Culture as a driver of innovation at Frankfurt

Together with the United Nations and Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels (German Publishers & Booksellers Association), the Fair has launched the global campaign ‘Create Your Revolution – initiative for the future of culture’ that celebrates the power of culture as an enabler and driver of innovation and growth to help achieve the sustainable development goals.

Frankfurter Buchmesse, which attracts over 7,500 exhibitors from 109 countries, around 285,000 visitors, and some 10,000 accredited journalists, with over 4,000 events, is the most important international marketplace for content, from novels and children’s books to academic databases and stories for films, games and virtual reality experiences. Publishing professionals from around the world meet here with partners from the technology sector and from related creative and cultural industries, sparking new partnerships and business models.

The year, the idea is to reaffirm culture in its capacity to solve global challenges and to strengthen its role in international debates. At the heart of this discussion is an urgent appeal: Without culture, there is no future! The campaign focuses on these central topics: activism, language, living with machines, trust, futurism, identity, sustainability, and education.

Create Your Revolution 

As part of the campaign, Create Your Revolution, the interactive festival THE ARTS+/B3, is inviting change-makers from the culture and creative industries. Now in its fourth year, THE ARTS+ has launched a unique partnership with the B3 Biennial of the Moving Image, an event conceived by the Hochschule für Gestaltung Offenbach (HfG) for artists, media professionals and scientists from around the world.

Create Your Revolution lives up to the success of the award-winning campaign ‘On the Same Page’. Celebrating the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 2018 and to mark Frankfurter Buchmesse’s 70th edition in that year, Frankfurter Buchmesse and Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels launched On the Same Page with the support of the United Nations (UN) and Amnesty International and various other partners. This initiative not only put human rights into focus but also called on the international book and media industry to become actively involved.

This year, again with a number of international partners, Frankfurter Buchmesse will be taking a closer look at the meaning and future of culture and will revolutionise it.

Norway, the Guest of Honour

Every year, Frankfurter Buchmesse welcomes a different country as its Guest of Honour. The Guest of Honour of Frankfurter Buchmesse 2019 is Norway, a land of great Literature from the classics of Henrik Ibsen and Knut Hamsun to the modern bestsellers of Karl Ove Knausgård and Jo Nesbø. Norwegians read more than any other European nationality, and the country has produced three winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature. Norway’s slogan as Guest of Honour at the Frankfurter Buchmesse 2019 is ‘The Dream We Carry’. The words derive from the poem ‘It Is That Dream’ by the much loved Norwegian poet Olav H Hauge (1908–94).