RKP projects 2026

The Atlas of Centres project continues. It collects geographical and personal centres of places in Münsterland. Together with local people, we are asking where the centre is and what significance it has in everyday life. Every new centre found expands the atlas and brings in new perspectives. Through conversations, encounters and joint activities on site, places are connected and a growing network of stories, experiences and relationships is created.

"Auf die Plätze" is an artistic-documentary project that aims to capture public spaces away from urban centres through literature and film. In 2026, three authors will explore three squares, and exactly one year later, three filmmakers will visit the places. Inspired by Georges Perec, they will create texts and films that visualise the fleeting nature of everyday life and create a contemporary document of regional everyday worlds. The results will be read, shown and discussed in the respective locations.

The starting point of the project is the idea of lost places and the feeling of "being lost". Churches, once places of inner orientation, lose their binding power in times of change and polarisation. In the project, cello encounters urban dance in these places, which rewrites the space with powerful physicality. Baroque structures intertwine with contemporary compositions and electronic sounds. In this way, churches, which often appear to be lost places, become open spaces for dialogue.

The exhibition at Museum Relígio in Telgte (May-August 2027) sheds light on Jewish life in Germany - from rural communities in the 19th century to the Shoah and the present day. Personal stories, key exhibits from the collection of Zwi Sofer from Münster, artistic positions and modern educational formats such as workshops and digital offerings bring everyday life, religious practice and remembrance to life. The aim is to make Jewish voices visible, impart knowledge, promote empathy and break down prejudices.

As part of the 2026 Democracy Festival, the theatre production "Factor X: Democracy" is being created in Borken, which is based on a documentary Bundestag debate and brings democratic processes to life as an interactive production. Supplemented by musical and scientific elements, it conveys the history of democracy. The play developed for the city of Borken is touring as a guest performance through Bocholt, Gescher, Vreden and Gronau and is supplemented locally by individually tailored educational programmes.

"Hermann-Josef" is a six-part micro drama for social media by Goldstoff Filme. The historical comedy is set on a fictional aristocratic estate in Münsterland and tells the story of a young house servant (Fabian Nolte) in the German Empire who wants to make a career - and gets caught up in an intrigue. As a prequel to the Grimme Award-winning series "Haus Kummerveldt", the format combines comedy and everyday Münsterland history for a young audience on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube.

The Klangwelt Kreis Steinfurt project is developing an "acoustic DNA" of the communities in the district of Steinfurt. To this end, the sounds of different places in the region are recorded with a mobile recording device, e.g. the blasting of the power station in Ibbenbüren, water droplets in the ice cellar in Altenberge or the Ochtrup nightingale. The different sounds are moulded into a sound experience, the acoustic footprint. The project was completed in January 2026 and the finished sound film can be found on the project website.

Over the course of two years, up-and-coming filmmakers in the Münsterland region have been exploring the topic of "collective conflict" in an artistic and research-based manner. In documentary works, the film teams are investigating how conflicts arise, are negotiated and shaped in groups - and what these processes reveal about how we live together.
The project understands conflict not as failure, but as a moving practice - as a space for productive friction and a cinematic approach to what divides and unites people. The resulting documentary films will be shown in cinemas in the Münsterland region, thus opening up a public discourse.

The forest and meadow concerts and the mobile bonsai stage bring culture to rural areas without traditional infrastructure. The "Kulturelle Blühstreifen" (cultural flower strips) emerged from the examination of local conditions: temporary, dialogue-based cultural formats that enable diversity without over-shaping the landscape or community. Hopsten becomes a central, established co-operation partner. The mobile bonsai stage is a visible, flexible symbol of this approach.

What can art and culture achieve in rural areas? What effects do major challenges such as distribution, mobility, supply and climate change have here? Burg Hülshoff - Center for Literature (CfL), Stiftung Künstlerdorf Schöppingen and AG Kultur Havixbeck are organising a laboratory on rural life in the 21st century. Other partners from the region and the country are involved, artists explore the Münsterland in residencies, supported by international experts.

The many moated castles characterise the Münsterland - but there are also monuments in everyday life: in playgrounds, by streams in the forest or in striking new buildings. HörSpielLab Münster makes these places audible.
Classic and new monuments are reimagined in radio plays. In 2026 and 2027, young people and adults will develop their own mini radio plays and present them at various locations. At the same time, the HörSpielLab shows what the professional radio play scene in Münster is capable of - from radio plays to staged readings to sound art.
The HörSpielLab Münster is a café, workshop, recording studio and stage all in one - an open meeting place for the curious, advanced and professionals.

The Münsterland Festival presents music and art from a European guest country at special venues in Münsterland - at castles and palaces, buildings of modern architecture and places with history. The musical focus is on jazz, pop, folk and classical music and is complemented by exhibitions, dialogue events and excursions. The next edition will take place in autumn 2027 after a year of preparation.

