PITCH
Stadtbad Live!
Open Call
In April 2025, E-WERK will launch Stadtbad Live! - an open call for citizens of Brandenburg (only) to propose their own cultural intervention at Stadtbad Live Luckenwalde. The Stadtbad, designed in 1928 by Bauhaus architect Hans Hertlein, has been closed since 1991, and remained largely empty until 2019, when E-WERK and others began presenting cultural activities including the Golden Lion award winning beach opera Sun & Sea in 2021 and Riot Days by Pussy Riot in 2024. The Stadtbad will now be refurbished and reactivated as Stadtbad Live Luckenwalde: a cultural, event and production venue.
Stadtbad Live! proposals could manifest as music, dance, sports, panel discussions, comedy, poetry, symphonies and more. A diverse mix of applications from the open call will be selected by a prestigious cultural jury and premiere on 12 July in an ambitious back to back programme at Stadtbad Live Luckenwalde. Open call to be announced at the beginning of April.
Summer School: Energy Literacy for Just Transition
5 - 9 July
Please note the application process has now closed.
E-WERK will host a summer school for an interdisciplinary selection of masters and PhD students at E-WERK in collaboration with the University of Amsterdam with contributions from Bauhaus Earth and others to explore the questions: How can we understand the different ways energy manifests in landscapes, social relations, infrastructures and heritage spaces? What happens to energy production sites after they are decomissioned? How might we reimagine and rework the cultural, economic, and toxic legacies of petromodernity? How can we ensure the just transition is guided by and advances local concerns and grassroots initiatives? What role can citizens, creatives, and researchers play in laying the groundwork for regenerative practices?
This summer school invites 12 students (Masters, Research Masters, PhD) to explore these questions and contribute firsthand to the transformation of E-WERK Luckenwalde, a former brown coal power station turned contemporary art space just outside of Berlin. E-WERK now operates as both a biomass power plant and a gallery, providing energy and vitality to the Brandenburg region and offering an exemplary role for cultural institutions in the just transition.
The programme will kick off with a series of remote seminars exploring the intersection of the energy humanities, critical heritage and the just transition, featuring guest lectures and workshops led by experts in these fields. Participants will form self-study groups in preparation for the week-long field trip to Luckenwalde. During this convivial residency, the groups will document, narrativize and visualize the past, present and future of E-WERK in its eco-social context. In collaboration with the E-WERK team, we will develop the groundwork for a theoretically informed “field guide” on infrastructural transitions and energy cultures.
The research outcomes of the summer school will be included in a publication aimed at cultural practitioners working on system change and energy transitions in arts, culture and heritage. This guide will feature and stimulate living prototypes of cultural production and eco-social reproduction, and will be launched as part of a public programme at E-WERK later in 2025/26.
E-WERK will showcase works by practitioners based in Brandenburg through an ambitious back to back programme around Stadtbad Live Luckenwalde. Proposals, selected from the Stadtbad Live! open call, will work to showcase the volume and diversity of culture happening in Brandenburg, which may include performances, sport, panel discussions, symphonies, concerts and dance. The ambition is to celebrate the renovation of the Stadtbad as a new publicly accessible venue, and illustrate how new forms of heritage interpretation can empower citizens in the context of the green transition. The day will also include SWEAT Showcase. A music project about fitness, optimization markets and the self by artist Rimini Protokoll. The work researches power, energy and sound in the city with a group of young people in Luckenwalde and Berlin. Together, they will create texts (lyrics), sounds, video clips- and acquaintances. An exclusive excerpt of this new project will be presented at Sommerfest as a sound installation.
The summer school forms part of the project Petroculture’s Intersections with The Cultural Heritage Sector in the Context of Green Transitions (PITCH), Funding has been provided by the EU Horizon Europe program (project no. 101132385) and UK Research & Innovation. Further details available on the project website.
The summer school, Stadtbad Live Open Call and EW Sommerfest form part of the project Petroculture’s Intersections with The Cultural Heritage Sector in the Context of Green Transitions (PITCH), Funding has been provided by the EU Horizon Europe program (project no. 101132385) and UK Research & Innovation. The summer school is a project within the framework of 'Connecting Worlds - Kulturland Brandenburg 2024/2025'. Kulturland Brandenburg 2024/2025 is funded by the Ministry of Science, Research and Culture and the Ministry of Infrastructure and Regional Planning of the State of Brandenburg. With the kind support of the Sparkassen and the Investitionsbank des Landes Brandenburg.
