Cultural Bridge Project: A Cultural Exchange with E-WERK Luckenwalde
A collaborative project between Assembly House and E-WERK Luckenwalde, exploring New Sustainable Models for Artist-Led Spaces
NEW SUSTAINABLE MODELS FOR ARTIST-LED SPACES
The main focus of this project surrounds knowledge sharing, dialogue, research and creative consultancy. Assembly House and E-WERK will host residencies at their respective sites to demonstrate their ways of working as artist-led organisations with different approaches. We will learn the context of each others’ work, and the ways that our heritage buildings can be used to our advantage, holding histories within them whilst creating space for future legacies. From these residencies, we will create resources from what we have learnt, what we have questioned or what we plan to do; these will be distributed digitally to share with our communities, and play into our respective organisation’s programming.
E-WERK LUCKENWALDE
E-WERK was built in 1913 as a coal power station. For over 60 years the power station produced and supplied coal-powered energy to the city of Luckenwalde and beyond. Under extreme political upheaval, after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, E-WERK ceased production and lay dormant for almost 30 years until Performance Electrics took ownership in 2017 in order to reanimate the building; reinstating its original purpose. In September 2019, Performance Electrics transformed E-WERK Luckenwalde into a renewable Kunststrom power station and contemporary art centre, turning the building’s power back ON.
E-WERK Luckenwalde encompasses four floors, a vast outdoor space and totals over 10,000 m2. Each floor is tailored to the energy and art programme. The Ground Floor is the main site for energy and artistic production with several fully equipped workshops including a metal, engineering and wood-workshop. The contemporary art centre occupies the first floor with a 350m2 Turbine Hall and three multipurpose exhibition spaces. E-WERK presents a quarterly programme of commissions, exhibitions, performances and events. As Berlin rent prices continue to rise, much needed affordable artist studios occupy the third and fourth floor of E-WERK Luckenwalde.
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