Features, reports and interviews from around the world
The Latest at Goethe 2019

(23 December 2019) The Goethe-Institut wishes you happy holidays and a happy New Year 2020! An eventful and exciting year 2019 is drawing to a close. We would like to thank all our friends and partners for their support, cooperation and interest in our work. We wish you a good and healthy start into the New Year and look forward to an exciting 2020 together with you!

(19 December 2019) “Five Million Incidents”: The Goethe-Instituts New Delhi and Kolkata are serious about the idea of the institute as a public space. Over a period of nine months, they are experimenting with the Raqs Media Collective with new forms of cultural programme work.

(10 December 2019) Decolonisation, sustainability and Europe in times of populism: The Goethe-Institut is strengthening its network to facilitate the dialogue on these and other issues. Secretary-General Johannes Ebert reports in an interview on the focuses of the Goethe-Institut’s international cultural and language work in 2020.

(09 December 2019) A flight from Johannesburg to Cape Town takes a good two hours. A train ride? At least 27 hours, without air conditioning. This is part of the concept of the "Train Jam" supported by the Goethe-Institut, which connects game design students and game designers.

(6 December 2019) Human population is constantly increasing, and with its rapid growth meets many challenges on the way. How can we prepare and adapt in time? Can we increase the quality of life by sharing the living space? The Finale of the international project “Shared Cities: Creative Momentum”, coordinated by the Goethe-Institut, has tackled these questions in Prague.

(5 December 2019) The Youth Internet Governance Forum has been in existence since 2012. Now, the forum met for the first time in Germany. The Goethe-Institut supported members in the global South in their participation.

(03 December 2019) At the end of November 2019, the launch of the exhibition project "Invisible Inventories", which is supported by the Goethe-Institut, took place in Kenya. At the "Object Movement Dialogue #4" in the Nairobi National Museum, the role of local communities within the restitution debate was discussed. The Kenyan journalist Abigail Arunga was on site for "Goethe aktuell".

(28 November 2019) For the project “Weltenschreiber – Writers of Worlds”, seven authors from Germany directed writing workshops for young people in Central and Eastern European cities. Workshop director Thomas Richhardt reports on his experiences with a creative writing workshop with 15 young people at the Goethe-Institut Bucharest.

(25 November 2019) How does digitisation affect teaching and learning, but also social development and the labour market? At the Goethe-Institut Ukraine’s congress “Knowledge and Learning in the Digital Age”, “The Latest at Goethe” spoke with Philipp Koch, an expert in artificial intelligence.

(20 November 2019) The Goethe-Institut New Zealand hosted the smartphone film competition "#Nucleus", which stimulated discussion about the environment and sustainability. Now nine filmmakers from seven countries came together to develop a short film.

(19 November 2019) How African artists see German colonial history became clear during the cultural week “The Burden of Memory” organised by the Goethe-Instituts of the Sub-Saharan African region, held in the Cameroon capital city of Yaoundé.

(14 November 2019) At the end of the Year of Germany in the USA, the Goethe-Instituts in the United States have strengthened their network with three completely updated institutes in Boston, Washington and Los Angeles. This is a signal of how important it is to continue the cultural and civil society dialogue between North America and Germany.

(12 November 2019) On Friday in Copenhagen, Federal Foreign Minister Heiko Maas and his Danish counterpart Jeppe Kofod opened the German-Danish Cultural Year of Friendship 2020, which the Goethe-Institut is co-organising. To mark the start of the Year of Friendship, the “Tyskland” exhibition at the National Museum of Denmark tells the history of Germany through significant objects from past centuries.

(8 November 2019) We are now marking the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. How did young people in Italy and Germany experience the time after this event? The exhibition “Born after ‘89”, which opens on 8 November at the Goethe-Institut in Rome, answers this question with photojournalistic works.

(4 November 2019) At a joint concert by the Leipzig Gewandhausorchester and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, German Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier heralded the end of the Year of Germany in the USA.

(4 November 2019) The Goethe Institute in Los Angeles organized a four-day conference last week, called “Worlds of Homelessness”, bringing local and international scholars, advocates, artists, architects and current or formerly unhoused people together for conversations held in downtown Los Angeles.

(25 October 2019) Robots not welcome: The Goethe-Institut’s conference “Vocational Education and Labour Mobility – Think Globally!” focused on international collaboration in the context of the migration of skilled personnel.

(21 October 2019) Amman Design Week took place in Jordan from October 4 to 12. “Takween”, a programme initiated by the design collective platform and the Goethe-Institut Jordan was also part of the meeting of creative professionals from all over the Middle East.

(17 October 2019) "Truthfulness" was the motto of this year’s "DokuBaku" Documentary Film Festival in Azerbaijan. In close cooperation with the Goethe-Zentrum Baku, 38 films from around the world were shown at three venues.

