Beats & Stories: Superdiversity

Superdiversity: How is our urban society changing, and what role can culture play in this?

The event ‘Diversity on Stage – Cultures of Our City’, organised by the Kultur Palast Foundation in collaboration with NDR, explores this transformation through keynote speeches, panel discussions and cultural contributions from a diverse range of artists. In Hamburg districts such as Billstedt and Harburg in particular, it has been evident for years just how fundamentally coexistence is changing: people from all over the world are collectively shaping everyday life, neighbourhoods and the cityscape here, with tangible consequences for infrastructure, cultural provision, politics and the response to existing programmes. This development is perceived in different ways: as cultural enrichment as well as a source of great concern, and it also provides fertile ground for political exploitation, even leading to calls for ‘remigration’.

Based on their study ‘Society of Minorities – Living in Superdiversity’, social scientists Prof. Dr Maurice Crul and Frans Lelie (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) will give a short keynote talk and take part in the subsequent panel discussions. Together with Dörte Inselmann (Artistic Director and Chair of the Kultur Palast Foundation) and Sofie Donges (Director of NDR Landesfunkhaus Hamburg), Christoph Lieben-Seutter (Artistic Director of the Elbphilharmonie), Dr Bilinc Ercan(Vice-President of HFMT),  as well as the artists Franklyn “Slunch” Kakyire (HipHop Academy dancer, choreographer) and Andy Calypso (dancer, choreographer), they will discuss how cultural and media institutions are responding to growing diversity and what holds our urban society together. The discussion will be moderated by Yared Dibaba.

Thursday, 8 October 2026, 6.00 pm
Kultur Palast Billstedt
Admission is free, but registration is required!
Register here

Training and discussion:

Superdiversity: How is our urban society changing – and what role can culture play in this?

How are the cultural and media sectors responding to Hamburg’s growing diversity? A discussion with the study’s authors, Prof. Dr Crul and Lelie, Dörte Inselmann (Kultur Palast), Sofie Donges (Head of the State Broadcasting Centre) and others.