"Guest Lecturer for Exhibition Research"
New cooperation between the Kunsthochschule Kassel (KhK) and Frankfurt Curatorial Studies.
As part of the program "An Empty Space", the Kunsthochschule Kassel (KhK) invites graduates of the Master's program Curatorial Studies - Theory - History - Criticism, founded in 2010, from Goethe University and the Hochschule für Bildende Kunst - Städelschule Frankfurt am Main to Kassel.
Frankfurt graduates will have the opportunity to pass on their curatorial knowledge and professional experience to students in Kassel as guest lecturers. The KhK selects one person every two years through a call for applications. This person is given a teaching assignment for two semesters to work on a project with students at the Kunsthochschule. The results of this project are presented in the Kunsthochschule's exhibition hall.
The aim of the cooperation is to create a space in Kassel in which students can think about forms and possibilities of exhibiting art beyond their own work and its presentation. The new cooperation offers Frankfurt graduates the opportunity to teach students from the fields of art, design and art studies at an art academy and to gain their first teaching experience. In doing so, they can try out experimental and speculative approaches to exhibition making beyond their own practice and in collaboration with the students and set their own thematic priorities.
The "An Empty Space" program also promotes networking between students at the art academies in Hesse, particularly in Kassel and Frankfurt.
The course is part of an internationally outstanding exhibition research cluster that is currently being established in Kassel and includes scientists and artists from the documenta Institute, the Kunsthochschule, the Transdisciplinary Center for Exhibition Studies - TRACES, the documenta Archive and the University of Kassel. They are also in close contact with the city's exhibition venues, such as the Fridericianum, the Museum Schloss Wilhelmshöhe and the Neue Galerie.
For the second round of the "An Empty Space" program (start: summer semester 2024), José B. Segebre and Tomke Braun have been recruited as guest curators.
A scholar and curator, José B. Segebre (any pronouns) received a PhD in Art (Aesthetics/Philosophy) from Hochschule für Gestaltung Offenbach a.M. (DE). Titled Aesthetics of Waiting: Queer, Feminist and Decolonial Perspectives, the project explores notions of unfreedom in contemporary art: waiting becomes a metaphor to describe how power temporizes and how aesthetic experience modulates hopes and expectations. José’s essays circulate in exhibition catalogues and academic journals, while also writing fiction in Spanish and enjoying collaborations. With François Pisapia they host Full Moon Screenings (2019–), a travelling series of experimental events waxing and waning around food and moving images. José has lectured and organized workshops in universities, museums and artist-run spaces in Europe and México, currently teaching art theory at New York University in Berlin and co-teaching with Tomke Braun at Kunsthochschule Kassel.
As a curator and writer, Tomke Braun is concerned with multidisciplinary artistic practices and questions of representation. She acted as a curatorial fellow at the Akademie der Künste Berlin in 2023 and 2024, during which she realized the group exhibition and performance program "The Breath of a House is the Sound of Voices Within." From 2018 to 2021, she was the artistic director of the Kunstverein Göttingen, where she realized exhibitions with various artists, including AA Bronson, Sofia Duchovny, Melike Kara, Nile Koetting, Marina Pinsky, and Monira Al Qadiri. Since 2019, she has regularly curated various projects with the Berlin platform Creamcake, including 3hd—a hybrid festival format—and the touring exhibition "Techno Worlds," realized by the Visual Arts Department of the Goethe Institute Munich. As a publisher and editor, she collaborates on various book projects with artists and institutions. In 2019, she was the Curator in Residence at the Goethe-Institut in New Delhi, India. She completed the Master's program in Curatorial Studies at Goethe University and the Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main, with a thesis on affect theory and performative exhibition formats.