(15 October 2019) The German production "Too Far Away" by Sarah Winkenstette received this year’s Children’s and Youth Film Award at the 24th International Film Festival for Children and Young Audiences in Chemnitz. The Goethe-Institut has conferred the award during the Schlingel Festival for several years now.

(8 October 2019) The African continent is young and full of creativity. Johannes Ebert, secretary-general of the Goethe-Institut, presents the work of the Goethe-Instituts in the cultural and creative industries in Africa in a special issue of the newspaper Politik und Kultur published together with the German Cultural Council.

(4 October 2019) Arousing interest in art, strengthening the local scene: The Goethe-Institut brought the idea of the Berlin art festival 48h Neukölln to Novosibirsk.

(2 October 2019) A promenade concert in Młyn Hilberta in the small Polish town of Dzierżoniów was the closing event of the Goethe-Institut’s Ortsgespräche (Local Calls). Artur Celiński, curator of Ortsgespräche, takes a look back at the two years of work on this project for "The Latest at Goethe".

(20 September 2019) The African cultural infrastructure is presently at a turning point. Klaus-Dieter Lehmann, president of the Goethe-Institut, highlights the positive and mutual interest in the urgent questions of postcolonial museum work in his keynote address at the opening of the final international Museum Conversations conference in Windhoek..

(18 September 2019) We can read media, but can we distinguish real news from fake? The Goethe-Institut Moscow is now entering its second round with The Earth Is Flat - How to Read Media? and is creating a participatory educational project.

(16 September 2019) In a ceremony in the Berlin Funkhaus, alumni and politicians celebrated the tenth anniversary of the international volunteer programme kulturweit. In 2009, volunteers were sent to Goethe-Instituts and partner schools of the Goethe-Institut abroad for the first time. Then as now, curiosity and a dose of courage are important prerequisites.
 

(10 September 2019) To celebrate the 250th birthday of Alexander von Humboldt, the Stiftung Humboldt Forum is organising a two-day festival together with the Goethe-Institut. On 13 September, the exhibition "The Nature of Things: Humboldt, Comings and Goings" will open in Berlin as part of these festivities.

(04 September 2019) Rhetoric can exclude, hurt and define others, writes the Israeli author Maayan Ben Hagai. She is a guest at the German-Israeli Literature Festival organised by the Goethe-Institut together with the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung.

(30 August 2019) The German-Turkish writer Doğan Akhanlı, the Iranian artist and filmmaker Shirin Neshat and the Mongolian publisher and political journalist Enkhbat Roozon were awarded the Goethe Medal on 28 August.

(28 August 2019) The continent of creativity: Enter Africa, a network project by the Goethe-Institut in 15 African countries, presented the mega-game Busara for the first time in the Indie Arena Booth at gamescom 2019.

(23 August 2019) We become through language and can just as easily be undone by it: Commissioned by Goethe-Institut Karachi the exhibition “Is it Possible to Live Outside of Language?” offers a timely reflection on the exclusion of diverse voices.

(19 August 2019) The Goethe-Institut Malaysia supports two German artists at this year’s OBSCURA Festival of Photography in George Town, Penang. Simon Menner’s collection of East German surveillance photos and Hannes Wiedemann’s photographs of US bodyhackers are geocentric at first glance.

(15 August 2019) What challenges do South African and German journalism both face? And what do digital and global developments mean for the future of journalism? The Future of Journalism, a series by the Goethe-Institut South Africa, wants to discuss and find out exactly that. 

(05 August 2019) The exhibition escribiendo lo público/writing the public can be seen at the Goethe-Institut Mexico until 27 October 2019. It presents the results of a workshop that artist Flo Maak organised at the invitation of the Goethe-Institut with the artist organisation Relaciones Inesperadas in Tijuana.
 

(29. July 2019) Unfamiliar views of the land of opportunity: “Typical America” is far from the coastal cities. Detroit even has a special connection to Berlin. The Year of Germany in the USA presents the longstanding friendship from forgotten perspectives.

(25 July 2019) Come closer. “The Cabinet” is a container installation by the Goethe-Institut Warsaw that virtually transports the audience into Robert Wiene’s classic silent film The Cabinet of Dr Caligari.

(22 July 2019) Ágnes Heller, the Hungarian philosopher and sociologist, died last Friday at the age of 90 – an obituary.

(18. July 2019) The life and legacy of Soviet city planning and architecture continue to shape the urban landscape of the former USSR. The Goethe-Institut’s travelling exhibition The City of Tomorrow  is devoted to Soviet Modernism.
 

