Sommerakademie is primarily a seminar-based course that explores the international contemporary art center of Berlin, Germany, through lectures and discussions with artists, curators, and scholars, and through readings and intensive discussion. The program offers a unique context to research art and to explore various modes of creative and cultural production in relation to the material, social, and political conditions of Berlin as a historical, national, and contemporary global site.
Students gain critical, historical, and practical understanding of how artists engage history, communities, and social contexts in relation to the conceptual and practical dimensions of their work. As they investigate how artists and cultural producers engage public space, students explore models of production that may involve collaboration and situational engagement. Berlin’s contemporary architectural sites—which are witness to the city’s traumatic past during the Third Reich and Cold War division, as well as its global presence—further provide an opportunity to consider spatial and temporal, social and political aspects of context-driven work.
Read the full story from Sam Fox School: Sam Fox School’s Sommerakademie 2015 in Berlin