Chemnitz2025 publishes the second application book

Last Friday, 39 cyclists from Chemnitz and the region set off to write a C on the map of Germany over 1200 kilometres. In their luggage: the second application book of the city of Chemnitz for the title of European Capital of Culture 2025. The spectacular tour, which was created thanks to civic commitment in our sports-mad city, ended on Sunday afternoon in front of the Brandenburg Gate - and with the submission of the application book to the Cultural Foundation of the Federal States as the organiser of the selection process.

The official submission deadline for the application book ended at midnight on Monday, 21 September - and so Chemnitz published the submitted document today. More detailed than in the first book, it describes the European themes and leitmotif to which the city is dedicating the title, the international cultural and artistic programme that is planned, the structures that will be created to implement it and the budget that has been secured for it.

Lord Mayor Barbara Ludwig: "With this bid book, we are bringing the best Chemnitz has to the table: the movers and shakers. From the outset, it was important for us to submit an application that puts people and civic engagement at the centre. The application process alone has unleashed a special energy in the people of Chemnitz, with many people coming up with micro-projects, implementing take-away projects - or even cycling our application book across Germany to Berlin. And now, in 2025, we want to invite movers and shakers from all over Europe to join us in order to create an international network of active democratic Europeans who work together to develop solutions for the pressing issues of our time."

Project manager Ferenc Csák: "After we initially worked with local stakeholders and initiatives to establish our goals for Chemnitz2025, more and more international perspectives and an intensive European exchange have been added. This has resulted in countless creative ideas and project outlines, not all of which fit into the application book, but nevertheless remain on the agenda. Because with our programme, we are calling for the participation of many, we want to actively support makers in the implementation of their ideas."

Following the submission of the application book, the team now faces a digital jury visit on 22 October and a digital presentation on 26 October before the European jury announces its recommendation for the German European Capital of Culture 2025 at a press conference on 28 October.

The leitmotif of Chemnitz's application

Chemnitz is a city of makers and doers. History has always provided evidence of this - and the application process has also been supported from the outset by many tireless players, volunteers and civic initiatives.

It is no coincidence that the application focusses on making, on DIY, on the "artist in you", on self-taught artists, on the creative process.

Making together is the step towards each other in a European society that is increasingly shying away from constructive exchange in discussions. In Eastern Europe in particular, the brutality and speed of change over the last 30 years has left many wounds that linger in the bent. As a result, countless people have withdrawn from the political debate. While extreme political opinions become louder, such as in Chemnitz in August 2018, the centre remains silent. Chemnitz2025 wants to encourage this "silent centre" to get involved again: in the neighbourhoods, in the cities, in the regions of Europe. Because the challenge in Europe requires active Europeans: in the fight against climate change, in dealing with demographic change, in containing the social and economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Chemnitz2025 will help these active Europeans to achieve self-efficacy: with the maker-space.eu platform - an innovative digital tool that brings together analogue and digital activities, promotes international exchange, enables hybrid projects and creates networks.

At the same time, the European Workshop for Culture and Democracy (EWKD) in the Hartmann-Fabrik will become the physical centre of the programme. With a broad-based workshop and training programme, the building will become a meeting point for makers, an experimental space, the starting point for the Academy of Autodidacts, an academic centre in the field of right-wing extremism and a living archive over the next few years. In 2025, the visitor centre for the European Capital of Culture will also be installed there.

Motto of the application

With the motto "C the unseen", Chemnitz2025 wants to give creative expression to all those who have become invisible and inaudible in the "silent centre". The programme for the European Capital of Culture process and the European Capital of Culture year is intended to make not only Chemnitz visible for Europe, but also any other city or region in Europe that wants to make a strong statement for democratic coexistence.The programme for the European Capital of Culture process and the European Capital of Culture year is intended to make visible not only Chemnitz for Europe, but also every other city or region in Europe that contributes a strong statement for democratic coexistence - and in particular the people who help to live a cosmopolitan, diverse community across national borders in the creative process.

The artistic programme

Chemnitz2025 will fill the public spaces between the buildings of the city and the region, will take place where people are. But Chemnitz2025 will also rediscover places, the city by the river or the so-called detached places that many people pass by but do not perceive, do not see. The programme encourages people to recognise their own talents and contribute them. There are four main programme lines.

Eastern State of Mind

Chemnitz is an Eastern European city in a Western European country. In the city, the experience of cohesion in difficult times lives on just as much as the fragility of the circumstances. The Eastern state of mind is characterised by the doer mentality and the sense of community of the people, manifested in the design of everything from architecture to everyday objects, in improvised solutions or artistic work.

