Based on Polke’s Athanor installation, the seminar deals with exploratory artistic material experiments. In addition to pictorial surfaces, spatial and performative processes will also be explored from art-historical and phenomenological perspectives, starting from the aesthetic perception of the material. Further artistic positions (e.g., Edith Dekyndt or Dieter Roth) broaden the perspective on the multi-layered artistic use of materials and objects in creative processes. In this context, the transformative properties of matter can serve as the starting point for the discussion of it as an independent actant in the artistic process. Theoretical references such as New Materialism, Actor-Network Theory, discussions of the Anthropocene, the semantics of material (e.g., Monika Wagner), and the discourse on artistic research can serve as points of reflection here. Based on an examination of Polke’s installation and other artistic positions, as well as the aforementioned possible theoretical references, the seminar will focus on the independent development of art education settings. The aim is to translate the artistic strategies discussed into hands-on exploratory artistic processes with children and adolescents.
Light Up and Extinguish, Entangle and Untangle
Light Up and Extinguish, Entangle and Untangle: Art Education and Artistic Exploration
The goal is to offer art education workshops for children and/or adolescents in cooperation with the Laborschule Bielefeld as part of the Art Education LAB in the Department of Art Education at Universität Bielefeld. Here, connections can be drawn to current social issues, such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Focusing on material and its semantics opens up opportunities to address questions of social inequality and ecological sustainability, as well as to discuss the relationships between matter, media, and bodies in the course of digitalization.
The seminar begins with excursions to the Anna Polke Stiftung in Cologne and concludes with a visit to the Polke exhibition The Knowledge of Colors at the De Pont Museum in Tilburg (Netherlands), where participants will explore the artist’s strategies in a workshop. Over the course of the semester, art education settings will be developed as outlined above, with a view to implementing them with children and young people (from the Laborschule Bielefeld).
Light Up and Extinguish, Entangle and Untangle: Art Education and Artistic Exploration
Seminar, led by Katja Hoffmann, 12 October 2026–2 February 2027, Universität Bielefeld