Guest Dialogue #9

Culture can take us away from the world for a moment

Ms. E. originally comes from Northern Germany, but she has been living in Munich for around 30 years. She has been a guest at the KulturRaum for a long time. When asked which cultural experience of the last few years she remembers particularly positively, she can hardly decide. If a Baroque festival in Schleißheim Palace, a jazz concert in the Muffathalle or a show by the comedian Simon Pierce – each event was an enrichment for Ms. E. in its own way: "The KulturRaum brings me to places I've never been before - it keeps opening up new structural, architectural and acoustic spaces for me."

Only once did Ms. E. witness a theater performance in the Munich Volkstheater where she eventually had to capitulate and leave the hall. It was an improvised piece with built-in gastronomy elements – a concept that Ms. E. generally believed had the potential to be very good, but in this case unfortunately made her feel like she was being taken for a fool. But this experience was okay too: Ms. E. would not have gone there on her own, but thanks to what the KulturRaum had to offer, she was able to afford such an “experiment”.

Art and culture played a special role in Ms. E.'s life early on. The Enormous Importance of culture for human well-being especially after the war: cultural experiences helped build people up and gave them new hope. And even today we can experience particularly intensively how culture permanently proves its systemic relevance: Despite the ever-present threat of war and pandemic, there are ways to retain awareness of beauty through small experiences for the senses. Simply leaning back with a good play or being able to sing along with a musical at the end is simply good. "There are no words, it can really take you away from the world," says Ms. E.

The experience of the pandemic-related lockdown has placed many people in a bubble, each within their own space of experience. This is another reason why the confrontation with culture is so important: Many cultural events not only include music or visual arts, but are cross-sectoral socio-cultural overall experiences that broaden people's horizons.

Text: Antonia Schwingen