – but only if the concept has proved successful as part of the title year. *It is not necessary to fill in this table because Hannover 2025 is not focused on capital expenditure.

29. Have the public finance authorities (city, region, State) already voted on or made financial commitments to cover capital expenditure? If not, when will they do so?

Because no capital spending is planned, no decisions have been made about this.

30. What is your fundraising strategy to seek financial support from Union programmes/funds to cover capital expenditure?

Because no capital spending is planned, there is no fundraising strategy.

31. If appropriate, please insert a table here that specifies which amounts will be spent for new cultural infrastructure to be used in the framework of the title year.

- The new cultural infrastructure to be used will be fully worked out in the cultural development plan and will be designed and agreed upon by spring 2020. The cultural development plan team and the Capital of Culture bid team are working together closely on this.

The city of Hannover has also agreed upon a number of measures in the investment budget it has already planned and adopted (independently of the cultural development plan and Hannover 2025). Here are some examples: New infrastructure: - Herrenhausen Gardens, new exhibition centre: 5 million euros Infrastructure to be improved: - Hannover History Museum, new infrastructure: 4.1 million euros - Museum August Kestner, new infrastructure: 2.15 million euros Going forward, both museums will focus on providing new digital educational formats for young people. The renovated buildings will be available as venues in 2025 and will be integrated into the programme. b. Organisational structure 32. Please give an outline of the intended governance and delivery structure for the implementation of the European Capital of Culture year.

HANNOVER 2025 GMBH Supervisory Board Control Advise

Advisory Board

Supervision

Managing Directors Dual leadership

Advise

Consultant Strategy

Advise

Consultant European Dimension

Dual leadership

Executive Management

Artistic Management

Finance

Overall Disposition

Acquisition of third-party funds

Organization and coordination artistic programme

Controlling

Establish venue Agora of Europe

Legal

Marketing Management

Marketing and communication Press Volunteer program

Staff

Upgrade Hannover (Capacity Building)

Evaluation

Participation

Advise

Participation Advisory Board

International relations Directing concept

Free team of curators

Agora of Europe

Europe on Stage

Europe at Home

Europe on Line

After the title is awarded, a GmbH (limited company) will be set up. The purpose of the company will be the management and monitoring of the Hannover 2025 project. It will also appoint and dismiss the Managing Directors and adopt the annual financial statements. The major sponsors will be adequately involved in the company management.

The special thing about this structure is that the GmbH will be headed up by a dual leadership.

This concept has already proved successful during the application phase, because a very broad range of skills is called for which are rarely to be found in one person: extensive experience in administrative and cultural management, as well as expertise in the designing of cultural processes and projects, legal knowledge, fundraising capabilities and personnel-management skills.

The GmbH will be split into two basic divisions: Executive Management on the one hand and a dual leadership consisting of an Artistic Management and a Marketing Management on the other. The combination of Artistic and Marketing Management within the dual leadership structure, which might initially seem to be a potential source of tension, has proved successful during the application phase and has led to fruitful synergies.

The organisational chart reflects the programme concept. Separate departments will be established for the key areas of evaluation, capacity-building and participation. In addition to this, an external Participation Advisory Board will also be consulted on the structural involvement of all social milieus in the city. The successful model of the three advisory committees will continue, but merged into a single Advisory Board.

The Managing Director Team is responsible for the development, implementation, monitoring and winding-up of the overall Hannover 2025 project and has ultimate decision-making power in the areas of Executive and Marketing Management. It will set out the guidelines within which the Artistic Management is free to operate.

The Artistic Management has international expertise, bears overall responsibility for the content of the Hannover 2025 artistic programme and has ultimate decision-making power in this area.

The Managing Directors may only intervene in this area if the Artistic Management oversteps the guidelines that have been set out, or in the event of conflict. It manages the interdisciplinary team of curators, which is made up of experts from different artistic fields who have already worked in an international context and have experience of designing and implementing such projects. In the event that Hannover makes it to the second round, the intention is to engage a part of this team of curators and, in the best-case scenario, an Artistic Management.

The organisational structure for the planning and implementation of the various projects and events will be decided upon on a project-by-project basis. The goal is to leave the organisation and implementation of the projects mainly to third parties. This might take the form of coproductions, collaborations or third-party productions, for example.

петдесет и три

How are you planning to overcome weaknesses identified?

