Beyond UdK aims to give (especially international) students orientation and support on the path from their studies to artistic professions. How can one professionalize one's own artistic practice while still studying? Which professional fields are open to graduates? How can one find one's own way between the demands on oneself, on artistic creation, on securing one's livelihood and other personal needs and ambitions? What difficulties do international students face in making the transition to professional careers in Germany?

The Covid 19 pandemic has hardly restricted cultural life due to repeated closures of all production sites and venues. This makes it all the more important to talk about and prepare for the challenges and decision-making paths from study to artistic independence and cultural careers.

The event series "Beyond UdK - Professional Paths into the Arts & Cultural Fields" provides a cross-disciplinary overview and can be taken as a seminar by students of all disciplines and all semesters in the Studium Generale. Prof Zebu Kluth and members of the Studium Generale staff (Anna Lauenstein, Leon Vatter and Flóra Tálasi) moderate the seminar reflections following the public talks in the transdisciplinary group, which actively perceives the entire series as a course. Insights and information from the discipline-specific individual events are compared and evaluated trans-disciplinarily in joint reflections.

The individual events can also be attended separately, independently of the seminar participation: Beyond UdK_Talks is a public university format in which international students, alumni*ae of the UdK and experts discuss future perspectives. On the one hand, international alumni*ae from previous years are invited to share their experiences  with interested students of the UdK Berlin. On the other hand, experts (curators, artistic directors, representatives of funding institutions from various artistic and cultural fields, and professors of the UdK Berlin) will provide insights into their own work and knowledge. They describe possible approaches and difficulties of the respective scenes and thus give a first orientation for the time after graduation at the UdK Berlin

The team behind Beyond UdK:

Zebu Kluth is Professor of Artistic Self-Management and Cultural Mediation at the Berlin University of the Arts since 2021. Before moving into higher education in 2017 as Rector of the Ernst Busch University of Theater (until 2021), he served as artistic director and managing director of state and private theaters (1996-2017) in Berlin and Hamburg.

Flóra Tálasi is a culture and education manager, working across disciplines for 25 years at the Berliner Kulturveranstaltungs-GmbH (1997-2005), on behalf of the German Federal Cultural Foundation (2006-2008) and at Arsenal - Institute for Film and Video Art (2008/09), among others, and since 2009 at the UdK Berlin.

Anna Lauenstein is an artistic-scientific assistant, Leon Vatter is a research assistant. In addition to their main areas of work, they teach transdisciplinarily in the Studium Generale and are involved in the development of artistic-practical and theoretical-reflective teaching projects.