Places where this history still exists in secret are the garages. Having long since become too small for the car bodies of modern times, they are workshops, storage rooms and refuges for very private stories.

Chemnitz2025 opens 3000 garages as individual workshops for interaction. They will become meeting places for citizens, open minds and hearts, uncover secrets, evoke memories and tell stories.

e.g. the garage as a treasure chest - a theatre of found objects

Garage owners from all over Europe open the doors to their private, secret world. Together with the Figurentheater Chemnitz, they will develop small puppet theatre pieces from their personal found objects and stories, which will be performed on the stage of a mobile garage. At the same time, the objects and stories will be collected via Instagram to tell digital stories.

e.g. the garage of the autodidacts

Following the example of the Bauhaus, a design and art school for young, enthusiastic people is being created in collaboration with the Bauhaus University Weimar. Depending on their interests and skills, they can take part in an artistic education programme in the garage of self-taught artists - either in the areas of materials and tools, colours and compositions or cultural management. The teachers are also self-taught artists.

Generous Neighbours

Europe's policy of open borders makes us all neighbours. And we can experience what this means for our democratic values such as respect and tolerance on a daily basis in our immediate neighbourhood. Although we live next door to each other, we have very different opinions, hobbies, rituals and preferences. Nevertheless, we come together on the doorstep - through small talk, sharing experiences and doing things together. That's what keeps our society together.

z. For example, the parade of apple trees

Following the principle of the edible city, 4,000 apple trees of 2,000 different varieties will parade through the city, each one cared for and sponsored by a local sponsor, who will also welcome international guests and host cultural events. At the same time, artists from different countries will create an art trail entitled "WE PARAPOM", so that the parade transcends property and social boundaries. Thanks to the interactive gaming app "Go Apple go", based on Pokémon Go, there will also be an educational aspect focussing on sustainability, resources and migration. Various events from the Apple Blossom Festival to the Slow Food Movement with the best apple pie recipes will accompany the theme.

Makers²

The programme brings together citizens from all over Europe through making and creative work. From urban culture to tourism, from exchange between professionals to networking between amateurs, the programme covers a wide range of joint making activities.

e.g. Maker, Business & Arts MBA25

It is the extraordinary ideas that make companies successful today. For this reason, and because Chemnitz, like other industrial cities, is facing a structural change in industry, the programme brings together makers from the arts and business on an equal footing: Europeans from the cultural and creative industries, up-and-coming and established companies, students and professional partners find new energy and creative strength in collaboration. With various "maker hubs" (e.g. Stadtwirtschaft) in Chemnitz and the region, an experimental network is being created that includes a skills programme for companies as well as a research and exchange programme for makers and a creative tourism programme that invites makers from all over Europe to explore the region's cultural heritage with their own hands.

e.g. The autodidacts

Without self-taught artists, the European art world would only be half as exciting. That's why the Chemnitz Art Collection is dedicating a major series of exhibitions to them from 2022 to 2025: from Frida Kahlo to Henry van de Velde and Edvard Munch. All three exhibitions will experiment with artificial intelligence and create the art of interacting exhibition visitors. The CC AIR artist-in-residence programme also invites international self-taught artists in the fields of visual arts, music, literature and film - the residency is planned for three months twice a year from 2021.

It's moving

Getting things moving, initiating things, driving things forward - the European makers are on the move. Chemnitz2025 takes them to the region, where mining tradition and industrial history are proudly lived across national borders.

e.g. Purple Path

The art trail runs through the entire region around Chemnitz. Young artistic positions are presented at 28 permanent or temporary locations - and while hiking trails are marked in yellow, red, blue or black depending on the level of difficulty, we are introducing the new colour for art and entertainment: However, the Purple Path not only meanders through the surrounding countryside, but also through the past, present and future, reflecting on the history of the labour movement and the history of Wismut, initiating sustainable nature projects or dealing with the women of Hoheneck.

z. e.g. European Peace Tour

The most famous amateur cycling race in the East returns - and celebrates the region's enthusiasm for cycling. The race starts 80 years after the end of the Second World War in Pilsen (European Capital of Culture 2015), passes through the corridor where the American troops met the Soviet troops in 1945 and ends after two days and 170 kilometres in Chemnitz. Not only teams of cyclists from former European Capitals of Culture are invited, but also cyclists from all over Europe, who will experience a broad cultural programme and Czech-German hospitality along the route.

Like the entire application process, the second application book is the work of many. It is the workbook, the sketchbook for Chemnitz2025 - and, in keeping with the leitmotif, it was produced by passionate doers.

From 11.25 a.m. today, it will be available online at www.chemnitz2025.de - as an original document in English.

A German translation is in the works.