Cultural programmes abroad

"Dido and Aeneas"
© picture-alliance/ dpa

"Dido and Aeneas"

"Dido and Aeneas"

© picture-alliance/ dpa

Icons like Thomas Mann or pop group “Mia” trigger interest in Germany across the world. The Federal Foreign Office promotes international exchanges in the visual arts, music, theatre, dance, literature and film.

Cultural programme work – promoting art and exhibitions, music, theatre, dance, literature and film – has traditionally been a key feature of foreign cultural and education policy. It gives the rest of the world an idea of the high quality and great diversity of artistic activity in Germany and projects an image of this country as a highly innovative and creative civilized nation. Such work is an ideal way of encouraging intercultural exchange and encounter beyond the realm of political discourse, thus facilitating and strengthening mutual understanding and communication.

The major part of the funds made available by the Federal Foreign Office for this purpose go to the mediators of foreign cultural policy (in particular to the Goethe Institute in Munich with its close network of cultural institutes and to the Institute for Foreign Relations in Stuttgart) as well as to the German Publishers and Booksellers Association in Frankfurt to enable them to implement their own programmes in this area. In addition, the Federal Foreign Office supports the Artists-in-Berlin Programme of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), which awards grants to foreign artists (art, literature, music and film) for – mostly one-year – stays in Berlin.

The Foreign Office uses the remaining funds mainly to promote major cultural projects that are of considerable significance in terms of foreign cultural policy and have international reach. Particular importance is attached here not only to artistic quality but also to regional prioritization, sustainability and partner-like cooperation with institutions and prominent individuals in the host country.

The main elements of our programme work are:

• promotion of exhibitions, exchange and contacts between artists, information and advisory services
• support for guest performances: foreign tours by musical ensembles, theatre and dance groups, donations of instruments and music
• promotion of literature: publication of cultural periodicals and books; supplying material to German libraries and reading-rooms abroad; participation in foreign book fairs; funding book information centres; translation assistance; reading tours and fact-finding trips by authors and publishers; library liaison work
• promotion of film: as well as traditional national film promotion (showing and distribution of films, participation of German directors in international film festivals), numerous co-production agreements, help in presenting foreign films and directors at German film festivals (e.g. Berlin’s International Film Festival).

Besides presenting the work of German/German-based artists and German cultural institutions abroad, our cultural programme work has come to include another important element: exchange with representatives of foreign cultures. Implementing the idea of cultural communication as a “two-way street”, the Federal Foreign Office provides funding – mainly through the Goethe Institute and the Institute for Foreign Relations – to conduct cultural projects from developing countries or enable artists from these countries to take part in cultural events in Germany, which lack of resources would otherwise have made impossible. An institution deserving particular mention here is the House of World Cultures in Berlin, which also receives Foreign Office support for its jointly organized programmes that include concerts, readings, exhibitions and symposiums.

Last updated 19.04.2011