Press release | January 2025

Berlin Summer University of the Arts 2025: Utopia

International workshop programme at UdK Berlin Career College starts in June | Registration now open

The Berlin Summer University of the Arts, hosted by the Berlin Career College at the Berlin University of the Arts, will once again offer a wide range of courses in the fields of visual art, music, design and performing arts as well as transdisciplinary formats - all in an international environment. From June to September 2025, the diverse programme of over 30 workshops invites participants to deepen their own artistic practice, connect with international artists and collectively build new spaces for creative interaction. Course registration is now open.

The theme of this year’s edition is Utopia. What does an ideal world look like? How can we collectively shape our present and future? In times marked by instability and uncertainty, what role can art play in processing experiences, challenging existing boundaries, and carving out alternative spaces? These and other questions will form the basis for artistic inquiry. From various artistic and academic perspectives, the course programme will open the space to create, test and explore visions for a better world.

What better place to set the scene for utopian explorations than the city? In the course Overwriting Berlin: Utopian Futures by director, performer and theatre teacher Stefan Mießeler, participants will create audio walks that bring their visions of Berlin in the year 2525 to life. Natalia Irina Roman's course Art and Train: Utopias on Tracks explores how Berlin's unused train stations and railway networks can become alternative worlds. As part of the course, artworks will be installed along Berlin's railroad infrastructure, transforming them into utopian and heterotopian spaces. NO UTOPIA: Artivism and Collective Action Today by artist Işıl Eğrikavuk and architect Silvia Gioberti takes a close look at current developments in urban space. As part of the course, participants will be able to visit and exchange ideas with various artivist groups, and develop their own interventions in return. The course Some Practical City Magic, instructed by urban researcher and choreographer Sabine Zahn and performer Daniel Belasco Rogers, also conceptualizes the city as a political space, and develops choreographies that interpret urban space as a collective space for implementing change.

The subject of sustainability is tackled in several courses. With Upcycling Utopia, Nina Birri and Teresa Fagbohoun not only explore practical upcycling techniques, but also question the narratives and dogmas behind our clothing. Artist Gunilla Jähnichen and stage designer Christina Mrosek also declare “Let's get circular!”. Their workshop explores the artistic possibilities of a perfect cycle using just one material: cardboard. With Improbable Blossom, Charlotte Hornung and Jo Rüßmann will develop a resource-saving screen printing process that encourages participnats to create an organic visual language.

Alternative (future) worlds are a central component in the discourse on utopias and therefore also of the course programme. Gabriela Manda Seith and Matthias Böhler understand utopia as a place of love and care between humans and other species, and want to explore this vision critically and artistically with World Order of Our Hearts. This approach is shared by the course Waters in Venus ~ Flowers in Mars: Risograph Zine for Uncommon Utopias by researcher Elizabeth Gallon and graphic designer Juliana Toro. Here, participants will create their own zines depicting non-anthropocentric and decolonial visions of the future. In FAST FORWARD 2050 under the direction of Gudrun Herrbold, participants will develop future scenarios through performance, incorporating autobiographical elements in their works. The course Tools for Science Fiction Performance by Cécile Bally and Florian Feigl teaches an interdisciplinary mix of techniques that can be used to realize utopian potentials in artistic practice.

All information on the new programme­­: www.summer-university.udk-berlin.de

The Berlin Career College at the Berlin University of the Arts offers a unique range of further education courses in the artistic and creative field: The offer includes four Master’s degree programmes and numerous certificate courses aimed at people who want to deepen their artistic and creative skills and link them to economic knowledge. Furthermore, the international Berlin Summer University of the Arts presents a highly qualified programme in English aimed at artists from all disciplines, culture workers, and creative entrepreneurs. The programme offered by the Berlin Career College is based on its research results on further education needs in the creative industries. Managing Director of the Berlin Career College at the Central Institute for Further Education is Prof. Dr. Dr. Thomas Schildhauer.

The Berlin University of the Arts is one of the few art universities in Europe that combines all art disciplines and related sciences. The four faculties of Fine Arts, Design, Music and Performing Arts, as well as the Inter-University Centre for Dance (HZT) and Jazz (JIB Berlin) offer more than 70 artistic, artistic-scientific, and artistic-pedagogical courses. Of around 4000 students, about one third have an international background. The history of the Berlin University of the Arts dates back to the foundation of the Brandenburg–Prussian Academy of Arts in 1696. The university acquired its present form in 1975 through a merger of the University of Fine Arts and the University of Music and Performing Arts to the University of the Arts (HdK). The Berlin University of the Arts got its present name in 2001. With more than 700 events a year, the UdK Berlin significantly contributes to the cultural life of the city. Since April 1, 2020, Prof. Dr. Norbert Palz has been the President of the UdK Berlin.

Your press contact:

Stephanie Schwarz
Berlin Summer University of the Arts
Tel: 030 – 3185 2087 E-Mail: stephanie.schwarz@udk-berlin.de

Kathrin Rusch
Pressearbeit Berlin Career College
Tel.: 030 – 3185 2835
E-Mail: kathrin.rusch@intra.udk-berlin.de

Claudia Assmann
Leiterin Presse / Kommunikation Universität der Künste Berlin
Tel.: 030 – 3185 2456
E-Mail: claudia.assmann@intra.udk-berlin.de