In previous online sessions, we discussed administrative topics such as accounting, invoicing, choice of legal form and contract basics in relation to creative work in Germany. Another important topic to consider when managing your finances is taxes. This topic might be intimidating for (self-) employed arts and culture professionals. In fact, understanding the basics of tax-related matters is not so difficult. For our next online information session, we invited a tax-advisor to shed light on such matters. Claudia Fuhrmann from Steupro will give an input on the obligations that one has towards the tax office when working as (self-)employed creative and answer your questions around taxes. 
We kindly invite you to send your specific questions beforehand, until 03.11.22.
The participation is free of charge. The session is held in German, with consecutive interpreting into English.
For registration and enquiries, please write to: 

* Claudia Fuhrmann *

Claudia Fuhrmann is a graduate in business administration with a focus on accounting and taxes. She has a long-term experience working as an industrial clerk for companies such as Arthur Andersen Tax Consultancy and Auditing Company and Daimler Financial Services AG. Fuhrmann has been self-employed and running her own firm since February 2007. The focus of her firm has been business management consulting, international taxes, annual financial statements including international standards. The firm primarily advises small and medium-sized enterprises. 

* Steupro *

Steupro is a firm with 12 employees, situated in Berlin Wilmersdorf. It offers comprehensive advice for entrepreneurs and their companies and covers all services from payroll accounting and financial accounting to annual financial statements and tax returns.

www.steupro.de

How to pursue writing if you are a literary worker newly arrived in Germany/Berlin? How to best face the challenges of continuing one’s profession in the new socio-cultural context? Where to look for funding opportunities, available support, and existing networks? Our next online information session will explore such questions, with the help of our guest expert, Odile Kennel, who will provide a first orientation in Berlin’s literary landscape.  

Participation is free and open to all. The session will be held in English.

For registration and queries:

* Odile Kennel *

Odile Kennel is a poet, novelist and translator living in Berlin. She writes in German and French and likes to invite further languages into her writing. Her most recent poetry book is “Hors Texte” published by Verlagshaus Berlin (2019), as well as the poetic essay “Lust” about the relationship between text and desire (2021). She also published the novels “Was Ida sagt” (2011) and “Mit Blick auf See” (2017), and the poetry book “oder wie heißt diese interplanetare Luft” (2013). She is an occasional blogger and to be found in the virtual universe under @solidenelke.
Odile has been working as a consultant for Lettrétage since 2016.

* Lettrétage *

The Literaturhaus Lettrétage sees itself as an anchor institution of Berlin’s independent literary scene. Not only does it provide a venue for readings and literary projects by independent literary artists, but the Lettrétage team also supports them to the best of its ability. As part of the project schreiben&leben, Lettrétage offers free individual consultations for freelance authors, translators, editors and literary organisers on all topics related to literary freelancing. Experts will advise you, for example, on joining the KSK, on the VG Wort, on finding a publisher or agency, or on legal issues. All Berlin literary organisers can use their online ticketing system free of charge, and the Berlin literary calendar provides information on all Berlin literary events of the month in poster form. You can find all the information at www.lettretage.de and on the project website of schreiben&leben www.literaturszene.berlin.

With this in person, creative workshop, we invite transnational artists to the premises of Cashmere Radio, in Berlin Wedding, to participate in a collective listening to recorded Berlin soundscapes and a discussion around how experiences of migration inform the way we listen to the city. As a result of this exchange, together with the workshop’s facilitator – Yara Mekawei – the participants will produce a collective work to be broadcasted at Cashmere Radio. 

A day before the creative workshop, the participants will have an online discussion with Lukas Grundmann from Cashmere Radio who will give an introduction to the history, structure, and activities of the collective, as well as share his experience of making radio art. 

The number of participants is limited to six (6). To apply, please send a CV and a short letter of interest. Applications should be sent by Monday, 19 September 2022, to:
The selected participants will be contacted on Tuesday, 27 September 2022.
Participation is free of charge and open to transnational artists from all backgrounds. Basic knowledge of an audio software is required. 
Participation will be subject to compliance with Berlin’s COVID-19 regulations. 

* Yara Mekawei *

Yara Mekawei is a sound artist who mainly works with the (im)materiality of sound and explores how sound informs and transforms visual and sculptural artistic practices. For Mekawei, sound becomes a material source and a physical embodiment of knowledge(s) that animates most of her works, while exploring how sonorousness is a transducer and convergence of time-space relations, as expressed and experienced in African and Arabic philosophies. 

* Cashmere Radio * 

“Cashmere Radio is a not-for-profit community experimental radio station based in Berlin-Wedding. The ambition of the station is to preserve and further radio and broadcasting practices by playing with the plasticity and malleability of the medium. We do this by both honouring and challenging its inherent qualities: it is both a physical station open to the public and an online radio; it has regular shows, yet opens itself up to extended and one-off events; it features extended generative music performances and installations at the same time as working within radio’s typical durations. In short, it is an attempt to enhance and celebrate the performative, social and informative power of radio that we believe lies within the form itself. The radio can be heard 24 hours a day, seven days a week on our website, and on Friday and Saturdays via 88,4 Berlin and 90,7 Potsdam.”

www.cashmereradio.com

Earlier this year, we organised an online information session that focused on the challenges of writing a successful project proposal for arts funding applications.  In the following session, we will look at how to write a budget proposal, which is mandatory when applying for art project funding. Creating an overall budget for your project and understanding the requirements for an acceptable budget proposal that each funding agency defines individually can be overwhelming. At the nextonline information session, our guest expert Nadine Lorenz will help you face this challenge. Last year, Nadine Lorenz spoke about managing finances in relation to acquired funding. Now she will discuss what to consider when drafting a budget for an arts funding application in Germany, with a focus on Berlin.

* Nadine Lorenz *

Nadine Lorenz holds a degree in Sociology and has been working in the cultural sector since 2008, focusing on the financing and implementation of art and cultural projects.
In 2008, she grounded the association WerkStadt Kulturverein, where she carried out a large number of projects and worked as its managing director until 2016. Between 2010 and 2019, Lorenz implemented various environmental projects in Nordneukölln. In 2018, Nadine Lorenz joined the team of the association Kulturnetzwerk Neukölln, where she took over the finance management of the “48 Stunden Neukölln” festival. Since 2020, together with Ilka Normann, Lorenz has been working as a co-director of the association Kulturnetzwerk Neukölln.
Through her long experience in working directly with artists, Nadine Lorenz could gain a solid insight of the pitfalls related to funding and develop an expertise in the financial management of art and cultural projects.

www.kulturnetzwerk.de

Participation is free and open to all. The session is held in German, with consecutive interpreting into English.

For registration and queries:

We invite transnational artists, as well as culture and media workers to our next general online information session. Our experienced advisor will provide insights into topics, such as funding opportunities, the structure of the art and creative scene in Berlin, and organisational topics, e.g., the German artists’ social security scheme (the Künstlersozialkasse).
We kindly invite you to send us your specific questions on these and other topics, by Tuesday, 15.02.22.
The session is free of charge and open to all.

For registration and queries: