The Crespo Foundation
The Crespo Foundation is a non-profit private foundation based in Frankfurt am Main. It was founded in 2001 by the psychologist and photographer Ulrike Crespo (1950 – 2019). It works to ensure that all people have the opportunity to live a self-determined life and play an active role in shaping society. With its programs and funding, the Crespo Foundation creates offers, access and spaces of opportunity in which people can develop their potential.
The fields of art, cultural education, personal empowerment and educational opportunities are derived from the work of the founder Ulrike Crespo. Based on the conviction that creativity, education and social issues must be considered together in order to enable participation, the foundation works with stakeholders and experts from these areas and networks them.
In 2018, the Crespo Foundation initiated the “The Flying Artist’s Room” program at rural schools in Hesse, combining an artist-in-residence scholarship with cultural school development. Since 2022, the concept of the “flying artists’ room in the neighborhood” has been extended to an entire urban neighborhood with all its residents.
The Crespo Foundation manages and finances the project management, architecture, construction management, transportation, installation and subsequent onward transportation. It also coordinates and finances the artists’ stipends and material costs, the remuneration and management of accompanying working students and the press and public relations work associated with the flying artists’ room.
“The flying artists’ room in the neighborhood brings art directly to the people and creates new spaces for encounters, creativity and participation – a lively impulse for togetherness in the district.”
Prof. Christiane Riedel, Chair of the Crespo Foundation
Youth and Social Welfare Office of the City of Frankfurt
“Everyone can shape their city together“ –this is the participative approach behind the Youth and Social Welfare Office’s Active Neighbourhood programme, which is being run in sixteen specially selected areas of Frankfurt. The goal is to improve housing and living conditions and reinforce social cohesion. This is done by developing neighbourhood structures, establishing a network of actors and promoting a sense of identity and identification through participation.
Neighbourhood managers on site ascertain the changes that residents would like to see, encourage them to take part, provide organisational and financial support, and establish a network between the actors in the district.
The cooperation with the Crespo Foundation is intended to contribute to embedding cultural education more in the city’s districts and give people the opportunity to experience their district with all their senses, whether through active artistic action or participation in cultural events.
The Youth and Social Welfare Office supports the flying artist’s room through neighbourhood management on site, funds planning and is involved in construction preparation. Together, the Crespo Foundation and the City of Frankfurt are contributing their resources to make this innovative project a success and send a powerful message about greater equality in education.
“We are looking forward with growing excitement to the landing of the new inhabitants of the artistic universe and are already looking forward to everything that will emerge from the encounter between art and the district over the next two years.”
Nanine Delmas, Head of the Youth and Social Welfare Office Frankfurt
The Preungesheim district management in the “Frankfurt Program – Active Neighborhood” sponsored by Diakonie Frankfurt and Offenbach
From the very beginning, the then neighborhood manager Angela Freiberg accompanied the “landing” of the flying artist’s room in Preungesheim and networked it in the district.
Neighborhood management is the point of contact in the district for residents’ concerns. It works at the interface between residents, politics, administration and other institutions and stakeholders in the district. Neighborhood management in Preungesheim is part of the city’s “Frankfurt Active Neighborhood Program” and has been run by Diakonie Frankfurt und Offenbach since 2013. The focus of the Preungesheim neighborhood management is on the social and cultural development of the neighborhood. It encourages people in the different residential areas in the district to grow together with numerous very different projects, workshops and activities.
Most of the buildings in Preungesheim today are housing estates, but there is also a small old town center around the Protestant Kreuzkirche church. Of the total of around 16,000 residents, more than one in five is a child. Around a third of Preungesheim residents come from immigrant families – in total, people from more than 100 nations live there. Preungesheim celebrated its 1250th anniversary in 2022.
As neighbourhood manager at the time, Angela Freiberg began the process of anchoring the flying artists’ room in the district, and neighbourhood manager Oliver Fassing is continuing the work. Since June 2024, he has been supported by Nia Borufka, who assists the artists as a pedagogical specialist and acts as an interface to the neighborhood management. The flying artists’ room has been making guest appearances on Gravensteiner Platz for two years since spring 2023.
“Many people live in Preungesheim for whom traditional art formats, museums or theaters are not free of barriers due to social exclusion and disadvantages. FlieKü aims to enable participation in art and cultural education and can thus form a bridge that creates new access and different experiences. That’s what the district needs!”
Oliver Fassing, Neighborhood Management Preungesheim
The NODE Association
The NODE Association promotes digital culture and is a platform for practical, creative and critical exchanges about technology and digitality. Since 2008 NODE has designed education formats, festivals, international exchange formats and multi-disciplinary artistic programmes. Born out of the community around the visual programming language vvvv, NODE conceives formats for and with scientists, artists and creative coders. Its workshops, exhibitions, performances and discussions are intended for the general public.
