Two replacements
and two appointments provide a breath of fresh air and deepen the interdisciplinary profile of the Angewandte
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".