33»My goodness, that was pretty intense – and I say that as someone with a penchant for numbers and planning,« Gottfried exclaims. Kurt nods and lights a cigarette. You’re on your way again, having said goodbye to the Capital of Culture team who, by the looks of it, won’t be leaving the office for quite a while yet. It’s cooler outside now. There are still lots of people out and about: students, partygoers, couples on their way home. And as you walk away from City Hall you hear the finale of the opera – the wind instruments strike up once more, deep and loud, before the music finally dies down. A moment of silence. Then: applause.

Your journey is nearing its end. »Time to take stock,« Gottfried proposes. »But let’s go easier on the facts and figures this time,« pleads Kurt.

What do you think about the concept of the Agora? It will certainly give Hannover a new tool for bringing together the two pillars of the European Capital of Culture programme: urban development and the European dimension. »The decision to put European issues front and centre is the right one, given the current situation in Europe,« Gottfried declares.

And Hannover believes itself to be the right venue for discussions about Europe’s future.

What was that phrase again? A city in harmony with itself. Where voices do not talk over each other, where dialogue is possible. Big enough to be heard, small enough to take risks.

Something like that.

What else? »What about the fact that Hannover is still working on its cultural development plan?« That’s a difficult one, no doubt about it. They need to get that plan down on paper, and quickly. But at the same time, the intersection of the Capital of Culture bid and the cultural development plan represents a unique opportunity to forge a comprehensive cultural strategy.

Then there’s Hannover’s diverse cultural life. The imaginativeness and engagement of the city’s creative scene was in evidence even before the bid. Because for all its north German scepticism and its ›Nana complex‹, what really stands out about the city is its capacity for enthusiasm. Whether at the political level or in the cultural scene, the corporate sector, academia or civil society – people really seem to have got the Capital of Culture bug. »However, the focus on participation is a strength and a challenge at the same time,« Gottfried points out. »A strength because it’s a way of getting residents involved and drawing inspiration from their ideas. A challenge because it means everybody then wants to have a say, and you don’t want to disappoint people who’ve spent months coming up with ideas for projects.

Managing the expectations of the public, the cultural scene, politicians and the press, and maintaining a certain artistic standard for the cultural programme whilst trying to widen participation as much as possible, will not be an easy task. It will be up to the curator team, made up of brilliant experts from a range of disciplines. The team will certainly need great tact and sensitivity in order to deal with the wishes and possible disappointments of those involved.« »Hand on heart, though,« says Kurt, »the biggest weakness is that a lot of what we’ve heard today is rather vague. More vision than blueprint. Okay, so there’s the Agora of Europe, the art project at the Maschsee Lake and the Women in Art project. That’s true. But on the whole…« The bid team, however, are aware of this. But they’ve chosen this open-ended, more experimental approach deliberately, in order to give the artists more creative freedom. Hannover is not basing its bid on grandiose plans for spectacular new buildings which is what many people expect, but on the formation of a creative community which will immerse itself in important themes, and draw on these themes to create a diverse cultural programme. In this sense, the risks also represent opportunities for the ECoC programme. Because whatever happens, Hannover’s experiences will inform the further development of the Capital of Culture format. »You might call it brave or overambitious,« you remark to Gottfried and Kurt as the three of you head to the train station. »But then – can we afford not to be ambitious? To just carry on as if nothing has changed these past few years?«

33 What are the main strengths and weaknesses of your project?

c. Contingency planning

�

d. Marketing and Communication through art

34 Please provide an outline of the city’s intended

marketing and communication strategy for the European Capital of Culture year.

June 2017, meeting of the applying German cities in Hildesheim Hannover presents a seemingly blank poster with the heading ›There’s nothing in Hannover‹. Only under the light of a UV lamp does the rest of the poster become visible: it is covered with drawings of Hannover’s sights and hotspots.

The presentation plays with the stereotype of the city as a boring place in order to convey the message that Hannover is love at second sight.

34 Either way: an Agora like the one Hannover wants to create can only succeed if people get involved. It’s

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all about the major issues facing Europe. This will attract not only art lovers but also people who want to work on important European themes like democracy or sustainability. »And for that we need marketing!« somebody calls. You turn around. It’s the consultant who offered you his services at the beginning.

Goodness knows how long he’s been following you. »Media relations and TV advertising, radio, blogs and newspapers – as well as PR, online and social-media marketing and out-of-home advertising, of course. And then there are surprising cross-media below-the-line methods using influencers and guerrilla marketing.