(15. July 2019) Until the 15th century, the Atlantic Ocean marked a perceptible border. The overcoming set in motion a history of colonization, enslavement, exploitation and migration. The Goethe-Institut's conference "Echoes of the South Atlantic" puts this past in the center of an intercultural discourse.

(09. July 2019) On 7 July 2019, the film producer Artur Brauner died in Berlin at the age of 100. Klaus-Dieter Lehmann, the president of the Goethe-Institut, recalls Brauner’s unflagging dedication.

(03. July 2019) The motto of the second Kultursymposium Weimar was “Recalculating the Route.” At the invitation of the Goethe-Institut, experts from all over the world spoke about the issues that are crucial for our future.

(28. June 2019) The Goethe-Institutes’ Tanzkongress in Dresden and the previous Tanz Salons connected dance with questions of encounter in new ways. Finnish choreographer Maija Hirvanen summarizes her personal impressions for "Goethe aktuell".

(18. June 2019) The fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising is a reason to celebrate, but also to continue fighting for queer rights. The exhibition Queer as German Folk will be on view at the Goethe-Institut New York until 3 August. It’s a space to experience the past and present of the queer movement.

(13. June 2019) On 13 June, the new issue of "das goethe" will be published with the theme “Cultures of Equality.” Read here in advance how the Egyptian anthropologist Dina Makram-Ebeid describes the feminism debates north and south of the Mediterranean.

(06. June 2019) From 19 to 21 June 2019, the world will meet in Weimar. More than 300 international guests from culture, industry, science, journalism, media and politics will shed light on the great upheavals of our era.

(3. June 2019) In Baku, ten international artists are probing the curses and blessings of oil. For millennia, natural gas and oil have been part of the national culture in Azerbaijan. An exhibition by the Goethe Center Baku is now devoted to this history.

(22. May 2019) For the first time, the creative African network “Enter Africa” had the possibility to present itself on the European gaming stage. Supported by Goethe-Institutes in Africa, members of the individual “Enter Africa” teams showcased their 15 location-based games at the A MAZE. / Berlin.

(16. May 2019) Latin America is now celebrating the 250th anniversary of the German naturalist with the theme year Humboldt y las Américas. The opening event took place on 8 May with the exhibition The Nature of Things: Humboldt, Comings and Goings coproduced Goethe-Institut Colombia.

(13. May 2019) There is a debate on post-colonialism being conducted in Germany more vigorously than ever before. The Goethe-Institut is tackling the topic in a series of projects, thus providing a platform for those voices from the countries of origin that are still not heard often enough.

(30. April 2019) The influence of traditional literary criticism on the book market is dwindling. Entertainment rather than analysis is in demand. At the German-Norwegian literature festival On the Way to Frankfurt, the question arose whether cultural criticism was facing a crisis.

(24. April 2019) The online magazine Contemporary and América Latina (C&AL), published by the Goethe-Institut and the Institute for International Cultural Relations (ifa), offers critical reporting on contemporary art in Latin America. It is now celebrating its first anniversary.

(18 April 2019) Images of women: The group exhibition A Doll’s House at the Goethe-Zentrum Baku asks how women portray themselves in contemporary art. Artists including Andy Kassier, Leah Schrager and Leyla Alakbarova provide critical, ironic and playful answers.

(12. April 2019) For the cultural hackathon Coding da Vinci Süd, the Goethe-Institut invited 15 cultural professionals, coders and hackers from Brazil, Côte d’Ivoire, Indonesia, Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania to Munich to present ideas and innovative apps for the digitisation of cultural assets.  

(05. April 2019) On the tenth anniversary of the devastating earthquake in Onna, the Goethe-Institut Rome asked the photographic artist Göran Gnaudschun to produce an exhibition on the past and present of Onna’s village community. 

(02. April 2019) Hardly any other topic is presently dividing political debates in Europe like the Brexit. While its outcome is still unclear, with its Europe Actually series of events the Goethe-Institut London emphasises the importance of the European sense of community. Brexit was illuminated from new angles in a public debate called Recalculating the Route. 

(25. March 2019) The Serbian playwright Iva Brdar and the Croatian dramatist and author Dino Pešut talk with Klaus-Dieter Lehmann, the president of the Goethe-Institut, at the Leipzig Book Fair.

​(22. March 2019) “Culture in an Age of Uncertainty” was the topic of a discussion in Brussels between Kateryna Botanova, co-curator of Culturescapes, Sir Ciarán Devane, CEO of the British Council, and Johannes Ebert, Secretary-General of the Goethe-Institut. The focus was amongst other things on challenges faced in cultural work within societies in transition.

(18. March 2019) The employees of the Goethe-Institut were shocked to learn that Okwui Enwezor died on 15 March in Munich after his serious illness. With his writings and exhibitions, he made a decisive contribution to the foundation of the global discourse on art. 

