The municipality could hardly have found a more suitable place for the presentation of the first Poinger Kulturpreis on Friday evening: the workshops of the Bavarian State Opera, which are not actually open to the public. Everywhere in the spacious hall, in which the champagne reception as well as a stage and rows of chairs were set up for the event, you can see opulent stage sets and posters, tools and work materials. The place radiates exactly what the Poinger Kulturpreis, which is awarded annually, stands for: a broad creativity that appeals to as many people as possible. In the eyes of the five-member jury, Poinger native Natalja Herdt fulfilled this requirement best of all nine candidates. The 46-year-old is the first winner of the award, which is endowed with 2000 euros. Visibly moved, she accepted the award from Mayor Thomas Stark, but at first she couldn’t find the words in her subsequent acceptance speech.
It’s been a good two and a half years since the members of the Poinger main and finance committee discussed the idea of creating a culture prize, the only municipality in the Ebersberg district to date. Mayor Stark took the initiative for this. The award is intended to honor people or groups who are connected to the community through birth, life, work or activity and who have achieved special achievements in the fields of fine or performing arts, music, literature or the preservation of homeland and customs. The criterion for the award is that the artistic or cultural work sets accents in the community and shapes cultural life in a special way and invigorates the cultural scene; the cultural commitment of the winner should increase the quality of life in the community, the cultural projects should show sustainable development and importance. A person or a group can only be awarded the culture prize once. The minimum age is 14 years.
Mayor Thomas Stark presented the award. The initiative for honoring artists in this way came from him.
(Photo: Christian Endt)
The prize was finally announced at the beginning of 2021. Actually, the award should have taken place in autumn 2021, but because of Corona, nothing came of it. The jury had to make their choice from three suggestions and six applications: Peter Vomberg for his music lessons in the Poinger Senior Center. Clarinetist Lisa Riepl, born in 1995, is the youngest candidate. The former “Café Station” host and organizer of the Poinger Kulturbühne Andi Otten. Sculptor Karl Orth, who among other things created the memorial that commemorates the concentration camp prisoners who died in Poing from the evacuation transport from the Mühldorf camp. Alois Moser, chairman of the Peasant Wedding Association in Poing for decades. Draftsman and painter Heinz Mayerthaler, who immortalized the town coat of arms in one of his works – it hangs in the Poinger town hall. The association Kulturtage Poing, which has already organized the multi-day cultural festival seven times under the chairmanship of Cornelia Gütlich. Rosi Hingerl and Inge Schmidt as initiators of the Poinger “Long Night of Culture” – and Natalja Herdt.
“It wasn’t easy for us,” said Hildegard Petschig, head of the VHS branch office in Poing, as a representative of the jury. In addition to her, this consisted of the two Poinger pastors Michael Simonsen and Philipp Werner, the art teacher at the Anni Pickert School Christine Gramolla and the student Madison Schick. With such different artists, the thought arose of whether there shouldn’t be a second and third prize. “But we would have had to make a decision at some point,” says Petschig.
So there was only one award, which went to Natalja Herdt. Because, as Petschig justified this choice, through her many different projects such as the drawing campaign 2020, in which she artistically processed the first lockdown together with 17 other participants, or the light installation “Forget your not”, with which she participated in 2018 at the Poinger Street Art night, the artist can guarantee one thing for sure: “You’re doing us all good!”