Bonn Summit

The BONN SUMMIT brings together protagonists from the arts, culture, science, politics and society from all over the world in Bonn to discuss current challenges of our time and their cultural dimension under the guiding idea of planetary boundaries and global interdependencies. The first edition in 2026 will centre the relationship between culture and politics in times of geopolitical power shifts. We will look at current developments in the USA and ask about the consequences for Europe. We will highlight selected scenes of culturally coded conflicts over values and worldviews and invite to a joint exchange on future scenarios, options for action and shaping strategies.

Our ambition is to establish a public forum for transdisciplinary exchange on the foundations and future of our coexistence. A forum like this appears to be urgently required for several reasons: Firstly, the rise of autocratic and anti-democratic forces in both the West and the East threatens to substantially damage valuable achievements of the post-war and post-reunification order, such as freedom, diversity, constitutional legality, multilateralism and cooperative collaboration in combating global crises such as climate change and poverty. Secondly, Europe is facing the challenge of redefining its own role in the world and stabilising the grounds for concerted action. Thirdly, essential components of such common European ground are cultural factors – such as shared values and norms, code of conduct and guiding principles, memories and visions of the future, religiosity and promises of salvation, practices o f self-reflection, respectful restraint and diplomatic understanding, cultivation of empathy and moral judgement, infrastructures for constructive dialogue and concerns for the common good, and so on and so forth.

In this context the Bundeskunsthalle is creating a public platform for an agreement on cultural foundations, on which cooperative action in the spirit of a European community of values is built. To this end it seems reasonable, on the one hand, to gain a realistic picture of the current attacks on cultural achievements like scientific research, artistic production, truth-oriented communication, non-governmental engagement and much more. And, on the other hand, to develop new alliances and strategies to counter these attacks in solidarity and to strengthen the democratic culture within an open society, including its public institutions.

Contact

Dr. Sven Sappelt
Program Curator
Focus on discourse
sven.sappelt (at) bundeskunsthalle.de