Mentoring Program
Upcoming dates
Application deadline for HFBK graduates of the year 2021 or earlier:
13 April 2022
Contact
- Swaantje Benson
- Room:143 Le
- Phone: +49 40 42 89 89-384
- Mail:swaantje.benson@hfbk.hamburg.de
No sooner have you mastered your degree and turned your back on art school than you are confronted with a multitude of questions and hurdles: How do I find a studio? How do I get into the KSK? How do I get in touch with exhibition makers? What prices are appropriate for my art? Many people are also left to their own devices when it comes to technical and content-related questions.
This is where the mentoring programme of the HFBK Hamburg offers support:
The mentoring programme is aimed at exmatriculated HFBK graduates who graduated last year or earlier and are now at the beginning of their work as freelance artists.
Within the framework of a six-month tandem, they meet selected mentors - also HFBK alumni/alumnae - who are already successfully working in the art field and who use their experience and knowledge specifically to support the mentees. Together they work to expand the mentees' artistic positions as well as their professional field-related knowledge and skills, reflect on career planning strategies and expand existing networks with new contacts. On the other hand, the mentors deepen their advisory skills and expand their contacts to the current art, culture and science scene.
We are offering 4 mentoring places in 2022. If you are interested in the mentoring programme, please apply by 13 April 2022. Please request the application from Swaantje Benson.
Mentor*innen 2022:
Gerrit Frohne-Brinkmann (Bildhauerei, MA, 2015)
Gerrit Frohne-Brinkmann (*1990) studied at the University of Fine Arts, Hamburg. In his works, which encompass a variety of media such as installation, sculpture, photography and performance, he seeks the intersection between early cultural forms and current popular performance formats in the field of entertainment. He is particularly interested in the fringes of the natural and cultural sciences. From a fictionalised historical distance, he describes the present and our relationship to it and allows seemingly self-evident certainties to become fragile.
Language: German, English
www.frohne-brinkmann.com
(Sculpture, BA 2015 HFBK/MA 2018 Academy of Fine Arts Vienna).
Ting-Jung Chen (b. 1985 in Taipei, Taiwan) lives and works in Vienna and Taipei.
Drawing on historiography and cultural and political semiotics, her artistic practice focuses on collective memories, appropriation and processes of empowerment. By reproducing artefacts of the culture industry, the representation of ideology and its relation to people, the artist explores transformations of identity and draws the intersecting cultural mix into a spatial atlas.
Language: German, English, Mandarin
https://www.info-tingjungchen.com/
FORT - Alberta Niemann (Sculpture, Diplom, 2013)
Alberta Niemann (*1982) is part of the artist duo FORT, founded in 2008 with Jenny Kropp. FORT develops site-specific works in the fields of installation, video and performance. They work with everyday objects that are reconstructed, rearranged or alienated. Many of the created sceneries are reminiscent of abandoned film sets, of which only set pieces remain. In their installations, they play with the perception of the seemingly familiar, create moments of irritation, and thus allow ruptures in our everyday world to become visible. They trace longings and fears that are conveyed through various objects, their composition as well as staging, thus creating an atmosphere that oscillates between eerie and humorous. They frequently negotiate the relationship between presence and absence, whereby the hidden always plays a central role. (Text excerpt: Dr. Nadia Ismail)
Languages: German, English
https://www.sieshoeke.com/de/artists/fort
Lawrence Power (Painting/drawing, Diplom, 2011)
Lawrence Power (*1982) develops his painting from views of urban architecture or geometric everyday objects, such as tables, electricity boxes or lamps in his own studio. In a strongly reduced pictorial language, pictorial space is not created illusionistically, but rather in the juxtaposition of receding, partially transparent backgrounds and raised impasto color surfaces, lines pressed out of the tube and glued-on canvas remnants. In a collage-like manner, he incorporates various compositional elements into his painting as a sculptural surface extension, giving it a material-like directness. By means of subtle interventions and modular extensions, Powers' paintings in his spatial installations duplicate and comment on the surfaces of the elements that can be found and declare the space itself to be the canvas, creating a constant interplay with the two-dimensionality of the painting and the three-dimensionality of the spaces that refer to it.
Languages: German, English, French
www.lawrencepower.com
Katrin Connan (Stage Design Diploma 2008)
Katrin Connan (*1979) studied Fine Arts in Groningen (NL) and Fine Arts / Stage Design at the HFBK Hamburg.
Since 2008 she has been working as a stage designer at opera houses and playhouses such as Theater an der Wien, Opernhaus Zürich, Nationaale Oper en ballet Amsterdam, Opernhaus Graz, Bregenzer Festspiele, Staatsoper Hamburg, Semperoper Dresden and Bayerische Staatsoper, the Staatstheater Stuttgart, Theater Bremen, Thalia Theater Hamburg, and Schauspiel Leipzig, among others, with directors Johannes Erath, Hans Neuenfels and Anna-Sophie Mahler.
