About CURRENT

CURRENT – ART AND URBAN SPACE is a platform at the intersection of art, culture, urban planning, and architecture. Evolving from a festival format, CURRENT is developing into a platform for artistic research and urban practice. In this context, we work across curatorial, mediation, and process-oriented approaches. We actively bring artistic perspectives into urban development and transformation processes, contributing to and shaping the discourse.

We create spaces for exchange, experimentation, and collaboration. CURRENT initiates, supports, and realizes projects that understand art and culture as essential components of a forward-looking urban society—temporary and long-term, locally grounded and connected to broader discourses.

As a learning platform, CURRENT operates openly, dialogically, and through research. Our work contributes to current debates on the role of art and culture in urban development and art in public space. Our aim is to embed artistic perspectives as an ongoing consideration—not as an addition, but as an integral part of urban processes.

What we do

CURRENT develops, curates, and advises on interdisciplinary formats that connect art and urban space. Our expertise includes:

  • Curatorial development of artistic projects, interventions, and exhibitions in public space
  • Design of discourse, mediation, and participatory formats that make urban issues visible and open to negotiation
  • Research and experimental formats exploring artistic strategies in the context of urban development
  • Facilitation and design of dialogue processes between art, administration, politics, urban planning, and civil society
  • Consulting and collaborations with municipalities, institutions, initiatives, and partners from culture, academia, and practice

In doing so, we intentionally use public space as a site for exchange, negotiation, and shared learning.

Our approach

CURRENT follows three central guiding principles:

  • Activating contemporary artistic and cultural practices as emancipatory impulses for urban society
  • Embedding art and culture as essential components in imagining, shaping, and reflecting on urban transformation processes
  • Understanding public space as a realm of possibility for experimentation, encounter, and discourse

We work in interdisciplinary and collaborative ways—with artists, cultural practitioners, municipalities, urban planners, architects, and other partners. Our team brings together diverse professional backgrounds and perspectives, united by the shared understanding that art and culture play a key role in the future development of urban spaces.

Team

Previous festival editions

Current 2021 ArchivwebsiteCurrent 2023 Archivwebsite

Funding of:

Funded by:

Cooperations

Freie Tanz- und Theaterszene Stuttgart gUG
JUKUS
Kunstbüro
Lapidarium
Luftbad e.V.
Öschi
Recyclart Brussels
Sant Andreu Contemporani Barcelona
St Maria als
Sternwarte
Werkstatthaus
WKV
Arthaus Filmtheater Stuttgart

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