Urbane Künste Ruhr and its cultural interventions in the remaking of the Ruhr region in Germany

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article reflects on the role of art in the memory activism surrounding deindustrialization in the Ruhr region of Germany by focusing on an institution promoting contemporary art: Urbane Künste Ruhr (UKR). It will ask how UKR is bringing together the past, present and future of the Ruhr region through its various activities. In particular, it will focus on UKR’s 2021 exhibition as an example of how the transformation of the Ruhr is imagined through artistic intervention. Art, in many of the activities of UKR, has made important interventions in debates about how to organize the future of the city in light of its past. UKR, the article argues, has been actively engaged in contributing to the democratization of public debates about how people in the region want to live their lives in light of a problematic industrial past and a more sustainable future.