Cultural area conference meets in Chemnitz

The cultural region secretaries of the five rural and three urban cultural regions of the Free State of Saxony are meeting in Chemnitz this year for the annual cultural region conference. The conference will take place on Tuesday (18 June) and Wednesday (19 June). As this year's host, the Chemnitz Cultural Office, which is also the cultural area secretariat for the Chemnitz urban cultural area, has chosen the new youth hostel with a cultural profile directly in the city centre as the conference venue and has also planned and prepared the content of the conference.

Cultural Mayor Philipp Rochold will welcome the representatives of the cultural areas and the Saxon State Ministry of Science and the Arts on Tuesday. Twenty-five participants are expected to attend the cultural area conference, which will be moderated by Katrin Voigt, Head of the Chemnitz Cultural Office. The agenda for the two-day conference includes professional dialogue and internal discussions between representatives of the eight cultural regions and the State Ministry, as well as a series of presentations on topics relevant to all of Saxony's cultural regions. Information will be provided and discussed, for example, on cooperation with the Free State Cultural Foundation and dialogue with the Saxon Cultural Senate as well as on issues relating to cultural education.
The accompanying programme for the conference includes a tour of Chemnitz Town Hall on Tuesday, led by the tower keeper Stefan Weber, and a visit to the current special exhibition SEZESSIONISTEN at the Gunzenhauser Museum on Wednesday.

The Saxon Cultural Areas Act, the only one of its kind in Germany, came into force in 1994. The law declares the preservation of culture to be a compulsory task of the municipalities and administrative districts. The five rural cultural areas (Vogtland-Zwickau, Erzgebirge-Central Saxony, Leipzig region, Meissen-Saxon Switzerland-Eastern Ore Mountains and Upper Lusatia-Lower Silesia) and three urban cultural areas (Dresden, Chemnitz(Dresden, Chemnitz, Leipzig) receive annual allocations for the maintenance and promotion of cultural facilities and measures. As things stand at present, the City of Chemnitz's share amounts to just under 11 million euros a year from state funds. The city council decides on the allocation, with the City of Chemnitz Cultural Advisory Board advising the city councillors. The function of the Cultural Secretariat is carried out by the Cultural Office in the urban cultural area of Chemnitz. Its tasks include running the office for the cultural advisory board, applying for and managing state funding and acting as a contact and intermediary for the Free State of Saxony.

In the past three years, the annual cultural region conference was hosted by Dresden (2010), Görlitz (2011) and Torgau (2012).