On a co-operational basis, the Lüneburg Innovation Incubator and the co-working space FREIRAUM Lüneburg wanted to encourage the analysis of the state of the arts and cultural industries in the Konvergenzgebiet Lüneburg and wanted to deliver a platform for exchange and innovative problem solving among the local actors, organizations and KMU.

The project Kunst und Kultur Distrikte (KKD) was especially aimed at fostering bottom-up processes of production in the cultural industries and in the art fields by improving the network capacity cross the local actors. Local initiatives of existing operators, professionals, scholars, entrepreneurs and practitioners were intended to be bond by the KKD and innovative ventures by building bridges outside the region were supposed to be encourages.

Usually, the core of creative potential in the German culture and creative industries (KKW) is considered to be located in urban centres. However, there is an undeniable creative capacity and many innovative initiatives in the peripheral regions. The Konvergenzgebiet Lüneburg shows a development that hints to a growing industry, as well: in the Lüneburg area, between 2003 and 2007 employment in the KKW increased from 0,18% of the population to 0,55% – reaching the average value of Lower Saxony. The rest of the Konvergenzgebiet is still below this level, which implies that there is still uncovered potential for constructive discussions, cooperation and synergies. Unlocking this artistic and entrepreneurial potential is expected to crucially contribute to regional development.

The KKD offers an opportunity to talk about arts and culture at the regional level, to figure out some forms of effective collaboration across local organizations and to contribute to raising the quality of the artistic production in the region.

The forum has led to a critical discussion about the status of the artistic scene in the region and it has shown that local actors can generate creative ideas for artistic cooperation. As a consequence, an additional workshop was planned in order to become more concrete about specific cultural projects and problem-solving in the region.