Libken Summer Academy No. 8 – 2024

The one-week interdisciplinary Summer Academy at Libken is an invitation to live and work artistically together, free from familiar environments and structures. For the eighth year, the Summer Academy takes place at the Libken artists’ residency, a Plattenbau with a large garden area in the Uckermark countryside.

The theme of this year’s Summer Academy is Sustainability in Art / Political Ecology. What does sustainable artistic practice look like, and what are the effects of a more sustainable, collective way of living and acting? During the Summer Academy, the focus is on exchange, reflection, expanding one’s own artistic-practical skills, and engaging with new knowledge, influences, and encounters.

A time of climate crisis, conflicts, and wars can be frustrating, even in terms of the relevance of one’s own artistic work, but it also offers the opportunity for change and new beginnings. The rural setting and the collective living and working at Libken make this possible: allowing for calm, concentration, reflection, contact, and production.

Together with the group of participants, we not only reflect on our perspective on the environment but also attempt to test a perspective and attitude of reciprocity and equal exchange. How do we acquire knowledge, how can we reflect on our working methods, and how do we collect and integrate new experiences?

The workshops are led by Özlem Altın (she/her) and Harry Hachmeister (he/him), and organized and accompanied by Sophia Kesting (she/her) and Jonas Johannes (he/him). We aim for a collective, equitable space where we can learn together and from each other. We read texts, experiment with clay and other mostly natural materials, and discuss our own work and that of other participants.
The Summer Academy concludes with a public presentation on September 7, 2024. Libken’s extensive grounds and facilities offer possibilities for diverse presentation formats.

Collaborating at Libken

Active participation in organizing and implementing all shared activities and engagement in communal processes is the foundation of our collective living and working at Libken. Additionally, we understand the Libken Summer Academy as a moment for respectful and discrimination-aware interaction, taking a clear stand against any form of exclusion, racism, or anti-Semitism.

Cost: €600 per person,
includes accommodation, materials, and vegan-vegetarian full board.
We offer two solidarity spots for people in precarious life situations. With a scholarship for free participation, we explicitly encourage BIPoC, queer, and other marginalized individuals to apply. If your situation allows, please choose the full price, which also enables participation for those with fewer financial resources.

More Info:

Harry Hachmeister explores the themes of his art through interdisciplinary works ranging from photography, drawing, and painting to ceramics. He often groups individual works into room-filling installations that refer to states of “no longer” and “not yet.” Transformations, provisional states, and in-between stages form the basis of Hachmeister’s artistic exploration of identities, bodies, and their assignments. His bodies are not bound to their intended purpose but create a detachment from normative reality through ambivalence, delicacy, and play.
www.harryhachmeister.com

Özlem Altın (she/her) is an artist, mother, and somatic practitioner. In her paintings, collages, photographs, and artist books, she explores the silent body and the lifeless in motion. For her work, Altın draws on a photo archive she has collected over the years, combining found images with her own photographs into dense constellations. This complex network of images helps to formulate an overarching mythological narrative about physical existence.
www.ozlemaltin.com

The Summer Academy was initiated and held seven times by Nadja Bournonville, Joachim Bartsch, and Alexander Gehring. The 8th Summer Academy 2024 was conceived and organized by Sophia Kesting in collaboration with the instructors and Libken e.V.