The ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, a cultural institution, was founded in 1989 and, since 1997, is located in a former munitions factory in Karlsruhe, Germany. The ZKM organizes special exhibitions and thematic events, conducts research and produces works on the effects of media, digitization, and globalization, and offers public as well as individualized communications and educational programs.

Karlsruhe is the third-largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg, after its capital Stuttgart and Mannheim, and the 22nd-largest city in the nation, with 308,436 inhabitants. It is also a former capital of Baden, a historic region named after Hohenbaden Castle in the city of Baden-Baden. Located on the right bank of the Rhine near the French border, between the Mannheim-Ludwigshafen conurbation to the north and Strasbourg to the south, Karlsruhe is Germany's legal center, being home to the Federal Constitutional Court, the Federal Court of Justice and the Public Prosecutor General.