Summer workshop programme

Get inspired at the Berlin Summer University of the Arts 2023: Starting in June, the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK) presents an international workshop programme aimed at artists, advanced students and graduates from all artistic disciplines. Thirty workshops in Fine Arts, Design, Music, Sound Arts and Performing Arts, as well as transdisciplinary courses, provide an excellent opportunity to nurture your artistic practice and make lasting connections. Registration is now open.

This year’s focus on “Translational Acts” reflects the engaged dialogue between the disciplines at UdK Berlin. Artistic practice unfolds in the face of major social, political and technological transformation processes: questions of climate justice and sustainability, collectivity and diversity or digitization are aesthetically translated in manifold ways. Crossing, transgressing, transcribing, rewriting borders and limits represent central dynamics of the Berlin Summer University of the Arts and we invite you to take part.

You can find a small selection of our workshops below. Discover all courses here.

The programme opens in JUNE with two workshops on idea-generating processes: Aesthetic Transformation Processes —Part I aims to inspire and initiate collaborations across the disciplines. Part II will allow for an in-depth inquiry of the participants’ creative practice, extra studio time and further discussions. 

In July, Pause and Participate. Play and Photograph. confronts the use of photography as part of colonialist and imperialistic power structures by emphasizing participatory art practices and play. Two fine arts workshops focus on the aesthetic translation of nature while dealing with its precarious ecological realities: In Drawing as a Way of Knowing— Plants and —Insects, participants will go on field trips and further develop their graphical interpretations in the UdK drawing lab. 

In August, our workshop A Situationist Guidebook to Every City initiates a playful approach to the diversity of urban spaces. New perspectives will be explored and ultimately translated into a print product. Strategies of artistic translation at the intersection between visual, performative and sound arts will be the main focus of our August workshop Glue: Collective Improvising.

Finally, in September, Playwriting – From Idea to Scene and Structure offers (aspiring) playwrights an excellent opportunity to refine their individual writing approaches, while participants of Biographical-Documentary Working Methods in the Context of Art are invited to reflect on their individual biographies in a socio-political context and delve into fictionalization strategies.

Dates: June–September 2023. Registration is open on our website
Deadlines: Four weeks before the start of each workshop.

Visit here for detailed information on our programme.