Spooning in 4 Acts: Born with a silver spoon was the title of the annual soft power-membership assembly in February 2025, an event created by Hannah Lilith Kuhlmann and Susan Abu Baker, which revolved around the spoon – as a tool, an object and a symbol. On this evening, each member chose a spoon (or the spoon chose them) at the start of a journey through four acts and six courses envisioned by Susan Abu Baker (food) and Hannah Lilith Kuhlmann (objects).

The spoon is considered the oldest and simplest eating utensil. It is closely associated with the act of feeding and being fed and is often symbolic of tenderness and love (think: “Spooning”); a symbol of protection and the passing on of life. It also represents the care of others and the sharing of resources. In many cultures, sharing a spoon is a sign of connection or hospitality; symbolising a sense of community: “To stir with the same spoon” means working for a common cause and being accomplices – an inspirational idiom for the membership model of soft power. Meanwhile, the idiom “No spoon big enough to stir that pot” is used to describe a situation or a problem that is so complicated or messy that it cannot be solved; evoking the feeling of frustration and powerlessness in the context of the current political situation and manifold global and local crises. We believe independent art spaces are indispensable in the face of these current societal challenges. Probably we are not big enough to stir the whole pot, but that’s why there need to be many of us.

With the title Born with a silver spoon , soft power continues to use the occasion of the annual members’ meeting to make playful references to – and to dissociate ourselves from – the very bourgeois history of the “Kunstverein” as an institutional model and instead focus on its potential to act as a forum for self-organisation and the democratisation of contemporary cultural production. Collectively we aim to define the Kunstverein as a public space in which an active, self-organised and critical engagement with contemporary art and the conditions of its production, reception and ownership can take place.