That’s crucial. You need marketing like that as part of your audience-development strategy.« »Obviously those are the nuts and bolts of marketing, and the consultant is going to want to tick them all off his checklist,« says Gottfried, »and of course we’ll pay attention to those things, but in the end it’s all about whether you’ve got something to say. For the settlers, the big European themes need to be linked with the little everyday things in order to make it clear that the issues being addressed affect all of us. The activities need to be presented in such a way that residents can identify with them.« Kurt adds: »Our ideas need to be good enough that they seem to sell themselves. To achieve this, creatives and marketing experts will have to work closely together from the beginning.« »For example, Hannover’s historic gardens could be connected by a dedicated Green Line. You could use tram line 5, which goes to almost all the gardens that show a one-to-one picture of gardden design since the

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October 2018, introduction of the applying cities in Berlin Hannover’s presentation is delivered by a local slam poet in PechaKucha style. He too begins by saying that there is nothing in Hannover, so he is going to talk about other cities instead. He then shows the audience photos of Paris, London, Rome and other European metropolises, and talks about how wonderful these places are. Only at the end is the truth revealed: all the pictures are actually part of a project by the photographer Uwe Stelter called EINE STADT [ONE CITY], which shows images of Hannover with fictional captions situating them in different cities.

March 2019, presentation of the motto in Hannover In the run-up to the event, the Capital of Culture bid team leads everyone to expect a traditional press conference with a panel discussion. The room is set up in such a way as to maintain this illusion.

Once the audience has taken their seats, the lights suddenly go out and a radio play begins. The scenario: it is 2024 and Hannover is about to introduce its Capital of Culture programme for 2025.

But instead, a message appears on a screen saying the German people have held a referendum and have voted to leave the EU. Then a soft yet sombre voice announces ›the end of Europe and a Europe of nations‹. In the silence that follows, the actor introducing Hannover’s programme launches into an initially cautious but increasingly passionate appeal for a united Europe. In a compelling monologue, the actor argues that Hannover must become a platform for dialogue about issues which will shape Europe’s future – that Hannover must stand up and be counted, now more than ever: HERE, NOW, EVERYONE for Europe!

17th century until today, and put some eye-catching branding on the outside – then inside the trams there could be information about the different gardens. Almost like a mobile museum that’s part of people’s day-to-day lives. There are buses and trams all over the city that could be used to promote Hannover’s arts and culture institutions in an easily accessible way. And you could have similar designated tram lines for other cultural fields, such as a museum line, or a line for Hannover’s public sculpture mile,« says Gottfried. »You’re starting to understand,« says Kurt. »We need big gestures that move people. Take that big grass-covered landfill in Hannover-Lahe, for example, which the people round here have affectionately dubbed Monte Müllo? You could use it to highlight the theme of sustainability, as a symbol of an outdated consumerist and throw-away society which needs to be radically rethought. We could put big letters on top of it – preferably made by artists from scrap and illuminated by gases from the rubbish: European Capital of Culture 2025. Big white letters like the Hollywood sign. It would be brilliant! And it would also be a great way to greet all the nomads from Europe who came to visit us. Because the rubbish heap lies directly under the flight path for Hannover Airport, and next to the motorway. The message would be clear: we take waste and sustainability very seriously. And that would attract a lot more attention than any advert.« »That will be our principle,« says Gottfried. »With every project we will think from the outset about how it can garner attention. Art and marketing go hand in hand.«

cincizeci și cinci

�

September 2019, presentation of the central themes in Hannover Communications campaign with spoof election posters exploring the central themes of the programme in a humorous way. The message: we need to be talking about Europe all the time, not just during election campaigns.

September 2019, submission of the Bid Book in Berlin The Bid Book, written in form of a narrative and with a cover design inspired by Kurt Schwitters ›Merzbau‹, starts on its journey to the Cultural Foundation of the German Federal States as a piece of art.

During a performance at the Sprengel Museum Hannover, where it will be presented relating to Schwitters famous installation, the Bid Book will be send to Berlin via fine art transport service.