In association with Goethe University’s Institute of Art Education in Frankfurt, the city’s Municipal Youth Education Centre/Youth and Social Welfare Office, Hessen’s State Centre for Political Education, and a network of child and youth work facilities in Frankfurt and Hessen, NODE also develops the Digital Worlds (DW) youth programme. DW provides offerings that bring together cultural, political and IT education. Its goal is to convey critical and creative design competencies (digital literacies) for the digital society. Its largest project is the annual youth media art festival Digital Worlds. DW also runs the “Youth hacks Frankfurt am Main” hackathon.
NODE e.V. has been an approved youth welfare provider since 2020.
German Children and Youth Foundation
Since it was established in 1994, the German Children and Youth Foundation (DKJS) has been working to ensure that young people in Germany have a good upbringing and experience and learn about a democratic culture of togetherness for themselves. It empowers children and young people in relation to what they can do and what moves them, and gives them the courage to be brave and take control of their own lives. Its slogan is “Wirksam, nah, dran!”, which means “Effective, nearby, on it!”. People from the world of educational practice as well as administration, politics, science and civil society take them to this point and work with them on the changes needed and innovative solutions for the urgent challenges they face in the education system.
As a cooperation partner of the flying artist’s room in an urban setting, the DKJS draws on two of its core beliefs: in order to safeguard the future opportunities and social participation of all children and young people, daycare facilities and schools, but particularly their actual living environment as well need to be designed to be attractive places of learning. On top of this, high-quality offers of cultural education open up valuable spaces of learning and experience for young people that empower them as they develop their competencies and personalities. Linking the two together is a crucial and challenging task for the DKJS.
“Cultural education is at the heart of a good and holistic education. It is therefore all the more important that all children and young people can experience artistic practice and experience themselves as creative, unique and effective. The opportunity to do so should not be a question of origin, place of residence or social situation. This is where the flying artists’ room in the neighborhood can make an important contribution.”
Andreas Knoke, Head of Programs at the German Children and Youth Foundation
The Ginnheim district management in the “Frankfurt Program – Active Neighborhood” sponsored by the Internationaler Bund (IB Südwest gGmbH Frankfurt and Main-Taunus-Kreis)
IB Neighborhood Management Ginnheim is the point of contact in the district for residents’ concerns. It works at the interface between residents, politics and administration and networks, cooperates and initiates processes and finances micro-projects. In doing so, it cooperates with the institutions, facilities and stakeholders in the district.
Neighborhood management in Ginnheim is part of the city’s “Frankfurt Active Neighborhood Program” and has been run full-time by the Internationaler Bund (IB) Südwest Frankfurt and Main-Taunus-Kreis since 2018. It is supported on a voluntary basis by the Ideal e.V. association. The focus is on the social and cultural development of the neighborhood.
The Ginnheim Neighborhood Management promotes the growing together of people in the various residential areas in the district with a wide variety of projects, workshops and activities. The basis for this is inclusion, participation and helping people to help themselves.
Dominikus Landwehr, Neighborhood Manager for Ginnheim since November 2020, gained many years of experience as a freelance artist and project developer in cultural education before joining the QM and has known the FlieKü for many years.
“After the positive changes in the Platensiedlung in recent years, it is high time to focus more attention on the area around the final stop of the U1, because this is Ginnheim’s invisible center, cut through and shaken by traffic and a lot of through traffic, but without an appropriate quality of stay. The FlieKü could create a visible, sustainable impulse here and help to fill a noticeable socio-spatial gap. The power of art at the interface with social issues is a highly suitable catalyst here.”
Dominikus Landwehr, neighborhood manager for Ginnheim
Volks- Bau- und Sparverein Frankfurt am Main eG (VBS eG)
VBS eG was founded in November 1900 and the first 45 members were entered in the cooperative register a few months later. Despite tight financial constraints, the aim was to build affordable, but not cheap and good quality apartments. The first building with 48 workers’ apartments was completed at the end of 1902.
Today, around 125 years later, VBS eG has around 7,500 members and manages 4,367 apartments, 27 commercial units and around 1,100 parking spaces/garages. The focus is still on providing members with good quality apartments at fair prices.
The implementation of its own climate protection strategy to reduce building-related CO2 emissions is currently a high priority at VBS eg. The housing stock is gradually being made fit for the future as part of well thought-out energy modernization measures.
“We are delighted that the Crespo Foundation is stopping by with its flying artist:interior room. Just like cooperative living, art brings people together. We hope that many of our tenants will visit the room and that it will become a place of encounter and exchange.”
Jörg Schumacher, Member of the Management Board