So German!

In total, “Germany @ Canada 2017: Partners from Immigration to Innovation / L’Allemagne @ Canada 2017: Partenaires de l’immigration à l’innovation” will encompass over 40 events in Toronto, Montréal, Québec City, Calgary, Vancouver, Halifax and beyond.

Featured guests include German cabaret star Ute Lemper at the inaugural Vancouver Opera Festival; performance collective Rimini Protokoll opening the Festival TransAmériques in Montreal with a show involving 100 citizens. Cologne artist Cosima von Bonin makes her Canadian solo debut in the Greater Toronto Area with an exhibition that The New York Times called “brilliant” and Hamburg artist collective A Wall is a Screen invites cinephiles to a guided tour and short film screenings at unusual locations in Quebec City.

A program highlight will be the exhibition “Canada and Germany: Partners from Immigration to Innovation” in the International Pavilion of the National Capital Commission in Ottawa from late June through mid-July, coinciding with Canada Day festivities. This interactive exhibition will explore the ways in which German immigrants – from the Hessian soldiers who fought in the American Revolution, to Mennonites fleeing religious persecution, to entrepreneurs seeking fame and fortune – have become an integral part of the rich Canadian fabric. It will also feature German-Canadian technological collaborations, including a hitch-hiking robot and an energy-producing device that uses brain power to wash laundry.

Rounded out with live performances, academic conferences and film screenings, Germany @ Canada 2017 will bring a dynamic sampling of contemporary German culture to Canada, while also highlighting the ties that bind the two countries together. Our shared values are not to be taken for granted and what better occasion than Canada’s sesquicentennial to celebrate the German-Canadian friendship with this fireworks of cultural events?

Program details will be available at SoGerman.ca / SiAllemand.ca and goethe.de/canada.