Creative Europe Meets Chemnitz 2025

Location

entrance free

Inspiring projects from art, culture and film show how diverse European creativity is. From virtual worlds and DNA art to European film history, literature from Poland and fashionable industrial culture - here you can see what becomes of ideas when they are conceived and promoted in a European way. Short films, lectures and exhibitions created in this context invite visitors to discover them. The projects presented are supported by the EU Creative Europe funding programme.

Programme schedule:

14:30, Welcome: Sophia Hodge (CED KULTUR) & Susanne Schmitt (CED MEDIA Berlin-Brandenburg)

14:40 - 15:00, Lecture: ‘Images leave the factory - Moving history(ies) of European film’ with Hannes Wesselkämper, journalist & moderator

15:05 - 15:25, Lecture: ‘Metamorphosis of Workwear - or what workwear can tell us’ by the Chemnitz Industrial Museum and Wiete Sommer

15:40 - 16:00, Lecture: ‘Sparks of inspiration - art meets technology’ by the FUNKEN Academy

16:15 - 16:45, Reading: ‘Seven. The Book of Polish Demons’ with Leif Greinus, published by Voland & Quist

17:10 - 17:30, panel discussion: ‘Kaleidoscope of stories: Festival Highlights from Chemnitz, Dresden and Leipzig’, moderated by Hannes Wesselkämper 

17:30 - 19:00, Short film screening: Curated by SCHLiNGEL - International Festival for Children and Young Audience, DOK Leipzig - International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film, Filmfest Dresden - International Short Film Festival

All-day exhibitions: Poster and video installation (FUNKEN Academy) and exhibition on working clothes (Chemnitz Industriemuseum)

To kick off ‘Creative Europe meets Chemnitz 2025’, we will accompany film expert Hannes Wesselkämper on a journey through European film history in his lecture ‘Images leave the factory - moving history(ies) of European film’: The birth of film took place at the end of the 19th century, somewhere between Leeds, Berlin and Lyon. Since then, moving images have been an integral part of our everyday lives. In brief highlights, film scholar Hannes Wesselkämper sheds light on the curious and glamorous history of a medium that is constantly reinventing itself - and that would never have existed without cross-border cooperation.

Seven. The book of Polish demons: ‘So there you are, Paweł, sitting in your Vectra, driving through hungover, broken-down Krakow, you yourself just as hungover and broken-down, driving out of Krakow, into Warsaw and stuck in a traffic jam on national road no. 7, the Seven, the queen of Polish roads [...]’ - these are the words that begin the novel ‘Seven. The Book of Polish Demons’ by Ziemowit Szczerek, which has been published in German translation by Voland & Quist. In a short reading, publisher Leif Greinus takes us on the road trip of journalist Paweł. Leif Greinus received the Karl-Heinz-Zillmer-Verlegerpreis in 2022 and the Großer Berliner Verlagspreis in 2024, among others. 

The Chemnitz FUNKEN Academy offers insights into artistic-technological research. Whether artificial intelligence, biotechnology or augmented reality - the increasingly rapid technological developments of our time bring with them new challenges and ethical questions. Against this backdrop, a separation between art and science no longer seems appropriate. It is precisely at the interface between the disciplines that art and culture can produce valuable innovations. At the FUNKEN Academy, artists come together with technology institutes and research facilities to venture innovative experiments in the field of tension between art and technology. The exhibition installation and the discussion with Christoph Papendorf provide exciting insights into this world.

The boiler suit - an iconic item of clothing that can be both practical workwear and a stylish designer piece - becomes a projection surface for industrial culture in the ‘Metamorphosis of Workwear’ project. The project is a collaboration between the Chemnitz Industrial Museum (Germany), the Central Textile Museum in Łódź (Poland) and the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Centre in Gabrovo (Bulgaria). Almut Hertel from the Chemnitz Industrial Museum and Wiete Sommer, artistic director of the project, will provide an exciting insight into the creative processes of the European cooperation project.

At the end of the day, the three major festivals in the region will present a best-of European short films. Moderated by Hannes Wesselkämper, Anne Gaschütz (Filmfest Dresden), Michael Harbauer (SCHLiNGEL) and Nadja Tennstedt (DOK Leipzig) will present their current festival programmes.