»Oh yes: and collaborations with local partners are essential, so that you can use their networks to appeal to

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specific target groups. I’m thinking of the churches and religious communities, educational institutions, the MADSACK Media Group with its 17 daily newspapers, the institutions of the advisory-board members, üstra, Hannover 96, the institutions the think tank members are affiliated with – basically everyone who’s been involved in the bid so far. And it would also be useful to link Hannover 2025 with big events like the IdeenExpo, Hannover Concerts, the International Fireworks Competition, the Maschseefest, the marksmen’s festival, the Hannover Messe trade fair and so on.« The consultant seems unable to stop. »Yes, yes. Thank you for your advice,« Gottfried and Kurt cry simultaneously. This is followed by a quiet sigh. Then you’re on your way. For a while you, Gottfried and Kurt walk beside one another in silence, until Kurt reminds you that there’s a long-established tradition in Hannover of collaborating with artists on communications campaigns. »Back in the 1920s, I designed adverts for Bahlsen’s Leibniz biscuits: they said ›Biscuit is progress‹. So why not let art speak for itself?« I n all its presentations since the first day of the Capital of Culture bid, Hannover has maintained the tradition of allowing art to speak for itself. This approach to communication and marketing will continue to be a priority during the title year and in the run-up to it. In concrete terms, this means that there will be a dual leadership structure in the future company, made up of artistic and marketing management. This means an integrated marketing approach will be guaranteed from the beginning.

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35 How does the city plan to highlight that the European

Capital of Culture is an action of the European Union?

Opening ceremony: Hannover will receive the baton from one of the incumbent Capitals of Culture at the opening ceremony of the European Capital of Culture year e at the 2025, and pass it on to one of the subsequent Capitals of Cultur of the European closing ceremony. The EU Commission President, the President Sport and the and Parliament, the EU Commissioner for Education, Culture, Youth the opening ceremony.

Committee on Culture and Education (CULT) will all be invited to e project will be cele40 years of ECoC: The anniversary of the European Capital of Cultur 2025 programme; particular brated and discussed at various events featured in the Hannover mics and politicians from the prominence will be given to a major event at which artists, acade on the past four decades. more than 70 former Capitals of Culture will look back and reflect phases for each of the four circles Invitations to European politicians: Invitations to the reflection y with the issues. They will be will be issued to prominent Europeans who have a thematic affinit iate and explore the big questions invited to join the city of Hannover in the agoras to discuss, negot cally to people who are active in facing Europe. Invitations to the reflection events will be sent specifi politics, especially EU politicians. and Hannover also organises the Europe Day: Every year, Europe Day is celebrated all over the city, festivities will be significantly expanded. annual Europafest [Europe Festival]; from 2020 onwards, these activities of the Capital of Culture bid Communication and logos: The press releases and social-media t; in all brochures as well as print team will make reference to the fact that the ECoC is an EU projec panied by the EU logo. and online articles, the Hannover 2025 logo will therefore be accom an accessible event will ver, Hanno Melina Mercouri International Prize: If the prize is awarded to look back on the history of be organised in honour of Melina Mercouri. This retrospective will European Capitals of Culture since 1985. e the railway station and Flags: European flags will be flown at City Hall, in the square outsid ver will fly the at the city’s most important cultural institutions; the whole of Hanno European flag throughout the Capital of Culture year.

Links to the EU 35 The entire premise of the bid revolves around Europe. With the concept of the Agora, we

want to respond to the deep rifts that are running through the Union and threatening to divide it more and more. The fact that this is an action of the European Union, therefore, will be clearly in evidence all over the city.

pedeset sedam

ďż˝

15

20

25

30

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have broad and strong political support and a sustainable commitment from the relevant local, regional and national public authorities.

10

36 Please confirm and supply evidence that you

5

36 »I’d like to remind everyone,« Gottfried says, »that at the end of the day, with all the broad participation in the world, art and creative freedom also need political support if they are to flourish. That was the case in my day, and it’s still the case now.« You nod. »But Hannover 2025 doesn’t seem to be lacking in support from the authorities, if what the bid team said is true,« Kurt replies as you make your way through the train station towards your platform.

This support is illustrated by the unusual circumstance of all the parties on the local council (apart from the right-wing populist AfD, of course) having come out emphatically in favour of the bid in a joint council document and press release in February 2018. This was unprecedented, since council documents are usually issued by the council administration. But in this case it was the parties themselves. And this was not only despite but perhaps because of the fact that things were rather chaotic at City Hall at the time: during the two years of the bid, there were four changes of personnel, with the city losing both its councillor for cultural affairs and its mayor. This made the politicians even more keen to send a clear message of support, and they have consistently got behind the bid at critical stages.

