Premiere of the "Office for Letting Go"
July 15, 2026 – At this year’s Green Culture Festival in June, the “Office for Letting Go” opened its doors for the first time. Festival visitors could take a number, fill out colorful forms, and receive advice in playfully decorated office rooms. Why? To let go of the old and outdated. KAT’s new transdisciplinary participatory format combines interactive and artistic elements with personal reflection. After all, sustainability also means leaving the past behind.
What must we, may we, or should we let go of so that something new can emerge? The “Office for Letting Go” addresses this question. The department is dedicated to an aspect of change that is often overlooked. When people talk about transformation, many think of new ideas, innovation, and new beginnings. But every change also means saying goodbye to something, such as habits, techniques, thought patterns, or structures that no longer fit into the vision of sustainability.
For the first time, people were able to experience the Office live at the Tollhaus Cultural Center in Karlsruhe during the 2026 Green Culture Festival.
Letting Go as Part of Transformation
Anyone who joins the department is first invited to a counseling session. The key question here is: “What would you like to let go of – or what should our society let go of – in the context of sustainable development?”
Together with the civil servants, the issue is discussed and the appropriate form is selected. Whether it’s societal challenges, limiting attitudes, or old habits, there was a suitable form for almost everyone.
With the selected form in hand, the most familiar part of the experience begins: taking a number and waiting to be called. Just like at a real office, the number appears on a display board a short time later, accompanied by a distinctive electric chime that many of us recognize from visits to government offices.
The person is then asked to go to the back into a booth decorated with pink plush fabric on the walls. This lends the ostensibly austere, bureaucratic setting a surprisingly playful touch and a sense of comfort.
In a one-on-one conversation, the issue is discussed, reflected upon, and explored together in all its facets. What initially seems playful takes on an unexpected depth for many visitors and offers space to consciously engage with their own process of letting go.
At the end, the form receives an official stamp from the department: it might read, for example, “Let Go,” “Officially Acknowledged,” or “Bid Farewell with Love.”
The Office as a Real-World Lab Experiment
The premiere was a resounding success; visitors were immediately enthusiastic about the idea and the innovative concept. It was particularly striking that many left the conversations feeling noticeably relieved. Department Director Oliver Parodi reports: “We were surprised by how open people were and how fully they engaged with the process. We were able to have many in-depth conversations about current social issues, but also about very personal matters.”
Letting Go for Science
The completed forms are not simply left behind carelessly. Participants are allowed to take the original home with them. An anonymized copy is then analyzed for research purposes. The results are incorporated into KAT’s research and are evaluated, among other things, in the context of transformation theories or contemporary sociological analyses, such as those by Hartmut Rosa or Andreas Reckwitz. The target is to better understand the role that letting go plays in social change, where exactly the obstacles lie, and how they can be overcome.
The “Office for Letting Go” highlights that sustainability depends not only on what we create anew, but also on what we are willing to let go of. It serves as a space and a resource for consciously dealing with loss, fears, and the process of saying goodbye to outdated structures.