Her stage spaces are composed of a formally clear selection of elements. They unfold into other places by shifting only a few things and changing the circumstances. They are inventions in which the known and the unknown mix, different dimensions replace each other. Painted images and built parts combine with technology and light fixtures, blend harmoniously into the theater space, and yet cause it to be redefined beyond its apparent boundaries through its transformation as the piece unfolds.
Testimonials of the programme 2021:
- Elisa Goldammer: „In einer Phase nach dem Studium, in der ich mich langsam von der Hochschule löse und die schneller vorbei geht als gedacht, ist das Mentoring-Programm wie ein Abschiedsgeschenk, das mir das Gefühl vermittelt, dass ich zwar jetzt selbst klarkommen muss, ich aber nicht allein vor dieser Herausforderung stehe. (…) Ich befinde mich nach wie vor in einer Findungsphase, aber jetzt mit dem guten Gefühl, dass es sich lohnt, sich mit anderen Kunstschaffenden zu verbinden und in einen guten Austausch zu treten.“
- Kyle Egret: „Ich hatte die Hoffnung, dass das Mentoring mich auf meinem Weg nach vorne bringt und stärkt, und dabei wurden meine Erwartungen in allen Bereichen erfüllt und sogar übertroffen. Ich kann nur jedem und jeder empfehlen, die Chance zu nutzen, an so einem Mentoring teilzunehmen.“
- Elina Saalfeld: „Generell habe ich das Gefühl, viel aus der Erfahrung mitgenommen zu haben; vor allem das Gefühl, mich getraut zu haben vieles zu denken, zu diskutieren und auszuprobieren.“
- Thea Amalie Käszner: „Meine Mentorin hat mir Vertrauen in meine künstlerische Praxis und Ambitionen gegeben.“
- Elena Greta Falcini: „Die zu Beginn des Mentorings erstellte Liste mit Fragen und Unklarheiten, die ich gerne mit meiner Mentorin besprechen wollte, konnten wir im Zeitraum des Mentorings komplett durcharbeiten. […] Abschließend kann ich sagen, dass ich wirklich dankbar bin am Mentoring-Programm teilgenommen zu haben und ich vom empowernden und produktiven Austausch mit meiner Mentorin sehr profitiert habe.“
- Korab Visoka: „Der Austausch mit meinem Mentor hat mir neuen Anreiz und Input gegeben, wie ich Projekte effizienter angehen und verwirklichen kann. Gemeinsam haben wir meine Ideen, Alben und mein Portfolio analysiert und dadurch neue Akzente ermöglicht.“
Testimonials of the programme 2020:
- Linda Lebeck: "Die vordergründigste Erfahrung im Mentoring-Programm war für mich die Konfrontation mit den eigenen Überzeugungen und Unsicherheiten."
- Jil Lahr: "Die Hilfestellung des Mentors jederzeit in Anspruch nehmen zu können, sei es für Arbeitsgespräche, Portfoliosichtung oder Projektbesprechungen, war für mich eine große Hilfe nach dem Studium, auch um die anfänglichen Zweifel angesichts der künstlerischen Selbstständigkeit zu überwinden."
- Amanda Trygg: "We talked about different artists that we liked, about our process in the studio while making art, periods of self doubt and how to work through them, we talked about the art industry. (…) Talking with Stefan also changed the way I work. I need bigger reasons or motivations to make a painting, I have higher demands of it. I sketch more and read more before I start working. (…) I also visited him in Bremen at an opening for a group show he was in at Bremen Kunsthalle. There was a dinner organized by the Kunsthalle for all the participants and other people from the art world. This was a really nice experience to be a part of. Then we drove to Hamburg and visited one of his friend’s exhibition. (…) I think this experience gave me more confidence as an artist and I see more clearly what I want with my art, my identity as an artist."
- Sarah Hablützel: "Ich bin sehr dankbar, dass ich Teil des Programms sein durfte, für mich kam dieses zum perfekten Zeitpunkt - es hat mich nach dem Studium in der ersten Phase der Verunsicherung aufgegriffen und hindurch getragen und mir am Beispiel der vielen tollen Mentor*Innen gezeigt, dass es Wege gibt und dass man diese gehen kann, dass es auch Widerstände gibt und diese auch dazu gehören. Das Tandem mit Annika hat mich also auf mentaler und praktischer Ebene gestärkt."
- Clara Palmberger-Süße: "Ich beende das Programm mit der Annahme, einen längerfristigen Kontakt zu haben für professionelle Fragen und Probleme."
Mentoring-Tandems 2021:
Katja Aufleger - Elena Greta Falcini
Philip Gaißer - Korab Visoka
Anna Grath - Tim Ehrich
Annika Kahrs - Thea Käszner
Alberta Niemann - Jano Möckel
Lawrence Power – Kyle Egret
Sung Tieu – Elina Saalfeld
Frieda Torranzo Jaeger - Marvin Almaraz
Stefan Vogel - Elisa Goldammer
Mentoring-Tandems 2020:
Katja Aufleger – Clara Palmberger-Süße
Anna Grath – Jil Lahr
Philip Gaißer – Linda Lebeck
Annika Kahrs – Sarah Hablützel
Stefan Vogel – Amanda Trygg