Agentur für Aufbruch

The Agentur für Aufbruch (AfA) combines scientific and artistic research in order to highlight commonalities and special features of individual regions in the Central German mining district. In doing so, we view the much-discussed structural change primarily as a path to a future on which much has to be left behind. What are the prospects for this new departure? What memories are important here? In finding answers to these two questions, the AfA relies on the ideas of people in the region, on the knowledge of local neighborhoods and on the exchange between urban and rural areas.

In the annual Spring School of the AfA, students interview local stakeholders about their experiences, current tasks and ideas for the future. This results in an exhibition and a magazine. The Regionalatlas collects locally significant objects and stories. These artifacts and narratives are archived on the AfA website.
The AfA also organizes excursions from Halle (Saale) to the surrounding area and holds a series of talks on structure and change. For each of the four project years between 2024 and 2027, the AfA will determine its own theme and invite two artists to create a new production. In 2024, Karla Zipfel and Carla Lou West explored the theme energies and grids. In 2025, Emerson Culurgioni and Johannes Krell together with Florian Fischer will embark on artistic research into the theme of the year water and soil. Their works will be presented in fall 2025.
In the transformative classroom, pupils research needs and interests in the region.