Who do we want to have been? - This question will guide this year's Green Culture Festival (#GCF25) at PACT Zollverein. Over two days in June, we want to formulate together what we can do today to make the hoped-for retrospective of our society a reality. The question can be understood as a call to set the course for a desirable future today.

This is where the handprint comes into play, a new concept that focuses on inspiration instead of frustration, action instead of stagnation. It stands for the ability to not only leave less behind through innovative ideas and structural changes, but also to cause impact. Together we want to explore how we can achieve more handprint with less footprint.

For the 2024/25 season, the seven theatres that make up the Alliance of International Production Houses are organising an event series focusing on the field of practice we call Arts & Encounters. The series of events will see each of our Alliance members present strategies on how to foster even greater participation and involvement on the part of groups and individuals representing our multifaceted society. Together with these “accomplices” – the people without whom our theatres would not be what they are today – we are eager to examine a number of pressing issues, including our shared lives in neighbourhoods of diversity, potential strategies of resistance in the realm of social networks, and the growing tension between generations. Last but not least, we also want to continue to explore ways of opening up our theatres even further to the public and boosting the status of these venues as valuable spaces of encounter.