First-class students from Münster University of Music fan out into the region. Together with local partners and organisers, the students plan unique musical events specially designed for the locations, where concerts are complemented by workshops as well as student and audience discussions. The artistic spectrum of pop and classical music ranges from percussion and cello ensembles to singer/songwriters.

explores the void and related empty spaces, such as emptiness, absence, silence, zero, the hole ... and gives the void and all its facets a public place from Münster, across the Münsterland region and worldwide. In laboratories, performances and the Archive of Nothingness, new empty spaces - in-between spaces - emerge from the abundance of nothingness in both urban and rural areas

The pendulum measurement as a symbol of our present: in a time characterised by polarisation, crises and uncertainty, PENDULUM uses questions and movement tasks to make it possible to experience that movement remains possible between extremes. With dance workshops at primary schools, the MNEME collective, supplemented by interviews with a social pedagogue and author Iona Daniel, creates spaces in which children can visualise their feelings at eye level and actively participate in an artistic process.

Pentoria brings language to life as a superpower: a word magic show combines elements from fantasy literature and poetry slams and actively involves the audience through language games, rhythm and riddles. Afterwards, children and young people (aged 8-15) will develop their own mini-dramas in a writing workshop before presenting them. Material sets (quill and ink) and teaching materials support the transfer to libraries and schools. Pentoria will be touring in 2026 with 20 dates in Beelen, Telgte and Warendorf, among others.

As a summer holiday programme, the MINT-400 label brings an intergenerational cultural adventure to the outdoor pool and brings the spaceship crew from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy to life. After a failed improbability drive, the crew lands in Münsterland - in the outdoor pool. Together with the bathers, they embark on an intergalactic round trip full of tasks and mythical creatures. The highlight is the "Seahorse Tournament". Participation is encouraged!

The RKP project "Schlossgespenst und Gräftengeist" brings the sagas and legends surrounding the castles and fortresses in the Münsterland region to life in a new way. Traditional tales are collected, reworked and presented in a contemporary way through stage programmes, an illustrated publication and audio formats. The aim is to communicate the regional cultural heritage to a cross-generational audience in a sustainable way. The project will run for two years and is being coordinated by Münsterland e.V.

sozialpalast MUSIK CONVOY 2026 is travelling to Greven, Lengerich and Münster-Kinderhaus with its own stage truck.
Based on the principle of 'by those affected by intersectional discrimination for those affected', we as a BIPoC-FLINTA* team offer artistic IMPULSWORKSHOPS for children and young people in the disciplines of 'dance', 'rap', 'DJ', 'painting & stage design' in cooperation with youth centres/streetwork, with the aim of an autonomous, open stage show in the evening, at any location.

In 2026, the Stadt.Land.Bühne (RKP-funded since 2024) and Junge Bühne Münsterland (RKP-funded since 2025) networks will merge. Three network meetings/creative conferences are planned to bring together municipal representatives and artists. The dialogue at eye level and the exchange of needs and sharing of experience is crucial. There will be 15 performances for young audiences and 15 cultural walks to promote innovative formats and develop visions for local cultural development.

The international music festival "Summerwinds" focuses on woodwind instruments in 50 high-calibre concerts of classical, crossover and world music at over 40 attractive venues in Münsterland and Münster. Such a festival focus is unique in Europe. Top artistic quality with pure woodwind formations and innovative mixed ensembles, carefully staged concert halls and gripping programmes make the Summerwinds feeling possible, this Münsterland mix of excitement and relaxation, conviviality and concentrated silence.

With "the taste of: ...", the KünstlerinnenForum MünsterLand e.V. is thematising the pleasures of the table in various areas of tension between past and present, survival and palate tickling. After the prelude "the taste of: CULTURE" (2025), the focus in 2026 will be on "the taste of: NATURE". What does nature taste like today? What does it cost? What does naturalness mean in an industrialised food world? What traces do consumption, production or even renunciation leave behind?

An outreach children's cultural work project with around 75 venues throughout Münsterland. The three Münsterland theatres, Hille Puppille, Krokodiltheater and Theater Don Kidschote bring everything with them and transform every location into a small theatre. A very low-threshold offer for indoors and outdoors, especially for financially weak smaller day-care centres, village schools, special schools, social initiatives or clubs. It can also be used as a first theatre experiment in places that are culturally remote or unfamiliar.

The concert series opens the doors to gardens and parks of all different sizes, histories and designs. From June to mid-September, several concerts - from classical to jazz to rock/pop - invite you to a Sunday excursion in the region. From the region for the region.

The exhibition by Burg Hülshoff - Centre for Literature (CfL) is being created in cooperation with Burg Vischering and three universities. There is evidence of water women in cultures that lived on earth more than 60,000 years ago. They inhabit and revitalise water, which is the basis of life for people living on land. The exhibition brings together works by international artists and collectives with literary texts and education for sustainable development.

TanzTheater bodytalk is familiar with "when too perfect, God is evil" (Nam June Paik): perfect or perplexed? Fluxus is not museum-like - but in flux: we generate chance encounters at crossroads on footpaths, in police stations and at weekly markets. The exhibition hall at Hawerkamp in Münster is the base camp, performances from 23.10.2026 at the theatre in the Pumpenhaus. By and with Dongkyu Kim, Tirza Ben Zvi, Vito, Iris Erez, René Haustein, Christian Filips, Yoshiko Waki, Rolf Baumgart and many more.