The Cultural Capital Secretariat received over 50 applications, from which it selected five citizens of Chemnitz as cultural ambassadors to sit on the programme council for the cultural capital bidding procedure.

The programme council is responsible for contributing the creative work to the bid. It develops a concept for the Cultural Capital and collects ideas and proposals for this purpose. It is advised in its work by international experts. The tasks of the cultural ambassadors on the programme council will be to define the content of the bid.

The cultural ambassadors will discuss ideas from the programme council among their friends and family and, in return, will introduce ideas from civic society into the deliberations of the programme council. The concept that Chemnitz will use to apply for the title should be authentic, suit the city and produce lasting effects.

Chemnitz wants to use this concept to demonstrate what makes the city special as a part of Europe. In this regard, culture is a broadly defined notion that extends beyond merely the artistic spheres to encompass all areas of society, including sport, social concerns, urban gardening and science.

The work of the cultural ambassadors is intended to encourage citizens of the city to contribute to the programme and to influence the bidding process. The five cultural ambassadors will attend the first meeting of the programme council, which is scheduled for 23 May 2017.

The appointment of the cultural ambassadors to the programme council is based on the resolution adopted by the city council on 25 January 2017 to recruit five citizens from all age groups in the city of Chemnitz to contribute as honorary cultural ambassadors. The selection procedure for the five cultural ambassadors began on 7 March 2017 and ended on 12 April 2017.

Samuel Harnisch, Ute Lierath, Chris Münster, Nicole Oeser and Stefan Tschök are the names of the five cultural ambassadors who will join the programme council for the Cultural Capital bid with immediate effect. They introduced themselves in public on 12 May, describing their motivation for contributing to the programme council and declaring their willingness to accompany the content and concept side of the bidding process.

Samuel Harnisch
Samuel HarnischStudent

Samuel Harnisch is a student at Johannes Kepler grammar school. In his free time, he likes to read about the varied history of Chemnitz and how the city evolved. Later on he would like to become an architect or urban planner.

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Ute Lierath
Ute LierathPensioner

Ute Lierath called the Cultural Capital Secretariat to apply for the position of cultural ambassador. In this role, she wants to invest her ideas and strength in ensuring that people with and without disabilities can experience the city and its potential together.

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Chris Münster
Chris MünsterArtist

Chris Münster is firmly rooted in Chemnitz and its independent subculture. “Now more than ever!” is his motto and the maxim that encouraged him and his friends to open the reading cafe Odradek as the first cultural establishment in the alternative property Leipziger Straße (Kompott).

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Nicole Oeser
Nicole OeserSports enthusiast

Nicole Oeser is a native of Karl Marx Stadt. Twice she left the city of her birth to study media sciences and sport management, and twice she returned – out of “love and passion” for Chemnitz and the local sporting scene.

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Stefan Tschök
Stefan TschökBusiness engineer

Stefan Tschök is a qualified business engineer (traffic management) with a passion for art, culture and literature. As early as the 1980s, he was a member of various literary groups, including the “Zirkel schreibender Arbeiter” (Workers’ Writing Circle) at the Heckert Cooperative in what was then Karl Marx Stadt.

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