I see myself as an initiator and director of a artistic research projects with and for students and colleagues, but also as an: ”active observer, mirror, connector, moderator, networker, problem shooter, enabler, finder of loopholes and dialogical partner (Teaching the Artist as Global Nomad“, Glauer/Hannemann, In: Tracing the Public. Bauhaus Goes South-east Europe. Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, 2015)
When working site specifically in public space, you are not moving through a predesigned, well lit and controlled gallery space where roles are somewhat clear: the artist, in discussion with the curator, develops what he or she wants to do and there is the expectation that this is made possible. In traditional gallery settings, the artist comes into the exhibition space with a fully developed idea and the curator and staff prepare and adjust the space to accommodate the work, which is generally more or less complete. Working in off spaces, alternative spaces and with new artistic strategies in public space requires a much more general, flexible, process based and contextualized perspective: it is necessary to hone methods of reading, perceiving and sensing the space, touching, feeling, hearing surroundings and to start interacting with it situatively. The public is often not specifically there to see your work, your work is not on a carefully predesigned stage for it. Instead, you conceptualize and make "the stage" if needed, intervene, interact, occupy, sometimes hijacking sociological and/or anthropological methods in order to learn and work as artists with and in public space. Participation of the public is a key element in many projects.
Teaching Public Art requires a much broader scope of techniques, often borrowed from Sociology, Political Science or Urbanism, in order to develop a highly adjustable and intuitive approach. It is necessary to produce reactions and develop situated ideas, flexibility, a sense of political responsibility, timing, independence, skills of persuasion, and management.
There is no a-political public art or art in public space. Through providing access to situations and case studies, artists develop interventions, performances, and/or sculptures. Discussion, presentations and critique form an important part of the teaching process.
As an artist, I have been continuously teaching (contemporary art practice in public space and art theory and criticism, team teaching and individually) in higher education since 2009, drawing on my experience in art education and project initiation as director of the artist run space arttransponder since 2005. In order to reflect on and enhance my teaching experience, I completed coursework certificates in higher education teaching, focusing in particular on interculturalism and transdisciplinarity. My experience as director in administration (academic marketing) at Pratt Institute, New York shaped my understanding of academic structures beyond those in place in Germany.
Teaching at University of the Arts, Berlin, since 2016 - Institute for Art in Context Summer Semester 2016 - Experimental Drawing 2 or 4 credits
Winter Semester 2016/17 Touch, Smell, Hear. Temporary Interventions in Public Space, Case Study: Charité Medical Center
Teaching and structural organization at Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, Public Art and New Artistic Strategies from 2009 - 2015 Approximately 25-30 students from 18 countries per year.
Topics: Art and Commemoration, Temporary Interventions in Public Space, Art in Architecture, New Artistic Strategies
Sample Courses:
2015 – NoExit/AnAmnesia Co-conceptualized Conference, Initiated Workshop. Workshop, Kate Clark, Emily Bovino (Visual Art, UCSD) Lisa Glauer (Art and Design) Philippe Schmidt (Urbanism) (funded by „Strategic Partnerships“, DAAD, with University of California, San Diego)
2014 – Drawing Across Disciplines Initiated, developed and organized workshop, funded by Strategic Partnerships(DAAD) with UCSD, in collaboration with EXPERIMENTAL DRAWING STUDIO, University of California, San Diego. The workshop was based on a a transdisciplinary approach to hand-drawing in order to enhance perceptional training and experimental drawing skills.
2014/15 Art as (In)visible Labor – developing an artistic response - 6 credits How does the (d)evaluation of (care-)work play out, depending on whose body is seen as producing it, in the supposedly post-feminist, post author, post-everything art world? What and whose work is pushed out and made invisible how and where? The work developed was on view in the semester exhibition titled WORK.
2013/14 How to Monday Night Lecture Series - (with Anki Hannemann) 3 credits Students will manage and coordinate the MNL themselves, which will include: selection and choice of guests, calculating and managing budget, preparing announcements, coordinating technical support and presenting the lecturers - develop introductory presentations that relate to the theme, work or talk of the invited guest speaker. Presentations can include: performance, video-clip, sound piece, an active discussion or other...
2013/14 Dis/Re/Membering (with Anki Hannemann) 3 credits Develop public artistic presentation skills in relation to Art and Commemoration Connect public displays of cultural and collective memory and link these thoughts to what might constitute unspoken – memory and commemoration in the public realm.
2012 (Un)Disciplined Body-Temporary Interventions in Public Space (with Danica Dakic, Anki Hannemann) semester project 18 credits The (individual) body’s encounter with space, the experience of its limitations and delimitation corresponds in every case to the question of the individual in relation to society and their respective power relations. But how does the body open a space through performative movement and how does it develop there – when is body disciplined, when undisciplined? Excursion to Athens, Funded by Goethe Institute. (more info)
2012 City as Stage – City as Laboratory (with Nina Lundström) 2 credits Beyond the "white cube": What is the role of the autonomous, individual artist seeking to express him or herself in and with the public realm? What do artists need to know about the context they are working in - how can they find out about a context they will be working with in the future?
2011 INSIDE/OUTSIDE- MARTA/HERFORD- Buckminster Fuller/ (with Nadin Reschke) Students are invited to participate with a short film in the Symposium „About Richard Buckminster Fuller“ at the Marta Museum in Herford. Films are to be developed in relation to the utopian ideas of Buckminster Fuller. The course will cuilminate in a three day excurion to Herford.
2010/2011 Art in Architecture (with Hans Hemmert, Georg Zey, Nadin Reschke) semester project, 18 credits All aspects of a typical art in architecture competition will be dealt with based on an exemplary assignment for the permanent installation of a work of art. The focus of this semester’s work will lie on the development of artistic ideas, followed by technical planning, budgeting and their presentation via image and model. Goal and finale of the work is the public presentation of the designs and an exhibition
2010/11 Reading Room/Speaking Space graduate theory seminar, 6 credits Different ways of experiencing the local interior and exterior space and landscape, as it relates to language will be considered, providing room for cultural exchange and translation. Drawing on Bachelard's, Poetics of Space, a particular emphasis will be placed on the descriptive, the phenomenological – physical and psychological - experience of perceiving works of art
2009 Excavating other (sub)Versions: THE PROCESS OF COMMEMORATION Graduate Theory Seminar 6 credits Drawing on personal memory and contextualizing this within the arts by examining work by international and local artists, the course aims at developing a framework for reflecting on the artists’ individual practice while considering the potential for creating collective and individual commemorative work within an increasingly “Globalized Village”. It is encouraged to develop a theoretical approach by reflecting on the respective individual artistic practice.