"How will we live tomorrow?" This important question was the guiding question for the various Palais.Gespräche held as part of the Palais Sommer Dresden festival. Two of these Palais.Gespräche were organised jointly by the Centre for Integration Studies of the TU Dresden and the Palais Sommer Dresden and attracted several hundred visitors in front of the open-air stage.

The first Palais.Gespräch on 12 August 2018 focused on the question "Safety or fear in the city?", which was discussed by various guests. Volker Lange, Chief Superintendent of the Dresden Police Department discussed the security situation in Dresden, which was improving rather than deteriorating. Gisela Staupe, deputy director of the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum, on the other hand, addressed the still tense situation caused by the daily presence of Pegida demonstrators and the unease in the face of a city society that continues to polarise. An experience that the artist Manaf Halbouni experienced himself with his art project "Monument" in Dresden, but who wants to use his art projects in public space productively for social dialogue. Michael Schindhelm, curator of the Dresden 2025 Capital of Culture application, recommended taking the perceived insecurity seriously and seeking dialogue between opposing social groups again and again, while at the same time facing the challenges of globalisation and daring to be more urban.

The second Palais.Gespräch on 25 August 2018 asked "Are we talking to each other or about each other?". Since hate speech, insults and limits of what can be said seem to aim at confrontation and polarise social togetherness, the question of the ability of social communication to engage in dialogue arises. For this purpose, different guests were invited, such as the first Afro-German moderator Mo Asumang, the speaker of the Landeszentrale für politische Bildung Dr. Annette Rehfeld-Staudt, the owner of the bar "El Cubanito" in Dresden's Neustadt Andrés Clavalles-Gonzalez, the professor of the TU Dresden Prof. Dr. Marina Münkler and the managing director of Palais Sommer Jörg Polenz. Confrontation also characterised this Palais.conversation: While Jörg Polenz, stated a restriction of what can be said ("self-censorship") on topics such as immigration criticism or globalisation scepticism, Marina Münkler discussed the limits of social dialogue with groups that openly express anti-democratic and anti-human attitudes in their speech and actions and pointed out the necessity of a fact-based, argumentative and respectful dialogue. Annette Rehfeld-Staudt also stressed the importance of adhering to basic communicative rules of the game, especially in social media. With Mo Asumang and Andrés Clavalles, the effects of hate speech and racism in everyday life were addressed and strategies for overcoming fear, one's own safety and dealing with it were shared with the audience on a personal level.

Both talks were moderated by Dr Noa Ha from the Centre for Integration Studies at the TU Dresden.

Among others, Sachsen Fernsehen also reported on the Palais.Gespräche. A recording can be accessed here.