Conversation
Why Society Needs Art
24.09.2026, 18 Uhr
A Conversation About Art, History, and Different Perspectives
In the year that Bremen is hosting Germany’s national Unity Day celebrations, the Kunsthalle and Kunstmuseum Bremerhaven are exploring, under the motto “Many Strengths. One Country,” how art can make different experiences visible and change our view of history and the present. The focus is on East German biographies and their traces in art: how have experiences from the GDR, the period of reunification, and the years that followed shaped artistic positions? Which stories are told, which perspectives find their way into the art historical canon, and which remain less visible so far?
This is not about a single East German experience. It is precisely the differing biographies that show how diverse the history of German division, reunification, and the post reunification years was experienced, and how it still has an effect today. Artistic engagement with these experiences can make personal memories visible, question established narratives, and broaden the view of history and the present. This is also where art carries a social dimension.
The conversation between artists Sophie Nawova Meyer and Ellen Mäder Gutz will be moderated by Dr. Meta Marina Beeck, director of the Kommunale Galerien Treptow Köpenick in Berlin.
Dr. Meta Marina Beeck
Born in Bremen, she studied art history and German studies in Berlin as well as Chinese in Beijing, and earned her doctorate at Humboldt University Berlin. As a curator and author, she realized numerous exhibition projects in Germany and abroad, including at the Kunsthalle Bielefeld, and taught at the Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle. Since 2022 she has directed the Kommunale Galerien Treptow Köpenick. As initiator and curator of the traveling exhibition “Die Kids sind nicht alright!” she engages intensively with identity, origin, family history, and the social consequences of the post reunification period.
Sophie Nawova Meyer
In her work, the photographer explores the relationship between the fragility of the body, identity, and family. Currently she focuses on Black experiences within German society, reflecting on the hegemonic structures of her own upbringing.
Ellen Mäder Gutz
Ellen Mäder Gutz was born in 1954 in Bergfelde and studied sculpture and graphic art at the Kunsthochschule Berlin Weißensee. In 2007 she showed her work at the Kunsthalle Bremerhaven, and in 2014 she was a fellow at the Wilke Atelier Bremerhaven. Her artistic work is inspired by nature without depicting it directly. Abstract forms, colors, and motifs circle around becoming, origin, and what has not yet fully unfolded. The resulting works feel at once familiar and unfamiliar.
Kunstmuseum Bremerhaven, Foyer
Admission is free.
No registration is required.
The event is supported by the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs as part of the program „Demokratie leben!“ as well as by the AfJFF Bremerhaven.