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Dear readers
What was in your thoughts last week when the news tickers appeared on our screens with the election results of the far right and the developments in Israel?
Florence Gaub, a researcher and author of the book “The future – an instruction manual”, encourages us not to give up in the face of fearsome developments but to become aware of the opportunities we ourselves have to shape things. After all, the future is not just created by those in power but is created by all of us all of the time – when we consider our options, make decisions, dream, set ourselves goals or worry.
This is particularly true when we embark on a new chapter in life – as is the case today with our 180 new students. At a matriculation ceremony, the president Angelika Richter greeted these new members of the weissensee school of art and design berlin from 37 nations and bade them welcome at our university – a “place of plurality”, as she emphasised, which “guarantees artistic and intellectual freedom and provides the greatest possible experimental space for the development of original and creative visions and a critical understanding of art and design”.
We would also like to welcome all the members of our university who are returning to Weissensee after the semester break and, in particular, the professors who are taking on new responsibilities in the winter semester. We introduce them to you in this newsletter, as we do the award-winning students who received their certificates at the matriculation ceremony today.
You can also read about the exhibitions and events that await you in October and November.
We wish you a good start to the semester and an optimistic view of the future.
Your weissensee school of art and design berlin
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Antonella Giannone is the new Vice President for Workshops, Cooperations and International Affairs. She has lectured at the weissensee school of art and design berlin since 2013 as Professor of the History and Theory of Fashion and the Sociology of Clothing.
Antonella Giannone: “The weissensee school of art and design berlin is strongly characterised by interdisciplinary and collaborative processes in which many different perspectives and forms of knowledge converge and enrich each other. This is happening in an increasingly international context and in creative dialogue with the complex questions of our time. As the Vice President for Workshops, Cooperations and International Affairs, I would like to commit myself to attaching greater importance to cross-departmental collaboration at the university and to developing our links with local and international institutions.
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Pauline Doutreluingne is the new visiting professor in the Department of Spatial Strategies. She is following on from Nasan Tur, who has moved to the University for the Visual Arts in Brunswick (HBK Braunschweig).
Pauline Doutreluingne works as a curator, lecturer, filmmaker and image researcher in Berlin, and has also been the artistic head of the Arnsberg Art Society since 2022. In her work, she tries to encourage cultural and ecological differentiation and to deconstruct societal ideas that have their origins in colonial thinking. Her most recently curated exhibitions include “Speaking to Ancestors” (2022–2023) at the Floating University Berlin; “A Handful of Dust” (2020) at the Ehrenhalle, Lilienthalstraße Berlin; “Karma Ltd Extended” (2018) at the Acud Macht Neu, Berlin; “The Conundrum of Imagination” (2017) at the Leopold Museum, Vienna, and “Agency of Living Organisms (2016) at the Tabakalera Institute for Contemporary Culture in San Sebastian.
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The architect, product designer and experienced university lecturer Jakob Timpe is taking over the post of Professor of Design Principles and Product Design.
Jakob Timpe was born in Würzburg. Until 1994, he studied architecture in Berlin and Darmstadt. Thereafter, he worked for several years in the architecture firms Schürmann in Cologne and Bonell + Gil in Barcelona. In 1999, he became a research assistant at the Technical University Darmstadt. There, he began to design furniture, lighting and both interior and exterior spaces for European clients. In 2005, he was awarded a one-year fellowship at the German Academy in Rome (Villa Massimo) in recognition of his design work. Following this fellowship, he went to Berlin with his studio jakob timpe spaces + objects, and in 2012 he founded the label vondingen. From 2012, he taught product design at the OTH Regensburg. In 2018, a first overall view of his work was published with the title “Un/Applied Arts” (Revolver Publishing).
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Goldrausch (Goldrush) – on the edge of
The Goldrausch artists’ project helps female artists to assert from a feminist perspective outstanding artistic standpoints, which are presented every year in a group exhibition. Two graduates of the weissensee school of art and design berlin are taking part in this year’s exhibition “Goldrausch 2023 – on the edge of”: Ximena Ferrer Pizarro (* 1994 in Lima) and Shira Orion (* 1993 in Haifa). Both were master students under Friederike Feldmann and have already displayed their work in numerous exhibitions in Europe. “Goldrausch 2023 – on the edge of” can be seen in the Weißer Elefant Gallery until 26 November 2023. The group exhibition involving a total of 15 female artists is a cooperative venture between the borough Berlin-Mitte and the Department of Art, Culture and History and was curated by Laure Catugier and Hannah Kruse.
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Making what is absent visible. Micha Ullman’s works in public spaces in Israel and Berlin
In the winter semester 2023/24, newly appointed professors will once again be providing insights into their research and artistic work as part of the series of lectures “see – ander(e)s sehen” (“Look at things differently and see something new”). Matthias Flügge will start this new series in the assembly hall at 5 pm on 15 November 2023 with his lecture on the internationally renowned artist Micha Ullman. Taking as his starting point the recently completed sculpture “Letters of Light” in front of the new National Library of Israel in Jerusalem (architecture: Herzog/de Meuron), Michael Flügge intends to explore Micha Ullman’s conceptual design, its political and cultural background and its ethical-aesthetic qualities.
Matthias Flügge is a professor in the Department of Sculpture. The long-standing author and exhibition organiser was also vice president of the Academy of Arts from 1997 to 2006, and president of the Dresden University of Fine Arts from 2012 to 2022.
