The Office for Cultural Policies and Industries was founded by Bernd Fesel in 2003 and consists in a team of up to four people.
Catherine Daraspe is your contact person for all questions concerning the organisation of the creative industries conferences and chief editor of the news portal “European Creative Industries”.
Karen Lemme is in charge of the secretariat and the appointment schedule.
Professionals from all over Europe are working as independent authors for the European news portal on creative industries.
Bernd Fesel (born in 1962)
works as an independent cultural events organiser and cultural policy advisor in Berlin and Brussels. He is the owner of the Gallery Fesel, founded in Düsseldorf in 1977, which was renamed Fesel Modern Art in 2005. He studied Economics and Philosophy in Heidelberg and Bonn from 1983 to 1990 and graduated with an economist degree.
Professional career
Bernd Fesel has been a partner of the Gallery Karin Fesel since 1990. In 1995 he became working group member within the Federal Association of German Galleries (Bundesverband Deutscher Galerien - BVDG), from 1996 to 1997 he was board member of the BVDG, from 1997 to 2003 Managing Director. During this time he launched a presentation portal for German galleries (www.galerienindeutschland.de), organised the first online art fair with the support of the Deutsche Telekom and developed an educative CD-Rom on the art of the 60s, which was distinguished by the European Commission.
From 2000 to 2004 he was honorary spokesperson of the German Council for the Visual Arts, the federal umbrella association of 20 arts federations. Since 2002 he has been board member of the German Council for Cultural statistics and from 2003 to 2005 chairman of the expert committee “Taxes” in the German Arts Council.
In 2003 Bernd Fesel initiated the national conference on cultural industries in Berlin, which is organised every year in cooperation with the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, the German Council for Cultural Statistics and the German Arts Council.
From 2005 to 2007 he is Secretary General of the Federation of European Art Gallery Associations in Brussels, which represents approx. 2.000 galleries all over Europe.
Bernd Fesel supervises the seminar serials “Strategies in the arts market” and occupies teaching positions at the Distance University in Hagen (since 2004), the Bonn University (2006) and the University of the Arts in Berlin (2007).
Since 2007 the Office for Cultural Policies and Industries is cooperation partner of the training programme „Management in the Art Market” at the Freie Universität in Berlin, the biggest advanced training centre in Germany. This is the first advanced training course dealing with the arts market to award a certificate.
References – selection 2007
Creative Industries Advisor for the European Capital of Culture Ruhr 2010
Advisor of the German UNESCO Commission and the German Federal Foreign Office
Member of the advisory board of the Bundesakademie Wolfenbüttel