The Villa as a domicile for artists

In 1982, the Munich City Council decided to place the Villa Waldberta at the disposal of visitors to the city for a limited stay who had a cultural background and the intention of realising a specific artistic project. Munich state capital's Cultural Department chooses these visitors on the basis of individual applications and requests by the Cultural Department itself as well as suggestions by municipal theatres and museums, the municipal public library or private cultural facilities and former scholarship holders. The villa's utilisation concept was reworked in 1991 and adopted by Munich city council. The Villa Waldberta oriented itself internationally with the emphasis on literary and fine art content and a regional emphasis on central and eastern Europe. The guests were chosen in agreement with a board of advisers.

In December 2004, the city council voted to revise the previous utilisation concept in order to make the house and its guests more visible in Munich and make it of greater use to the city. The fundamental changes are:

• no individual applications
• the villa is open for all categories of art including culturally relevant science
• scholarship holders are only invited if they are involved in projects run by the city of Munich or its cooperative partners such as the Goethe Institut or the ethnology museum)
• projects are chosen by the Waldberta board of trustees or Munich City Council
• artists are chosen at the suggestion of cultural institutions participating in the projects

Aims of the new concept:

• scholarship holders are to be integrated and anchored in the cultural life of Munich
• the house and its work are to be made more visible in Munich
• sustained benefits should be achieved through longer-term projects
• exploiting the advantages of interdisciplinary working and thinking
• a European / international cultural network is to be created

Within the framework of the sustained joint planning for all the city's institutions for international cultural work, Villa Waldberta thus plays an important role, namely for concrete plans and projects of the institutes or the core department as well as for the support of festivals which take place in the city such as the Frühjahrsbuchwoche (Spring Book Fair), the SpielArt (theatre festival), the Biennale (a contemporary art exhibition) or DANCE. The Villa Waldberta is available as accommodation only to individuals or groups from all categories of art who may be involved in the city of Munich's existing or planned internationally-oriented projects aimed at enabling an effective and long-term artists' exchange. After more than a decade of eastern Europe promotion, a special emphasis on particular countries is no longer considered necessary.

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