But the council administration too has shown strong commitment to the project, even at senior management level. Admittedly, people in the corridors of City Hall were a bit bemused at first by all the kerfuffle being caused by the ›ladies from the Capital of Culture team‹, and wondered what the mysterious Bid Book was all about. But everyone eventually got behind the project and showed great enthusiasm for it, including the heads of department at the regular workshops, the junior staff and the councillors. Many things that usually take a long time to be processed by the intricate machinery of city government suddenly happened quickly and easily. And the surrounding local councils? Here too, enthusiasm for the project is clearly in evidence at the political level. The president of the Region is fully behind the bid. And what’s more: the Hannover Region is not only supporting the bid financially, but will also get involved with the content and organisation of the programme in the run-up to 2025. The mayors and cultural officers of the 21 towns and municipalities have also come together to discuss the topic of Hannover 2025 in joint workshops. Meetings are already being held with the state of Lower Saxony, of course, which is currently drawing up its letter of intent to co-finance the programme. And Hannover is active at the national level too: it has spearheaded an appeal by all the applying cities to the German government, asking it to pledge financial support for the programme out of federal funds. In other words: Hannover is ready to go. »Something’s fallen out of your folder,« says Kurt as the three of you are about to board the train. He points to two sheets of paper lying on the ground. »Looks like more of that paperwork, the financial and administrative stuff.« You pick up the pieces of paper. It’s true: these are the answers to Questions 37 and 38, in which Hannover provides evidence that it is in an excellent position when it comes to infrastructure, but that it is nevertheless planning further measures to benefit Hannover 2025 and the visitors.

here, now, everyone for Europe!

E

ventually, you find yourself back where you started: gazing into the abyss, into a future that frightens you. Dark and deep. ›So what should we do?‹

asks Kurt. Hannover can’t save the world. Certainly not alone, and not in one year. It will take more than just a cultural programme with a few fireworks at the end of the year – more than just one city.

What it will take is a fundamental paradigm shift, one which will breathe new life into the original and fundamental idea of the ECoC programme: strengthening European solidarity through culturally vibrant cities. We need to go back to these ideas. Back to the project’s roots. It is not the Union, in its current time of crisis, that must come to the aid of its cities, but the cities that must come to the aid of the Union. And you start to imagine what that might look like.

It will start somewhere. Perhaps in Hannover. Who knows? One city, then another, and another. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? And they’d come from all over Europe, to stand at the edge of this gaping chasm. But they wouldn’t come to bridge this gap with temporary structures. They’d come to fill it in, right to the top, so that people can walk across it once more. here, now, everyone for Europe!

37. Please confirm and provide evidence that your city has or will have adequate and viable infrastructure to host the title. To do that, please answer the following questions: a) Explain briefly how the European Capital of Culture will make use of and develop the city's cultural infrastructure. b) What are the city's assets in terms of accessibility (regional, national and international transport)? c) What is the city's absorption capacity in terms of tourists' accommodation? a) The European Capital of Culture programme will use the city’s cultural infrastructure as discussed above: through collaboration with local cultural operators, particularly in the Agora of Europe and Europe on Stage programme strands. The development of the cultural infrastructure is currently being accelerated as part of the cultural development plan. b) Hannover benefits greatly from its central position in the European transport network. The most important road links between east and west and north and south intersect here, in the form of the A2 and A7 motorways. Via Deutsche Bahn’s ICE high-speed train network, Hannover enjoys direct access to all the major metropolitan areas in Germany. The Zentraler Omnibusbahnhof Hannover [Hannover Central Bus Station] is one of the most modern in Germany. The station is on all the main long-distance bus routes, and coaches belonging to all the major tour operators stop here. From Hannover Airport you can fly directly to the main European cities. The Mittelland Canal – the longest artificial waterway in Germany – and Hannover’s four inland ports link the city with the continent’s largest sea and inland ports.

Hannover was voted ‘Germany’s Most Sustainable City’ in 2018. Every year, over 200 million passengers travel on the public transport coordinated by the Großraum-Verkehr Hannover [large capacity traffic organisation] umbrella organisation. With its bus and light rail network, üstra is the most important mobility service provider in Hannover. The network offers a high level of comfort – including for passengers with restricted mobility – and seamless connectivity across the region.

