Skip to content

This two-day symposium, hosted by ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen) in collaboration with Germany’s Federal Foreign Office, will bring together leaders from the cultural, academic, artistic and political fields to share ideas and initiatives inspired by the late Martin Roth (1955-2017) and his extraordinary work as a highly-engaged and provocative museum director, cultural policy maker and citizen.

A series of panel discussions will address a number of questions: How to make museums more transparent and connected? How to use culture and design to build bridges between societies? How to respect national heritage without falling into the trap of nationalist attitudes? And last but not least, how to embrace the disobedience of objects, their ability to break out of the boundaries we place upon them and take on a life of their own?

Speakers include Giorgia Abeltino (Google Cultural Institute), Suay Aksoy (ICOM), Paolo Barratta (Venice Bienniale), Nico Daswani (World Economic Forum), Christoph Thun-Hohenstein (MAK Vienna), Benita von Maltzahn (Volkswagen Group) and David Chipperfield.

Conference venue: Kraftwerk, Köpenicker Straße 70, 10179 Berlin