A museum night with a creative background noise

Robert Verch

Robert Verch studied design at the Bauhaus University in Weimar. The 32-year-old originally comes from Berlin, worked in Leipzig and finally settled in Chemnitz. This year, he is coordinating the special Chemnitz Museum Night programme. In this interview, he tells us how and why he ended up in Chemnitz and why the Sonnenberg is so special.

The Chemnitz Museum Night is coming up. This year, the Sonnenberg is the special venue. What can visitors expect?
Robert Verch: It will be a very colourful event under the motto "The inclination towards culture. Things are going uphill on Zietenstraße".
There will be readings at Nikola Tesla and Kaffeesatz. A DJ will be playing at Lokomov and next door at Pizzeria Augusto, children can bake pizzas. On Zietenstraße, people from the Lokomov building will be presenting themselves and offering soldering and printing workshops, for example. The Repaircafé from Stadthalten e. V. opens its doors. There will be performances in the Off-Theatre complex. The Kaffeesatz will also be presenting local artists. And the history of the neighbourhood will not be neglected either, with guided tours, an exhibition by AG-Geschichte Sonnenberg and Tolga Cerci's video screenings. All in all, in one evening you will get a concentrated overview of what is going on in the Sonnenberg, who is hiding here and what has been created here in recent years.

What makes the Sonnenberg so attractive for creative people?
Thanks to the people who live here, there is a buzz of creativity in a relatively small area. Creative people quickly find exchange and inspiration here. In addition, the rents are of course comparatively favourable. It's a young neighbourhood with multicultural influences. This brings with it a specific, tolerant charm in which creative people generally feel at home.

Does creative exchange also take place beyond the boundaries of Sonnenberg?
Even if it is certainly not obvious to outsiders, Chemnitz is a city of short distances. The creative artists actually all know each other and help each other out. It's usually very straightforward.

Is that a phenomenon of the city of Chemnitz or is that generally the case with cultural professionals?
Basically, the scene works quite co-operatively. However, the size of Chemnitz offers particular potential. In larger cities, each sub-sector of the creative industries can form its own scene. You quickly become self-referential. That doesn't work so well in Chemnitz simply because of its size. Here, many people from different areas like to lend a hand and automatically ensure that there are always new influences and ideas.

Robert Verch first came into contact with Chemnitz through the BEGEHUNGEN art festival, in which he took part as an artist. "I have always been interested in the transformation of a city and the management of such processes. The job as neighbourhood manager for business was a great fit and I moved here," says the 32-year-old.

Business district manager, creative industries and networking - what does that mean? What do you do?
My job is to ensure attractive conditions for the establishment of creative businesses in the ERDF-funded city centre area, to support new and established creators with their projects and to network with each other. To this end, I organise events such as a guided shopping tour or lectures and themed evenings and also have a say in city funding programmes.

Why does Chemnitz need a strong creative industry?
The cultural and creative industries have 13 sub-sectors. Programmers are just as much a part of it as musicians or designers. What they all have in common is that the added value comes from creative brainwork. Most of them are lone wolves or small businesses with just a few employees. Nevertheless, the industry creates many jobs overall. In addition, many ideas are important innovations that are being used more and more, not least in traditional industry. Chemnitz therefore needs players from the cultural and creative industries not only as entertainment, but also for its future viability as a production location.

You are based at Kabinettstückchen on Sonnenberg, a coworking space on Zietenstraße. Sonnenberg is certainly a focal point of your work. What is developing here in the urban area?
Many cultural professionals and other players from the creative industries have settled on Sonnenberg. We have artists and cultural professionals in the Lokomov House, and the OFF-Bühne Komplex is a centre for performing artists. Kabinettstückchen is home to freelancers and start-ups that can grow here and that we would like to keep on site.

There is still a comparatively large amount of vacant space on the Sonnenberg. There is room for more companies to settle here in the future. What challenges are there to eliminate the vacancies?
Most of the vacant houses have been disconnected from the grid and no longer have a water or electricity connection. So you can't simply move back into them. To reconnect a building to the grid, you have to invest around 20,000 euros. Even for a low-threshold approach, you need to raise a large amount of money.

How do you like it in Chemnitz? Have you arrived?
Yes, of course Chemnitz has one or two challenges. But that's what makes the city so special. Architecturally, for example, it's exciting, even if it's not always practical. With the buildings of socialist modernism, we have a built utopia here that is still absolutely visible in the urban spaces. In the future, more and more people will be interested in them, just as the buildings of classical modernism and the Bauhaus already attract tourists today. These attractions are not yet served up on a silver platter and are therefore all the more exciting to discover.
Personally, I found the local creative scene to be very open and very welcoming. That makes Chemnitz worth living in for me.

Where do you see Chemnitz in 2025?
I very much hope that Chemnitz will become European Capital of Culture. But even without the title, structures will certainly have been established by then that allow creative freedom and can react flexibly to the demands of young and creative people. So that small centres for creativity and diversity are possible and secure here.