University of Applied Arts Vienna starts the upcoming academic year with four new professors

Two replacements and two appointments provide a breath of fresh air and deepen the interdisciplinary profile of the Angewandte
25.09.2020
The University of Applied Arts Vienna starts the new academic year with four new professors and is very pleased to have won these refreshing and at the same time renowned artists, designers and theoreticians for the Angewandte. From October Grace Wales Bonner will head the Fashion Design Department and Monika Rinck will teach as professor at the Institute of Language Arts (Sprachkunst). Nanna Heidenreich will take over the newly established professorship "Transcultural Studies" and Bouchra Khalili the likewise new professorship "Artistic Strategies". "Grace Wales Bonner, Nanna Heidenreich, Bouchra Khalili and Monika Rinck are extremely exciting and recognized experts in their field, linking different disciplines and each crossing the boundaries of thought and action. Our new professors will accompany and support the University on its way to meeting the most important challenges of the present and the future with scientific and artistic strategies and in an open discourse," says Rector Gerald Bast, pleased with the new personnel reinforcement at the University.”
 
The four professors in alphabetical order:
 
Fashion Design: Grace Wales Bonner
The designer, artist and theorist Grace Wales Bonner will head the Department for Fashion Design at the Angewandte. The British designer, who was born in London in 1992, has for years been a leading force in the field of trend-setting, theory-based and transdisciplinary fashion design. She started her own label for menswear in 2014/2015 and already won renowned fashion awards with the presentation of her first collection. Her work explores representations of black male sexuality and identity. Bonner subsequently expanded her collection to include women's fashion. The British designer and artist received numerous awards, most recently from the BFC/Vogue Designer Fashion Fund. In 2019, she presented her first institutional exhibition "A Time for New Dreams" in London's Serpentine Galleries. Wales Bonner has been intensively engaged in theory, music composition, literature and history and combines European traditions with Afro-Atlantic perspectives in her works. “I’m delighted to be joining the Angewandte as head of the Fashion Design Department  and I hope to bring a unique cultural perspective to the course and the university”, says Grace Wales Bonner.
 
Transcultural Studies: Nanna Heidenreich
Nanna Heidenreich takes over the newly introduced professorship "Transcultural Studies" at the Angewandte. Born in 1970, the German media cultural studies scientist and curator for film, video and political interventions focuses on critical migration research, post-colonial media theory, queer cinema, image politics and marine perspectives. Her previous academic stations include the Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, the International Film School Cologne, the Foundation University Hildesheim and the Academy of Fine Arts in Braunschweig. Heidenreich is active as curator, artist and publicist, and active in anti-racist and anti-fascist networks. The new professorship "Transcultural Studies" offers a resource for intensive study of the subject area and a docking point for artistic theory and practice for several studies at the Angewandte, thus sharpening and expanding the university's transcultural as well as interdisciplinary profile. "Looking at structures, recognizing the present of history, especially the history of our disciplines, our concepts, the ways of thinking and how we ask questions - and which ones. I see this as the starting point for the Transcultural Studies at the Angewandte. From there, it is important to perceive the un/simultaneousness of the present and to constantly relearn criticism," explains Heidenreich her approach to the new professorship.
 
Artistic Strategies: Bouchra Khalili
The visual artist Bouchra Khalili starts her professorship "Artistic Strategies" at the beginning of October, which will be introduced at the University from this academic year. The artist, who was born in Morocco in 1975 and lives and works in Berlin, can point to expertise in the artistic field, experience with and willingness to collaboratively and scientifically deal with interdisciplinary issues. Her previous work includes film, video, installation, photography, printmaking, and publishing and has been presented in numerous solo exhibitions, most recently at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (USA) and the Museum Folkwang in Essen (Germany). Khalili can look back on several group exhibitions, renowned prizes, teaching assignments in the USA and Germany, as well as a professorship in Norway. As a cultural activist she co-founded the Cinémathèque de Tanger, the first non-profit cultural institution in Morocco dedicated to the development and promotion of moving image culture in North Africa. "I’m truly excited to join the Angewandte University and I am deeply humbled to handle the task of developing the field of Artistic Strategies in collaboration with my colleagues and our community. I very much look forward to starting supporting our students with the production of works, which will contribute to push the boundaries of artistic and cultural practices in relationship with the complex challenges of our times”, says Khalili in her first statement shortly before taking up her professorship in Vienna.
 
Language Arts: Monika Rinck
With Monika Rinck, the Institute for Language Arts gets a very active and versatile poet and writer as its new professor. Countless publications and books, pamphlets and poetics lectures, numerous translations and the writing of song lyrics plus curatorial work distinguish her, among other things. In addition, the German poet, born in 1969, can draw on experience in teaching, e.g. at the German Literaturinstitut Leipzig, the Swiss Literaturinstitut in Biel and already at the Angewandte. The member of the P.E.N. Club has received several prizes and awards, such as the Kleist Prize 2015 and the Ernst-Jandl-Prize 2017. Next November, Rinck will give the Frankfurt Poetics Lectures. The lines of the Institute of Language Arts on the occasion of the celebration of its tenth anniversary (2019) at the Angewandte have come from its new professor:
 
“MERKSATZ:
Wenn es runtergeht wie Butter,
ist es vermutlich Propaganda.“

Monika Rinck on her appointment to the Angewandte: "I am enormously pleased about the opportunity to teach at the Institute of Language Arts for five years, and all the more so because the University of Applied Arts Vienna bears the application in its name", and finally: "There can be no doubt that culture and art are societal, social practices. What language art can be in application and what it achieves - I look forward to discovering this again and again together with the students".
Grace Wales Bonner, Credit: Jamie Morgan Download
Bouchra Khalili, Credit: Dustin Aksland Download
Nanna Heidenreich, Credit: Anja Weber Download
Monika Rinck, Credit: Glene Glover Download