I am starting my journey as a new Stadtkuratorin in the city of art and activism, high and low tides, land and water, rich and poor, world opening and closing. In the current challenging political times, I believe that art, and in particular public art, helps us to build alliances, stand our grounds, overcome isolation, limitations and come together despite differences. I am delighted to lead the City Curator project, this unique ‘institution without walls’ – together with the artists, citizens and the Kunsthaus Hamburg team – embarking together on a journey from the Cosmos to the Commons, towards the idea of a planetary public sphere and multidirectional memory. Building on the legacy of my predecessors Sophie Goltz and Dirck Möllmann, I see my role as that between a guest and a host, a foreigner and a local, a critic and an allay and as an advocate for a complex and critical public art. – Joanna Warsza, Stadtkuratorin, October 2024

The City Curator is an independent curatorial format for public art that was initiated in Hamburg in 2013 and has since seen several follow-up editions both nationally and internationally. Its aim is to draw attention to Hamburg's important and often overlooked collection of public art, as well as to address relevant social and political issues through temporary art interventions in public spaces.The previous city curators of Hamburg were Sophie Goltz from 2013 to 2016, and Dirk Möllmann from 2016 to 2019. You can visit their projects in our archive. The project City Curator Hamburg is funded by the Ministry of Culture and Media Hamburg and has been hosted by the Kunsthaus Hamburg since its relaunch 2024. It is connecting the local with the international, the internal with the external, and the ebb and flow of public life.

In October 2024, Joanna Warsza was appointed as the new City Curator of Hamburg. The current and upcoming City Curator program is built on two pillars, the first is called Five Years Five Elements and evolves with five summer exhibitions each dedicated to one of the five core elements – Fire, Air, Earth and Water, and starting with that of Cosmos. This series takes place every summer in a perennial occurrence with a constellation with both local and international artists. The second series, titled Counter-Monuments, is starting in late summer 2025 and features monthly, ongoing activations of the Hamburg public art collection. The term Counter-Monuments originates from Hamburg and asks how to critically, sensitively and timely engage with the public space and the politics of memory in which many different voices and experiences can be seen and heard in a multidirectional and respectful manner.