As the host of the EXPO 2000 world’s fair, Hannover proved that it has the infrastructure and resources to organise international events of this size and to learn long-term lessons from them. c) Hannover also provides evidence of the capacity and viability of its infrastructure on a regular basis, frequently hosting tens of thousands of visitors who flock to the city for international exhibitions, conferences and music events. The state capital offers more than 14,000 beds, with an additional 21,000 beds in the surrounding municipalities. By 2025 this capacity will have risen by around 6,000 beds thanks to planned new hotel developments.

38. In terms of cultural, urban and tourism infrastructure what are the projects (including renovation projects) that your city plans to carry out in connection with the European Capital of Culture action between now and the year of the title?

1. Transport infrastructure Despite its excellent current provision, the city of Hannover continues to invest in its infrastructure: by 2023, a total of 120.45 million euros will have been invested in the city’s transport infrastructure. This amount will fund road building, improvements to local public transport and cycle paths. The city is also investing in the following areas via companies in which it holds shares: - Extending electromobility (by 2020, installation of at least 600 publicly accessible charging points) and local public transport (e.g., the electric-bus campaign) - Increasing the efficiency and quality of services at Hannover Airport - Comprehensive 5G infrastructure and traffic-management systems at the Fairground - Investment in the infrastructure of the Kuppelsaal at the Hannover Congress Centre 2. Cultural infrastructure Evidence: as presented in Question 31‌ 3. Further infrastructure measures Investment as part of Capital of Culture projects: -

Redesigning the House of Religions: New design in line with the principle of the Agora.

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Redeveloping Steintorplatz (central square in the inner city): New design in line with the principle of the Agora, developed through intensive public participation and landscape-architecture bureaus. The plan is for international artists to be involved as well.

This book is part of State Capital Hannover’s bid for European Capital of Culture 2025 Published by: STATE CAPITAL HANNOVER Directorate of Culture Konstanze Beckedorf, Hannover 2025 Bid Team Team Management: Melanie Botzki, Inga Samii Assistant Team Management: Lisa Weber Team Members: Thomas Böhm, Halyna Felten, Anja Menge, Sabine Müller, Anett Schweitzer, Franzisca Tinnefeld Editorial Head Office: Overall Concept and Chief Editors: Melanie Botzki, Inga Samii Consultancy: Dr. Heli Meisterson, Oeds Westerhof Artistic Consultancy: Dr. Ralf Beil, Mazlum Nergiz Author: Juan Sebastian Guse Research: Kira von der Brelie Picture Editors: Sebastian Peetz, Michael Stork Copy Editing: Anja Menge, Anett Schweitzer, Lisa Weber German Proofreading: Juli Katz, Stefan Kleinschmidt, Barbara Krüger English Translation: Romy Fursland, Franzisca Tinnefeld, Simone Krummaker English Proofreading: Emma Rault Communication Strategy Bid Book: Michael Stork Design and Layout: Creative Concept and Design: Sebastian Peetz Typesetting, Imaging, Layout: peetz & le peetz design, Hannover Composing assistance and Cinema 4D: Arved Lindau, Hamburg Typeface Body: 10,5/13 pt Indigo Antiqua 2 von Johan Ström, Stockholm Typeface Display: 11/13 pt Dalle Display von Stawix Ruecha, Bangkok Typeface Chapters: 24/18 pt Global Warming von Stan Studios, Stuttgart The concept behind this font is that type is as sensitive to global warming as our environment.

The transformation of tiny parts of a fragile system destabilises the whole. The way the letters look is influenced by NASA’s official global data. The typeface visualises the consequences of global warming - making it increasingly difficult to read. We decided to turn the whole thing around, starting with the current situation in Chapter 1, using time and potential new solutions to get global warming under control and finally balance the climate - visible in the letters of the title of chapter 6 Paper: Lessebo Design Natural, 440g von Lessebo-Bruk, Schweden Lasercutting Merzbau: Marc Roth, Kremo Mill cuts: Matthias Hußmann, Ermonis, Ehlershausen Bookbinding: Hans-Jürgen Vehse, Vehse Feinbuchbinderei, Hannover Produktion Coordination: Christian Lieb, Hannover Printing: Gutenberg Beuys Feindruckerei, Hannover Printed in Hannover Deutschland MMXIX

