New Patrons in Hamburg

The project of the “New Patrons” in Hamburg is a film by Harun Farocki on the work of the Quickborner Team (QT). The consulting firm specialised in designing office spaces is currently developing a new “consulting product”. During the past years, QT always called for granting employees greater independence, reducing compulsory attendance and also doing away with the office space with a determined workspace. This was carried through at Unilever, a conglomerate, which has moved into a new office building in the HafenCity and was consulted by QT. Based on their own experiences and parallel to the current changes in corporate work flows, QT is expanding this strategy and planning to become active in the fields of “personnel development” and “corporate culture”. These plans are the subject of talks that Farocki documents in his film. In a close exchange with the artist, the employees of the Quickborner Team are involved in the development of the film. In conversation with Nina Möntmann (mediator of the New Patrons, in cooperation with the Deichtorhallen Hamburg), Harun Farocki will present and comment on excerpts from the film footage. The project is supported by the Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung (Federal Centre for Political Education), the Hamburgischen Kulturstiftung, the Körber Foundation, and the HafenCity Hamburg GmbH.

The European programme “New Patrons” proposes a new organisation model for artistic production. The aim is to anchor contemporary art in society: By means of a practical-communicative process, citizens who have a specific, socially relevant concern, can commission an art project (usually in public space) with their questions.

www.newpatrons.eu

The event is based on a cooperation between Kunstraum of Leuphana University of Lueneburg and the project KIM, Innovation Incubator at the Leuphana University of Lueneburg, which is supported by the ERDF programme of the European Union and the federal state of Lower Saxony.