Review: Action day KUNST.MACHT.MENSCHLICHKEIT. - An impulse for change

On No­vem­ber 27, 2025, the 24 sta­te mu­sic uni­ver­si­ties sent a clear si­gnal against discri­mi­na­ti­on and ab­u­se of power with a na­ti­on­wi­de day of ac­tion. Un­der the mot­to KUNST.MACHT.MENSCH­LICH­KEIT. a di­ver­se pro­gram­me was or­ga­ni­zed at the HfMDK Frank­furt un­der the di­rec­tion of the new anti-discri­mi­na­ti­on of­fi­cers, Prof. Gesa Beh­rens and Prof. Isaac Spen­cer, which cri­ti­cal­ly ex­ami­ned the power struc­tures at the HfMDK.

With nu­me­rous ac­tivi­ties, a dis­cus­sion room and a con­clu­ding ar­tis­tic per­for­mance by spo­ken word ar­tist Jes­sy Ja­mes LaF­leur, the day of­fe­red space for in-depth dis­cus­sions about power struc­tures in an ar­tis­tic con­text. The fo­cus was par­ti­cu­lar­ly on the ex­chan­ge bet­ween ex­perts and stu­dents. In li­vely dis­cus­sions, com­mon pat­terns of thought in me­dia­ti­on - also with re­gard to fu­ture work si­tua­ti­ons - were ques­tio­ned and cri­ti­cal­ly ex­ami­ned.

In­ter­ac­tive lec­tures and work­shops in­vi­ted par­ti­ci­pants to ap­proach the to­pic from a va­rie­ty of theo­re­ti­cal and ar­tis­tic per­spec­tives. For examp­le, stu­dents and tea­chers were able to ex­plo­re the work­shops "Body.Lan­guage.Bounda­ries." by Prof. Ste­pha­nie Köh­ler and "De­ve­lo­ping Con­sent Prac­tice in Con­tact Im­pro­vi­sa­ti­on" by Pe­ter Pley­er, stu­dents and tea­chers were able to be­co­me awa­re of their own and other­s' bounda­ries and learn use­ful stra­te­gies for de­aling with them. In the in­ter­ac­tive lec­tu­re "Agen­cy as Crea­ti­ve Prac­tice - Tools and Ap­proa­ches to trans­form Hier­ar­chies" with Vic­to­ria Mc­Con­nell and Ana Tor­re from dan­cers­con­nect, ap­proa­ches to de­aling with power struc­tures in an ac­tion­ab­le way were pre­sen­ted and uto­pi­as for a non-discri­mi­nato­ry ever­y­day uni­ver­si­ty life were de­ve­lo­ped.

Two stu­dent con­tri­bu­ti­ons com­ple­ted the pro­gram. In the play "The Nie­ce of Creon" ba­sed on Ber­tolt Brech­t's "An­ti­go­ne" and the sub­se­quent dis­cus­sion round with dra­ma stu­dents Phi­li­ne Heyer and Ujjol Teich­mann as well as di­rec­tor Ju­lia Chaply­gi­na, the world of thought of tho­se in power was cri­ti­cal­ly ex­ami­ned. As part of the lec­tu­re "Ab­u­se of power has many faces", stu­dent re­p­re­sen­ta­ti­ves of the stu­dent par­li­a­ment He­le­ne Schu­chardt and Luis Gehr­mann con­duc­ted in­ter­views with the cur­rent and for­mer anti-discri­mi­na­ti­on of­fi­cers Prof. Gesa Beh­rens, Prof. Isaac Spen­cer, Prof. Sil­ke Rü­din­ger and the wo­men's and equal op­por­tu­nities of­fi­cers Sa­bi­ne Schu­bert and Lisa Beck. This gave them a com­pre­hen­si­ve look at pro­blems as well as sup­port ser­vices and mea­su­res to help tho­se af­fec­ted.

Discri­mi­na­ti­on and ab­u­se co­ver many are­as and are of­ten only ap­pa­rent on clo­ser in­spec­tion. The day of ac­tion the­re­fo­re sees its­elf as a spring­board for fur­ther work that rai­ses awa­reness of anti-discri­mi­nato­ry co­exis­tence. A cen­tral as­pect of this was the in­tro­duc­tion of con­sen­sus prac­tices into ever­y­day ar­tis­tic life. In kee­ping with this, the new edu­ca­tio­nal brochu­re was pre­sen­ted, which will ser­ve as a gui­de and sup­port for all uni­ver­si­ty mem­bers in the fu­ture.

The many thought-pro­vo­king im­pul­ses from this day show: The path to a discri­mi­na­ti­on-free uni­ver­si­ty is an on­go­ing pro­cess. We would the­re­fo­re like to thank ever­yo­ne who took part in the wide ran­ge of events and con­tri­bu­t­ed to tack­ling the to­pic tog­e­ther and with com­mit­ment. Spe­cial thanks go to the speakers and ar­tists Prof. Ste­fa­nie Köh­ler, Pe­ter Pley­er, Vic­to­ria Mc­Con­nell, Ana Tor­re, He­le­ne Schu­chardt, Luis Gehr­mann, Prof. Sil­ke Rü­din­ger, Lisa Beck, Ju­lia Chaply­gi­na, Phi­li­ne Heyer, Ujjol Teich­mann, Prof. Mar­tin Nach­bar and Jes­sy Ja­mes LaF­leur as well as the or­ga­ni­za­tio­nal team con­sis­ting of Prof. Gesa Beh­rens, Prof. Isaac Spen­cer, Dr. Car­la See­ger, Sa­bi­ne Schu­bert and Mira Ur­bas­sek.