Das Zentrum für Kulturelle Teilhabe – or for our English speakers: The Center for Cultural Participation – Baden-Württemberg (ZfKT) supports institutions in the arts and cultural sector in Baden-Württemberg in their efforts to open up, to the end of diversity and cultural participation for all. We strengthen interdisciplinary networking, training and continuing education for all those involved in promoting Cultural Participation in Baden-Württemberg. We are dedicated to cultural education for all ages. The ZfKT was founded in 2021 by resolution of the Landtag (state parliament) in Baden-Württemberg as a service institution and an initiator looking to the future.
The Center is a platform for collegial exchange, for sharing information and knowledge, for consultation and developing quality. The focus of our work is on practice- and application-oriented programs. To this end, we pool knowledge, share expertise and know-how, establish our own funding programs and link up with complementary existing ones and other sources of support available in the field. We cooperate with universities, research institutions and other partners. Cultural participation is a cross-departmental task.
The Center's program is the result of the interplay of three factors: (cultural) policy decisions, the needs of cultural institutions and actors in the state, and groundbreaking developments in scientific research and practice on cultural participation, cultural education and outreach.
As an institution of the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts (MWK), the Center has a large primary target audience: the cultural institutions and actors in the state of Baden-Württemberg for which the Ministry's Department of the Arts is responsible. They are extremely heterogeneous in terms of size, location, organizational structure, self-image, sector affiliation, etc.: from small voluntary associations to the large state theaters.
Our second target audience is the professional public in Baden-Württemberg (and beyond). We focus on the institutions and experts who deal with cultural participation, cultural education and mediation in their professional work. This group is not directly supported by the Center and our events do not primarily address its members.
A third target group of the Center is, of course, the wider public interested in Cultural Participation.
The ZfKT is an institution of the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts (MWK). The Center is accompanied in its work by an interdisciplinary advisory board. Organizationally, we are assigned to the Landesmuseum (State Museum) Württemberg in Stuttgart and share its administrative infrastructure: HR and financial administration, IT, etc. The ZfKT has its office in the Hasenbergsteige in Stuttgart in the house of the International Bach Academy, where the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra (SKO) also has its rooms. Seven people (not all of them full-time) work together in the ZfKT.
There is no comparable institution in any other federal state so far (as of July 2023).
Our Center's inception followed up on an extensive period of dialogue conducted by the Ministry from 2018-2020 at several locations in Baden-Württemberg, and involving numerous experts, cultural facilities and institutions. The results were recorded in the publication "Dialog 2020 l Kulturpolitik für die Zukunft" (2018-2020).
In Baden-Württemberg, participation in social life has been stated as a goal in many places in the coalition agreement of the state government 2021-2026. It corresponds to social diversity; the authors of the agreement pay particular attention to people with disabilities, refugees, people of different gender identities (Action Plan for Acceptance and Equal Rights), migrants (especially women with a history of immigration or flight), children and young people. The aim is to focus more on the realities of life for people in the state's rural areas and to enable lifelong learning for all.
The ZfKT began its work with its kick-off event in December 2021.