Kunst und Kultur in der polarisierten Stadt – Dresdner Kultureinrichtungen als Vermittelnde zwischen den Polen „Weltoffenheit“ und „Angst vor Überfremdung“

The Saxon State Ministry for Science and the Arts is funding a research project at the TU Dresden in which the role of art and culture in Dresden in a time of polarised opinions is being examined in greater detail.

Dr Eva-Maria Stange, Saxon State Minister for Science and the Arts: "In recent years it has become clear that our cultural institutions have shown a great deal of commitment in bringing people together across language barriers and offering opportunities for discussion. The Staatsschauspiel, the Semperoper and the Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Dresden were the first to become active here, and many cultural initiatives have also become involved. However, the question of where the possibilities, but also the limits of art and culture lie, has occupied us in many discussions since then. I welcome all the more that these questions are now being examined scientifically."

With the public appearance of PEGIDA since the end of 2014, a process of polarisation began in Dresden, which was intensified by the reactions to the arrival of a comparatively large number of refugees in 2015. Opposing, mutually reinforcing collective positions formed, centred on the poles of "welcome culture" on the one hand and "fear of foreign infiltration" on the other. As the cradle and stage of the PEGIDA movement, Dresden is placed at the centre of the analysis as a "polarisation laboratory", since it is here that media-enhanced processes of transition from individual experiences of disadvantage to collective public protest and the formation of a counter-movement have been realised in a condensed form.

KupoS examines how this process has affected the (political) positioning and self-image of Dresden's art and cultural institutions and what role or positions they take in the process of social understanding. In this way, the project contributes to determining the potentials and limits of art and culture as mediating instances.

"We are pleased about the new research project at the Centre for Integration Studies because we can use it to lay the foundation for a new research area on the role of art and culture in heterogeneous society," says Noa K. Ha, junior research group leader and board member of the Centre for Integration Studies at TU Dresden.

Project leader Prof. Dr. Heike Greschke: "Dresden - a city that almost stands paradigmatically for polarised society - is very well suited to investigate the role of art and culture in social understanding. KupoS asks how polarisation works and under what conditions art and cultural institutions can or want to be spaces of dialogue and create media of understanding. Can culture contribute at all to defusing polarisation processes and mediating in situations of social conflict, or does it, when it interferes, inevitably get caught up in the maelstrom of competing positions and thus contribute to their aggravation?"

Project management: Prof. Dr. Heike Greschke
Executing agency: Centre for Integration Studies at the TU Dresden