Dear readers

Cultural hegemony determines what is thinkable and what isn’t, wrote the Italian philosopher and politician Antonio Gramsci in the early 1930s. He showed how exercising influence on culture can be used to achieve political change – a strategy that today far-right forces choose to deploy. By discrediting the work being done in the arts and sciences, they are trying to establish their national-conservative worldview as part of a cultural struggle.

At our university day on 5 November, which focussed on resilient structures “against the far right”, artists, affected individuals, and activists provided insights into these ominous developments. They reported on the extent to which the far right is already attacking queer and critical art projects and is seeking to cut funding for theatres and museums, to infiltrate universities ideologically and to use parliamentary enquiries in order to intimidate. Entire disciplines and research fields are coming under pressure because of this.

Our university day made it clear once again - more than ever - that we must actively defend spaces for discourse and publicly stand up for the freedom of art and science. We continued this discussion in an internal “Open Space” on 12 November, and we asked ourselves: What challenges arise for teaching and for universities as institutions committed to democratic principles? And how can we strengthen those who actively oppose right-wing violence?

With our exhibitions and events, we invite you to help shape these spaces for exchange. Only together can we push back right-wing influences and safeguard the freedom of art and science. We are grateful to have you by our side.

Your weissensee school of art and design berlin

Exhibitions

Federal Award for Art Students

The Federal Award for Art Students honours young artists and university graduates whose latest works will once again be shown this year at the Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn from 6 November 2025 to 4 January 2026.

Among the seven artistic positions selected earlier this year by an independent jury from nominations by 25 art universities across the country is Federico Torres De Los Ríos, who was born in Colombia and studies painting at the weissensee school of art and design berlin. The jury praised his visual language as “a productive addition and tension within the history of painting, particularly in Germany.”

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SIX APPEAL

The Dorothea Konwiarz Foundation invites visitors to a group exhibition of its scholarship holders from 12 November 2025 to 9 January 2026. Under the title SIX APPEAL, the foundation’s Berlin gallery presents six current positions by young female artists, including Viola Del Monte and Delphine Wigger, both students of painting at the weissensee school of art and design berlin.

Viola Del Monte describes her work with these words: “By deconstructing bodies and transforming them into partly amorphous structures, I question notions of individuality and existence.” Delphine Wigger explores topics such as feminism, sexuality, nostalgia and childhood in her works.

Agrippina

As part of the Musical Theatre Workshop – a collaboration between the Hanns Eisler School of Music Berlin and the weißensee school of art and design berlin – students of stage and costume design, directing, singing, and production dramaturgy have developed selected scenes from Handel’s opera Agrippina for the stage. The premiere will take place on 13 December 2025 in the Studio Hall of the Hanns Eisler School of Music Berlin.

Handel’s entertaining opera Agrippina is full of biting satire. With its scheming title heroine, it ranks among his first major stage successes.

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Awards

Lunita-July Dorn, a student of painting, has been nominated for the Young Generation Art Award. The Monopol magazine is featuring her painting Heute für immer (“Today Forever”) on its cover and has published an in-depth portrait of her in its November issue: “In Lunita July Dorn’s bright, spacious studio at the weissensee school of art and design berlin, you can see this young woman in many variations – and, of course, the ‘original’ as well. Her tobacco lies on the table; the next cigarette is in progress. ‘My paintings show me – and yet they are not primarily about me,’ says Dorn. She goes on to explain that the female figure in her work serves as a projection surface and that her paintings are expressions of inner states.” (Monopol)

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Mareen Baumeister has been nominated for this year’s Federal Eco-design Award and is also a finalist for the German Design Council’s Newcomer Award.

In her projects FRUMO and FLOCK, she transforms organic residual materials into innovative new materials, combining traditional craftsmanship with digital technologies such as robotics and machine fabrication. These novel production processes combine ecological, social, and cultural responsibility. Mareen Baumeister has already received numerous awards for this approach.

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Publications

Knut Ebeling is Professor of Media Theory and Aesthetics at the weissensee school of art and design berlin. Together with Kathrin Busch, Professor of Philosophy and Aesthetics at the Berlin University of the Arts, and Christoph Brunner, Assistant Professor of Philosophy of Media and Technology at the Erasmus University Rotterdam, he has published the book “Permeations– Penetrations between Aesthetic Theory and Artistic Research” with Spector Books. The publication explores the interactions between art and theory, examines aesthetic and artistic practices, outlines an alternative and transformative aesthetic, and combines various speculative, queer-feminist, and decolonial approaches.

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Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weißensee
Veronika Breuning
Bühringstraße 20
13086 Berlin
Deutschland

03047705222
presse@kh-berlin.de