Spore Initiative

Spore Initiative is a Berlin based cultural initiative dedicated to biocultural diversity, ecological regeneration and knowledge exchange, distinguished by an approach that places long term partnership and dialogue above conventional exhibition making. Founded by philanthropist and businessman Hans W. Schöpflin, Spore grew out of years of sustained conversation in the Yucatán peninsula of Mexico, particularly with figures such as Pedro Uc Be and initiatives including the Escuela de Agricultura Ecológica U Yits Ka'an and the collective Suumil Móokt'an. These early dialogues around territory, milpa agriculture, traditional medicine and other practices of interspecies care became the model for how Spore continues to work today, co producing bilingual cultural tools such as illustrated books, board games, animation films and audio plays alongside its partners rather than commissioning work about them.

Spore's presence in Berlin takes physical form in the Spore House in Neukölln, a multifunctional building designed by AFF Architekten that includes a library, studio space, guest house, exhibition areas, an auditorium, workshop spaces and a café, complemented by a learning garden cultivated on site. This space serves as a hub where the international dialogues initiated elsewhere are shared with Berlin audiences through exhibitions, workshops and public programmes, while also hosting and supporting initiatives led by communities in the city who face structural discrimination and limited access to cultural infrastructure.

The institution's contemporary importance lies in its position at the intersection of art, ecosocial justice and social practice, working with communities across what it describes as the Global Majority whose knowledge and struggles shape its programming. Rather than pursuing a conventional curatorial trajectory built around discrete exhibitions, Spore's practice unfolds through sustained partnerships and what it terms cultural tools, co-authored resources meant to circulate and sustain knowledge well beyond any single project or presentation. This approach reflects a guiding emphasis on continuity over visibility and on listening as a form of action.

Organisationally, Spore's core pillars rest on three interconnected strands, long term partnerships and facilitation processes developed with communities and organisations internationally, a cultural and educational programme hosted at the Spore House in Berlin, and the cultivation of cultural tools that translate these dialogues into shared, accessible resources. Programming in Berlin is deliberately multilingual and hands on, spanning cooking sessions, harvest schools, writing workshops, talks, exhibitions, performances and long term working groups, with contributors ranging from gardeners and healers to scientists, illustrators and storytellers.

Spore is funded through philanthropic support connected to its founder, situating it within a lineage of independent, mission driven cultural funding rather than public or municipal subsidy. This structure allows the initiative considerable freedom to pursue long, relationship based processes of collaboration rather than programming tied to fixed exhibition cycles. Taken together, Spore offers a distinctive model within Berlin's cultural landscape, one grounded in reciprocity, ecological care and sustained international dialogue rather than a fixed collection or single disciplinary focus.