Berlin Project Fund for Cultural Education
The decision for the allocation of the 2011 Berlin Project Fund for Cultural Education will be announced at the end of January 2011, once the jury has chosen the most creative and educational from the many worthy applicants.
About the Project Fund
The establishment of the Berlin Project Fund in 2008 was an important step in the funding of cultural education programmes. It enables partners in art, culture and education to finance projects without endangering existing structural sponsorship from other organisations.
It is an extension of the Proactive Cultural Education Berlin programme (Offensive Kulturelle Bildung), founded in 2006 by the Council for the Arts. Centred on the belief that art and culture are important catalysts for development and innovation, they devised, together with leading figures in this field, a path for new initiatives and reforms in cultural education. The Council for the Arts aims not to direct but to coordinate the different partners constituting this alliance to develop a sustainable collaboration. The unique factor in this project is that the drive comes from the art industry itself, and generates high expectations of the cooperation between the arts and education. Cultural institutions of all types take part, amongst them national, regional, private and freelance, initiatives big and small. At the head of this umbrella programme is Lothar Zagrosek, the lead conductor of the Konzerthaus Orchestra of Berlin, who has publicized through his involvement just how necessary it is to find new paths in cultural communication and to facilitate greater participation in culture.
In September 2006, a workshop conference took place, gathering over 140 participants - members of schools, galleries, cultural communication, science and artistic associations - to discuss the issue of cultural education. In a collective statement they demanded a consolidated political cooperation between the education and culture departments, the formulation of a conceptual framework, the establishment of a coordinating position and the implementation of participatory artistic processes into the national curriculum.
More on the Berliner Projektfonds Kulturelle Bildung (in German)
Related projects: Data Bank for Cultural Education