fontane.200

The German Federal Cultural Foundation has a long history of celebrating great artists whose works possess outstanding significance today. Over the years it has funded numerous commemorative projects and frequently developed special programmes of its own. In 2019, Germany has commemorated the 200th anniversary of Theodor Fontane. To mark the occasion, the Federal Cultural Foundation has awarded funding to two central projects in an extensive commemorative programme, organised by the Brandenburgische Gesellschaft für Kultur und Geschichte gGmbH in cooperation with the Museum Neuruppin, the city of Neuruppin (Fontane City), the Haus der Brandenburgisch-Preußischen Geschichte in Potsdam, the University of Potsdam and the Kulturland Brandenburg.

Exhibition and educational programme

The first of the two projects was the central exhibition fontane.200/Autor, presented at the Museum Neuruppin. In the exhibition, Heike Gfrereis, one of Germany’s most renowned curators of literary exhibitions, has demonstrated the versatility and modern character of Fontane’s literary oeuvre. The polyphonic, interaction-based exhibition comprised three segments which presented Fontane as a “word sampler”, “writing thinker” and a “text programmer”. These have been supplemented by documents from his estate as well as abstract visualisations of literature. The second project was an educational programme entitled fontane.200/Word&Play! in which young people took part in a “game jam” and developed their own digital games using image, text and sound design tools. The educational programme has been developed by the city of Neuruppin in cooperation with the Brandenburg State Cultural Education platform under the aegis of the Brandenburgische Gesellschaft für Kultur und Geschichte gGmbH and the Stiftung Digitale Spielekultur. An accompanying programme provided educators, parents and cultural agents with further expertise in digital games.

The Federal Cultural Foundation has allocated a total of 770,000 euros to fund the exhibition “fontane.200/Autor” and another 300,000 euros to finance the digital educational project “fontane.200/Word&Play!”.