(15. March 2019) The Bauhaus had a lively dialogue with other avant-garde movements all over the world. The "bauhaus imaginista" research project dedicates a large-scale series of exhibitions to these transnational relationships. Since 15 March, the complete exhibition can be seen for the first time in Berlin.

(13. March 2019) At around 40 locations in Europe, the Goethe-Institut’s Freiraum project is bringing partners from culture and civil society together to talk. Together with the Center for Art and Urbanistics and the Stiftung Mercator, selected Freiraum tandems are now showing the results of their exchange in Berlin. 

(13. February 2019) The Chinese documentary filmmaker and activist Popo Fan is committed to the freedom of homosexuals, bisexuals and transgender people in his homeland. For the project "Cut it out" he made a short film against censorship.

(12. March 2019) The opening of the 23rd Berlin & Beyond Film Festival, held in San Francisco from 8-14 March, is showing the film 25 km/h starring Bjarne Mädel and Lars Eidinger. In a conversation with The Latest at Goethe, this year’s recipient of the Spotlight Award in Acting Bjarne Mädel tells us what’s behind his acting career.

(08. März 2019) In order to further expand the Studienbrücke in future, the Goethe-Institut, the UA Ruhr and the DAAD are signing a Memorandum of Understanding. Anastasiia Sliusar, a successful alumna of the Studienbrücke from Russia, shares her personal experiences with The Latest at Goethe.

(01. March 2019) In the course of digitisation, reproduction processes seem to have become commonplace. But what impact do they have on art, politics and society? This question is explored by 14 Brazilian and German artists in the exhibition "The Power of Reproduction".

(26. February 2019) The artists’ collective Slavs and Tatars is showing Movaland, its first solo exhibition in Belarus. At the invitation of the Goethe-Institut, the group has been illuminating the historically evolved diversity of languages, cultures and identities in the Minsk Ў Gallery of Contemporary Art since 22 February 2019.

(19. February 2019) To celebrate the centenary of the restored state of Lithuania, the Lithuanian National Gallery, in cooperation with the Institut français and the Goethe-Institut, presented the exhibition Kosmos with photographs by Antanas Sutkus.

(15. February 2019) Germany is presenting itself at the 2019 Taipei International Book Exhibition under the motto “German Stories.” Bestselling author Marc-Uwe Kling spoke with journalist and author Yu Li Lin about his dystopian satire Qualityland. 

(07. February 2019) Angela Merkel’s visit to Japan only lasted 25 hours. Still, the Chancellor took time to meet with German learners at the Goethe-Institut Tokyo. 

(06. February 2019) The Long Night of Ideas in Luxembourg was marked by engagement. Institut Pierre Werner, Mudam, Institut français and the Goethe-Institut with support from the Franco-German Cultural Fund invited the public to 30 open discussion panels. 

(05. February 2019) Asking the question “How robust is our fundamental liberal order?” the Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar, the Goethe-Institut and the Dramaturgische Gesellschaft invited international experts to a discussion about the Weimar Constitution and the fragility of our democracy.

(01. February 2019) While European cities like Berlin or Paris grow ever larger, there are regions in Europe that are characterised by a complete lack of prospects. But how do people in these out-of-sight areas live? 

(29. January 2019) For the production of the play Retour à Reims performed at the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris, Thomas Ostermeier and Didier Eribon meet at the Goethe-Institut for a panel discussion. The director and the sociologist agree: Although the existence of social classes has disappeared from the public consciousness, the topic is more relevant than ever.  

(24. January 2019) On the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Goethe-Institut makes to division of Korea interactively come alive with the digital game Wallpeckers – From the DMZ to the Berlin Wall. Bumgoo Jong, Ambassador of the Republic of Korea, sees cautious signs of rapprochement between the two Koreas.

(22. January 2019) On 22 January, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron signed a new friendship treaty between Germany and France. The treaty provides for the establishment of German-French cultural institutes in Erbil, Bishkek, Rio de Janeiro and Palermo. 

(17. January 2019) With the Writers-in-Residence project, the Goethe-Institut, the Deutsche Literaturfonds and the Universidade Federal Fluminense enable German writers to have a four-week stay in Rio de Janeiro to network with the local literary scene.

(14. January 2019) On 10 January, the Goethe-Institut Norway celebrated its reopening with about 170 invited guests. The dedication ceremony in Oslo also focused on international cultural and educational policy.

(07. January 2019) For the Goethe-Institut’s Close-Up journalists’ exchange programme, Cora Knoblauch from Radioeins rbb and Ali Johan from Radio BFM swapped their workplaces in Potsdam and Kuala Lumpur. They talked for The Latest at Goethe about what experiences they are taking home with them for themselves and their stations.