Transfer research

Research-Teaching Transfer Projects

  • Based on ongoing practical research in a refugee centre this project investigates the structures and criteria necessary for future teaching formats with and for refugees. On one hand, the findings are incorporated into the course BA Art Education, with a focus on aesthetic education and the socio-cultural sphere, which plans to offer recurring teaching formats with refugees. On the other hand, the findings become embedded within the current discourse in art pedagogy. Thereby, the conditions and possibilities of cultural education and art mediation, situated between empowerment and limitations, change and affirmation, autonomy and subordination, are examined.

  • The Address! Project is about establishing measures for inclusion within the application and recruitment process of Bachelor of Art Education candidates at the ZHdK, working in close cooperation with the degree programme itself. The project was based on the fact that as a group, people who experience migration are under-represented among the students for this course. Qualitative interviews with students formed the basis for an analysis which aimed to ask about specific strategies and areas for action, in order to make productive changes within the development of the degree programme. Overall, it became apparent that many people are not sufficiently addressed by external communication and that there are a number of difficulties for students who do not conform to the standard kind of student at the ZHdK, particularly because individuals feel that they are the exception and an isolated case. Furthermore, it also became clear that the commonly used identifying characteristic of ‘migrant background’, attributed by the majority, is always intersectional and closely interwoven with social background and gender and can therefore have racist and classist impacts on interactions at the university. Based on the results of the data analysis, a workshop was held with faculty from the degree programme. In groups, they developed measures to facilitate access to relevant information, to adapt course structures and curricula and to reflect on their own teaching practice. In this context, new formats for examination and collective teaching formats were put forward, amendments to the curriculum as well as course assessment were developed and considerations were made as to how structures for student support and mentoring could be designed and established (for more information, see the blog entry at Art.School.Differences-Blog).

  • What is cultural participation? The role art, design and drama play for acquiring participatory modes and spaces in educational contexts.

    Unwind biographies, tie realities, bind people, blend contents.

    →  More information on «Interweave»

  • «Right for We» (2022–2025)

    Cultural participation as a critical practice of anti-discrimination in art- and educational institutions and in the public sphere

    “Right for We” (2022-2025) focusses social in- and exclusions, power-relations and privileges within the realm of arts and culture, education and the public space. Through the implementation of practise-based projects in collaboration with organizations and communities, we aim for deliberations of diversity sensitive identities of a shared “We”. Throughout the project, we will assemble the findings in a publicly accessible, digital workbook.

    “Right for We” is a cooperation of educators, researchers, and students from the ZHdK, the PH-FHNW, and the HSLU. It is partnered with Art of Intervention

    →  More information «Right for We»