Academy Discussions / Academy Dialogues
Academy Discussions 2015 – 2024
From 2015 to 2024, the then Akademie President Jeanine Meerapfel was responsible for the series of discussions on artistic, political and cultural-political themes. In a total of 24 events, she questioned artists, politicians, scholars and journalists about current events and how to tackle them. Topics included the political situation for artists in various countries around the world, the catchwords “integration”, “community of values” and “flood of refugees”, cultural film funding, art and AI, the climate catastrophe and the Last Generation, the future of public broadcasting and the shift to the right in Germany.
The [and ...] stood for insights into the creative output of the invited artists, whose works were presented in short video clips before and after the discussions.
Academy Discussions 2006 – 2015
In 2006, the then Akademie President Klaus Staeck initiated a series of discussions and chaired it until 2015. In a total of 62 events, he discussed topics with guests such as changes in copyright laws, the cultural mission of the public broadcasting stations, the role of art in the social upheavals of 1968 and 1989, the design of Berlin’s Museum Island, the murder of the Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya , the power and influence of Google, the condemnation of the death penalty, the global threat of climate change, poverty in Germany, Europe’s refugee policy, and the situations of the threatened artists Ai Weiwei and Roberto Saviano.
Academy Dialogues
From 2017 to 2023, the then Akademie President Jeanine Meerapfel entered into an intensive dialogue with renowned personalities from the arts, sciences, politics or cultural policy. Afterwards, the audience was invited to contribute to this exchange on current issues. Guests included the historian and prejudice researcher Wolfgang Benz, the social scientist and author Hazel Rosenstrauch, the then Senator for Culture and Europe Klaus Lederer, the architect Wilfried Wang, the author Max Czollek, the visual artist Anna Schapiro, the author Deborah Feldman, the film director Peter Lilienthal, the rabbi Delphine Horvilleur, the sociologist Natan Sznaider and the media scientist Lea Wohl von Haselberg.