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Press Release: Culture is irreplaceable – Schwules Museum calls for support for all of Berlin’s creative voices

19. December 2024

Statement by the Board of Directors on the planned cuts in the cultural sector

Berlin has to save 3 billion euros and is doing so by drastically cutting the cultural budget, among other things. Specifically, this involves 130 million euros, almost 13% of the budget of the cultural administration, which is already the smallest individual budget. Although the SMU’s institutional funding is not expected to be affected by the cuts, we join other cultural institutions in calling for the planned cuts to be reconsidered and for the importance of culture for an open, diverse urban society to be recognized. The cuts not only threaten jobs and projects, but also social cohesion and Berlin’s international appeal.

Even if institutional funding for Schwules Museum is not actually cut, the planned cuts will hit us hard. Schwules Museum will lose important resources and structures due to the discontinuation of the Youth Culture Initiative and the Resilience Dispatcher program. For example, special educational offers for young people, cooperation with queer youth centers and the planned creation of a youth advisory board will no longer be available. In the IT area, we lack the expertise to further expand our IT structure and digitize our collections.

As a result of the discontinuation of these programs, two employees will lose their jobs and freelancers will lose their contracts. The museum will lose almost €87,000 in 2025. In addition, cuts such as the cancellation of admission-free Museumssonntag and Diversity Arts Culture will also affect our target group, especially young people and people with limited access to art and culture.

The cuts pose a lasting threat to the diversity of Berlin’s art and culture scene. They are rightly meeting with widespread resistance, which is supported by the Schwules Museum. The cuts to workspaces for the independent scene are just one example of many, affecting the livelihoods of freelance artists, curators and cultural mediators. Art, culture and cultural education are losing important knowledge producers and mediators. Due to the massive reduction in funding for Berlin’s diverse cultural landscape, audiences are also suffering. Access to cultural offerings is becoming more difficult and the offerings themselves more uniform and less inspiring.

Internationally recognized structures that have been painstakingly built up over many years are in danger of being irretrievably lost. This not only jeopardizes current projects, but also past investments and future developments. Diverse cultural production is made more difficult, which sends out the wrong signal, especially in times of growing social tensions.

Art and culture must remain inclusive and accessible to all social groups. They should inspire, move and promote social dialog. However, the planned cuts risk curtailing precisely these aspects. They sacrifice the strengths of Berlin’s cultural landscape – its diversity, accessibility and variety – and thus jeopardize not only the city’s cultural identity, but also its international appeal as a cultural metropolis.

 

The board of Schwules Museum:

Dr. Birgit Bosold, Dr. Eugen Januschke, Dr. Ben Miller, Brigitte Oytoy, Heiner Schulze, Christian Tillmans, Prof. Carsten Wiewiorra

Contact: vorstand@schwulesmuseum.de

Schwules Museum
Press and public relations

Jan Künemund, mino Künze
Phone: +49 176 84995444
Mail: presse@schwulesmuseum.de

 

Visual: mino Künze