The Chemnitz 2025 GmbH team wishes you a peaceful festive season and a good start to the new year.
The festive season invites us to pause for a moment and look back on the past year. Together with numerous stakeholders from Chemnitz and the Capital of Culture region, we look back on an eventful year and summarise some of the highlights from 2023:
The Chemnitz 2025 volunteer programme was launched this year. Over 100 volunteers are already active and have already supported us in many activities with a great deal of commitment, fun and enthusiasm. Our volunteers are indispensable ambassadors for the unique Chemnitz 2025 project and we will continue to expand the team until the start of the title year. The current basic team will train many hundreds more interested people in the volunteers programme from summer 2024.
The Capital of Culture Info Café took place at regular intervals. In addition to information on current projects relating to Chemnitz 2025, we also exchanged ideas with you. Thank you for the questions and discussions!
There were also many other regular dialogue rounds with representatives of the city's community, the economy and the local catering and hotel industry. In total, we reached well over 6,000 people in direct conversations and turned them into multipliers for Chemnitz 2025.
A total of five public calls for proposals (open calls) took place throughout the year. We are expanding the Capital of Culture 2025 programme and involving additional stakeholders from culture and civil society. The submitted project ideas are currently being reviewed and a number of Soft Skills Academy I projects are already being implemented, for example, Chemnitz illustrator Stephanie Brittnacher was on a research trip to Oulu, the European Capital of Culture 2026.
A total of three new works of art were inaugurated along the PURPLE PATH . There was also a comprehensive accompanying programme with more than 20 events, consisting of talks, readings and concerts. The sculpture, art and maker trail is a main project of the European Capital of Culture Chemnitz 2025.
The nine Makerhubs are constantly evolving. This is where people with a passion for crafts, technology and cuisine come together to experiment, learn from each other and create something new together. For example, a new association, Macherei e.V., was founded in Lößnitz to run the local maker hub and the first maker festivals were held in Striegistal and Zwönitz.
Our youth programme, Create U. - Young Culture Made in Chemnitz, was launched. Together with mentors, young people aged between 14 and 27 will realise their own projects. After a series of preparatory workshops, the first projects will take place in spring 2024. Want to find out more? Then follow the Create U. account on Instagram.
Team Generations also hosted the first re:generation conference at the end of October. For an entire weekend, Chemnitz residents exchanged ideas with scientists, cultural workers and artists about the role and function of the topic of generations in their work. There were also initial outlooks and plans for the Capital of Culture year 2025 and, together with representatives of the European Capitals of Culture and Youth Lviv 2025, Kaunas 2022 and Tartu 2024, we discussed experiences from the Capital of Culture process, European contexts and best practice examples. You can watch the conference here.
Makers, Business & Arts is one of the main projects for the Capital of Culture programme. The conference "Tourismus:kreativ - Vom Anschauen zum Mitmachen" (Tourism:creative - from watching to participating) was a kick-off event for the topic of creative tourism in Chemnitz and the cultural region. This brought together partners from tourism associations and marketing organisations with makers who already offer creative workshops or want to develop them.
The Industry Meets Makers Challenge has also been launched, where industrial companies work together with players from the creative industries on issues relating to industrial companies in areas such as AI, robotics, blockchain, 3D printing, but also processes relating to skilled labour or the circular economy, for example.
For this year's Advent season, the Maker Advent brought together hands-on activities in Chemnitz and the cultural region, motivating people to create their own products and learn new (craft) skills beyond pre-Christmas consumption. The courses and workshops also helped to strengthen the maker mentality and sense of community, while at the same time inspiring guests in the city and region for local traditions and cultural heritage.
The 30 intervention areas include infrastructure projects that are linked to the Chemnitz 2025 programme - not just as future event venues, but as places whose transformation can have a far-reaching impact on the city community. A lot has also happened here in 2023: for example, conversion work has begun on the Garage Campus, the Stadtwirtschaft and the Karl Schmidt-Rottluff Haus, green spaces such as the Bürgerpark in Gablenz have been opened and the Hartmannfabrik, the planned Welcome Centre and office of Chemnitz 2025 GmbH, is currently being finalised and is scheduled to move in in spring 2024.
Whether it's the exchange with the other European Capitals of Culture, the celebrations for the 40-year city partnership with Manchester, the European Peace Ride with route sections in Poland and the Czech Republic, the presentation on the Day of German Unity at the German Embassy in Prague or the trips of the volunteer team to Timișoara: we and our project partners remain well connected in Europe.
