How do you get people interested in culture excited about new routes through Weimar? This is the question that students of Applied Media and Communication Studies at Technische Universität Ilmenau are addressing this summer semester. In cooperation with the Klassik Stiftung Weimar, they are developing creative campaigns for a planned "Goethe Parcours Weimar" as part of a practical seminar.
The Klassik Stiftung Weimar looks after more than 30 museums and cultural monuments, including twelve UNESCO World Heritage Sites. One of these - Goethe's residence on Weimar's Frauenplan - will be renovated for three years from November 2026 and will remain closed during this time. During the renovation, however, the Goethe National Museum with its permanent exhibition "Floods of Life - Storm of Deeds" will remain open to the public. Numerous digital experiences such as VR applications of the digital Goethe House and the Goethe Apparat, Goethe's virtual study, will continue to make it possible to visit the house.
During the closure period, visitors can enjoy a wide range of other Goethe sites in Weimar, such as the Schiller Museum, the Wittumspalais and the Weimar City Palace with its new permanent exhibition on Weimar Classicism (from October). Germany's second-largest cultural foundation now wants to bundle these and other places, as well as growing digital offerings, into a curated overall experience in the "Goethe Parcours Weimar".
Over the next three months, seven students will be developing their own campaign concepts. In two competing junior agencies, they will develop central messages, target group-specific wording and suitable communication measures to effectively position the course from the winter season onwards.
The students will be accompanied by seminar leader Elisabeth Wagner-Olfermann from the Institute of Media and Communication Science, who initiated the cooperation, as well as Elke Siedhoff-Müller, Head of the Communications, Public Relations and Marketing Department, Antje Puschke, Team Leader Foundation Marketing and alumna of TU Ilmenau, and Stephanie Hock, Editor for Cultural Communication. Elke Siedhoff-Müller emphasizes:
We are very much looking forward to this first collaboration with the Technische Universität Ilmenau and to the creative suggestions that the students will bring to our communications. In return, we are happy to provide in-depth insights into the diverse work of the communications department of a cultural foundation.
The students will present the results in a realistic pitch on July 17. The client and students are looking forward to the concepts developed.
About PR career orientation
PR career orientation is a two-semester seminar for students in the third semester of the Bachelor's degree program in Applied Media and Communication Studies. In the winter semester, participants acquire basic knowledge and methods of PR work, which they apply in practice-oriented projects in the summer semester. In recent years, the seminar has cooperated with the Thuringian Climate Agency, Regional Management Kreis Gotha & Ilm-Kreis, Schmitz Cargobull, Maxx Solar & Energie GmbH, the Thuringian State Parliament and the creative agency Samt & Seidel KG, among others.
Contact
Elisabeth Wagner-Olfermann
Institut für Medien- und Kommunikationswissenschaft (IfMK)