Copyright / Picture credits: Bookcover Collage le peetz design; endpaper top Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz & Kurt Schwitters le peetz design; endpaper bottom Merzbau im Sprengel Museum Hannover, Sprengel Museum Hannover / photo: Wilhelm Redemann; 3 Illustration ›Schule von Athen‹ le peetz design; 7 Detail Agora of Europe le peetz design; 15 Agora of Europe le peetz design; 18 top Collage Europa als Friedensprojekt le peetz design; 18 bottom Schriftstellerkongress 1935 photo: Gisèle Freund / bpk / IMEC, Fonds MCC; 20 Collage Cityring le peetz design; 21 Grafik Das Wunder von Hannover DER SPIEGEL 23/1959; 22 Collage Beauty of Failure le peetz design; 23 Collage Grüne Stadt le peetz design, photo: HMTG; 24 top ›Arbeitslosenschlange beim Anstehen zum Stempeln im Hof des Arbeitsamtes Hannover Frühjahr 1932‹ Walter Ballhause-Archiv / photo: Walter Ballhause; 24 middle ›Die Verzweifelte‹ Walter Ballhause-Archiv / photo: Walter Ballhause; 25 Collage Frauen in der Kunst: Mary Wigman (bottom left) Sprengel Museum Hannover / photo: Ursula Richter, Grethe Jürgens (bottom Mitte) N.N., Mary Wigman (bottom right) Getty Images / photo: Bettmann, Yvonne Georgi (Mitte) N.N., Käte Steinitz (top right) Sprengel Museum Hannover / photo: N.N., Ada Lessing (top Mitte) Stadtarchiv Hannover / Peter Gorny, Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers (top left) Sprengel Museum Hannover / photo: bpk / Friedrich Müller / Art Resource, NY; 26 top photo: Christophe Ena / AP; 26 middle photo: Jacky Naegelen / Reuters; 27 Kann Kunst gefährlich sein le peetz design; 28 Collage Suche nach den verschwundenen Worten le peetz design / photo: Björn Kietzmann; 33 top Collage Rettung von 2023 le peetz design; 33 bottom Collage Skulpturen am Maschsee le peetz design / photo: le peetz design; 35 Tires & Wires Assalamalekoum Cultures / Lybien Muftah Abudajaja; 39 KHH25-Kiosk photo: Isabel Winarsch; 42 KHH25-Team bei Nacht Kulturhauptstadtbewerbung Hannover / photo: Lisa Weber; 54 left Melanie Botzki vor Plakat Kulturstiftung der Länder / photo: Ulrich Heemann; 54 right Plakat Schwarzlicht Kulturhauptstadtbewerbung Hannover / photo: Julian Winkhaus; 55 top Präsentation Leitidee Kulturhauptstadtbewerbung Hannover / photo: B&B / Tobias Kunze; 55 bottom Kulturstiftung der Länder / photo: Sebastian Semmer; 56 Collage KHH25-Plakate Kulturhauptstadtbewerbung Hannover / photo: HMTG / Lars Gerhardts, le peetz design Acknowledgements: Cultural development plan-team: Bernd Jacobs, Dr. Benedikt Poensgen, Dr. Carola Schelle-Wolff.

Representative for the think tanks: Stefan Altmeyer, Ronald Clark, Gunnar Geßner, Helene Herich, Maximilian Horn, Magdalena Jackstadt, Harald Kiefer, Katja Krause, Tosh Leykum, Nils Meyer, Hamideh Mohagheghi, Lutz Rädecker, Dorothée Rhiemeier, Matthias Riemann, Ivana Rohr, Dilek Ruf, Ilka Theurich, Ingrid Wagemann.

Representative for the Advisory board - Ninia Binias, the Arts council - Magdalena Jackstadt and for the Board of trustees - Marlis Fertmann.

The councils and the ›Team Kultur‹ of the Hannover Region and Lower Saxony.

AG Kultur der LHH, Martina und Rolf Ballhause, Stefan Becker, Anke Biedenkapp, Cameo Kollektiv, Gregor und Monika Dehmel, Förderkreis der LHH, Stephan Kaps, LHH AG KHH, kre|H|tiv Netzwerk Hannover e.V., Kulturausschuss der LHH, Per Mertesacker Stiftung, Christine Preitauer, Georg Rinke, Prof. Dr. Detlef Schmiechen-Ackermann, Franziska Schmidt, Dr. Isabel Schulz, Prof. Dr. Thomas Schwark, Katharina Walter.

Special thanks goes to our families for their enduring patience.

State Capital Hannover Hannover 2025 bid team Trammplatz 2 30159 Hannover