Read more
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CRAFT – Common Ground
What connects us? How can we generate a sense of community and get a feeling for the common ground that we stand on? These questions were explored by the project “CRAFT – Common Ground” in the Department of Product Design. As part of the project, objects made of clay, glass and other materials were created; they are intended to strengthen the sense of community in the context of a shared meal and they make mealtimes themselves – as a holistic sensual experience together with their rituals and rules – a topic for discussion. These objects can be seen at the Grassimesse in Leipzig from 20 to 22 October 2023 and at the Zeughausmesse in Kühlhaus Berlin from 17 to 19 November 2023.
"CRAFT – Common Ground" took place as part of the three-year Erasmus+ project “CRAFT – Activating Pedagogy for Ceramic Education Futures”. An outcome of the project was the platform “ Decoding Ceramics”, which is now online. Its aim is to preserve knowledge, skills and expertise in ceramics and to make these things accessible to the public.
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good enough
Students on the master’s course in art therapy are exhibiting their work in the main corridor of the Park-Klinik Weißensee from 7 October 2023 to 10 February 2024. The title of the exhibition is a reference to the idea of the “good enough mother” by the psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott. A mother has to be “good enough” but by no means perfect to respond appropriately to the needs of a child. When transferred to art therapy, this concept forms the basis for a trustful relationship between art therapists and their clients. And individuality plays an important role here. Every art therapist has their own personality traits, experience and professional abilities, all of which are also reflected in the works of art on display. The students, who matriculated in 2021, would also like to pose the question: What is actually good enough in art?
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Federal Prize for Art Students
On 26 October 2023, the Federal Prize for Art Students will once again be awarded in the Bundeskunsthalle (Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany) in Bonn. The prize supports outstanding students and enables them to gain professional exhibition experience and to build contacts with the art world. This year, Michael Fink from the weissensee school of art and design berlin is amongst the award-winners. The jury explains its reasons for Michael Fink’s award as follows: “Changes of perspective and the permeability of arenas of experience in which the boundaries between humans and animals, plants and cell structures, and between natural and artificial intelligence (AI) dissolve are the focus of Michael Fink’s idiosyncratic artistic exploration of images.” The exhibition of the works of the award-winners can be seen from 27 October 2023 to 7 January 2024 in the Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn.
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DAAD Prize 2023
Quang Vinh Giang has been awarded the DAAD Prize 2023. With this prize, the German Academic Exchange Service recognises outstanding academic achievements and remarkable social or intercultural engagement. The artist, who was born in Hanoi (Vietnam) and lives in Berlin, is a student in the Department of Sculpture. With his sculptures, performances and objects, Quang Vinh Giang would like to make interactive experiences possible. He experiments with hybrid forms created by using 3D technology and both analogue and digital media. In order to communicate with his public, he regularly develops new ambigrams and semiotic systems. By rotating, reconfiguring, transforming and materialising them, he generates multifaceted layers of meaning. For example, in his work “Our Soil or Your Soil” in the Humboldt Forum, he explored the various definitions of soil. In the Schlüterhof, he placed words that appear in post-colonial texts on the floor as ambigrams. Visitors were able to walk across this installation made of soil, but in doing so also contributed to its destruction and redefinition.
Read more
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Lucia Loeser stipend
Daria Pashchenko, a student in the Department of Painting, has been awarded a Lucia Loeser stipend. The stipend promotes particularly gifted young people who are given significant help to achieve success in their studies by being awarded a monthly grant of €550.
Daria Pashchenko was born in Siberia in 1996 and spent her formative years in Winnytsja (Ukraine). In 2017, she began to study art in Lwiw (Ukraine). She then moved to Berlin in 2019. “Art is my passion, particularly painting. Art is a profound source of strength for me. It is the place where I am free and can be the person who I really am. Through art, I am able to explore the world and myself. This stipend is a form of recognition for me here in Germany and, at the same time, a great inspiration. I am very, very grateful that the Lucia Loeser Foundation has chosen me as a recipient.”
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Lucia Loeser Stipend
Marieke Herbst has been studying painting at the weissensee school of art and design berlin since 2020. She too has been awarded a Lucia Loeser stipend. Marieke Herbst: “My artistic studies are focussed on painting, printing technology and, occasionally, works of sculpture. I try to create images that lie beyond reality but which nevertheless draw on things and life forms that surround us. I then paint, etch and draw these elements until I have had enough of them. Etching offers me an excellent medium that enables me to engage with the expressive power immanent in the properties of an individual line and a surface. This detailed way of working leads me to a possible interpretation of my images. Painting, by contrast, takes on a life of its own; the stories that are told by the images happen almost by themselves – simply because in that moment I take pleasure in pursuing this or that idea in my painting."
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The world of fashion has lost a passionate and outstanding designer and lecturer. It is with great sadness that we commemorate Professor Eva Mücke, who departed this life on 12 August 2023.
After training to be a dressmaker, she studied clothing technology at what is today the HTW Berlin and then fashion design at the weissensee school of art and design berlin. She worked in the Fashion Institute of the GDR and as a designer on the editorial team of the magazine Sibylle. In 1970, she became the head designer of the newly founded trading firm EXQUISIT. From 1982 to 2002, she had a significant impact on the Department of Fashion Design at the weissensee school of art and design berlin and inspired the students with her knowledge and enthusiasm for fashion.
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We also commemorate Barbara Müller-Kageler, who died on 13 August 2023. She studied at the weissensee school of art and design berlin, and from 1982 she taught here as a lecturer and then as a professor through to her retirement in 2003. Her unmistakeable beach landscapes in which she repeatedly rearranges groups of figures and, using her nuanced colour palette, causes them to constantly appear in a new light are a trademark of hers. She was greatly valued both as a lecturer and a person by our former students and colleagues.
We offer our sincere condolences to the family and friends of our deceased former colleagues.
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