The WUK stands for more social and economic justice and a society that is more sensitive to ecological issues and richer in terms of culture. The most important basic requirement for such a society is democratization that goes well beyond traditional forms of politics. The WUK creates spaces for this purpose, fields of experiment where a creative potential can develop, to shape society and to test itself in practice.

The WUK is an open cultural space, a space for the living interaction of art, politics and social issues. It enables the manifestation of an extended notion of culture that transcends the meaning of culture in every-day usage.The WUK links the overlapping synergetic models of a socio-cultural centre and an international centre of art and culture:As a socio-cultural centre it focuses on furthering processes of liberation, independence and help to self-help, district-based cultural work and self-government, self-organization and autonomy.As a centre of art and culture it concentrates on promoting the production and presentation of innovative, experimental, interdisciplinary, critical art and culture at local, regional and international level.Cooperation between those working at the WUK is based on social principles as well as solidarity and democracy. For these principles to come true, responsible actions, commitment and an adequate way of dealing with resources is required. The WUK deliberately engages in the attempt to cope with the contradiction between team work and project orientation on the one hand, and a functional hierarchy on the other. It requires a cooperative management, transparent decision-making processes on a broad basis and readiness to reach a consensus.With all its contradictions, crises and creative solutions, the WUK is a process-oriented organizational experiment.

It faces the challenging task of taking a critical look at social developments. Communication structures are shaped in such a way that individuals, teams, bodies and groups reflect on every-day life inside and outside the WUK, taking the result of reflections back into their activities.The WUK is a space for living, it embodies lived openness and tolerance among human beings from different cultures, generations and genders, and it is very much a champion of equality.The WUK creates spaces for short- and long-term projects alike.Within the limits of its spatial and organizational possibilities it is open to all parties interested and committed to artistic, political and social issues. It aims at striking a balance between open zones and delimited spaces.The WUK also serves as an interface and a communicator. On the whole, autonomous cultural work and the culture produced and communicated by the WUK give impulses to society. For this reason, non-market-oriented art production and communication in this field requires public subsidies. Decision-makers in the government are thus partners in cooperation and negotiations.

The WUK straddles the gap between necessary public funding and the strife for the greatest possible degree of autonomy as regards content, structure, allocation of funds and working methods. To make the process and experiments of the WUK accessible to the public, scientific supervision is required in the long run; documentation, up-to-date medial processing and presentations are also necessary. Through co-operation, networking und mutual solidarity with similar initiatives and projects, the WUK is able to reflect on its own work, promoting the development of a common identity at regional, national and international level. The WUK tries to create a synthesis of the individual’s self-determination on the one hand and his/her social ties and responsibility for the community on the other.

This synthesis is recognized as an important chance to learn how to shape society. It is also a pre-requisite for a process of far-reaching democratization throughout society. This process of democratization cannot be safeguarded by elections and polls alone, it needs a productive complement embodied in open forms of discussion and opinion-shaping: the people concerned empower themselves to turn issues they cosider important into the topics of public debates and they join in making decisions. On this basis, the WUK develops structures that facilitate and require the active and responsible participation of the people concerned by decisions in the actual decision-making processes.