"Looking back to the future" - Dealing with sensitive and controversial monuments at universities
3rd workshop discussion of the Working Group on Art in Buildings at Universities
May 22-24, 2025
Office for Academic Heritage, Scientific and Art Collections of TU Dresden

Universities have a diverse and often overlooked art collection that is closely linked to their history. Some of these works are controversial: They remind us of burdened biographies, political upheavals or forgotten ideals. How to deal with such monuments? Remove, comment on, reinterpret? While there are loud debates about colonial or nationalist monuments in public (urban) spaces,
often remains silent at universities - even though controversial objects are located here too. It is often students or initiatives that initiate these debates and call for new perspectives. The workshop discussion presents practical examples and artistic, academic and student perspectives that open up ways of dealing with this difficult legacy.
this difficult legacy. It explores the scope for action between preservation, contextualization and intervention. How can negotiation succeed? Who is involved? And what forms of mediation are needed to make art in architecture visible and open to discussion?

From May 22 to 24, 2025, art and architectural historians, collection officers from universities and colleges, conservators and other experts will meet at the Office for Academic Heritage, Scientific and Art Collections of TU Dresden on the initiative of the AG Kunst am Bau an Hochschilen of the Gesellschaft für Universitätssammlungen (Gf) e.V. to negotiate the topic of the workshop discussion and engage in conversation with each other through 15 lectures and numerous tours of the TU Dresden campus.

Please refer to the flyer for the detailed program.

Prof. Dr. Johanna M. Blokker, Chair of Monument Conservation, Institute of Building and Art History, Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg, will give the keynote lecture on Thursday, May 23 at 6:30 pm on "Positions of monument conservation on dealing with 'uncomfortable' monuments".

Registration is possible until May 16, 2025 at .

3rd interdisciplinary workshop discussion organized by:
Gwendolin Kremer M.A. (Office for Academic Heritage, Scientific and Art Collections of the TUD), Dr. Christina Kuhli (Art Collection / Helmholtz Centre for Cultural Technology of the HU Berlin) and Dr. Michael La Corte (Museum of the University of Tübingen MUT).

With the support of: Kirsten Vincenz M.A. (Office for Academic Heritage, Scientific and Art Collections of the TUD), Dr. Jörg Zaun
(Office for Academic Heritage, Scientific and Art Collections), Prof. Dr. Ernst Seidl (Museum of the University of Tübingen MUT) as well as Dr. Maria Obenaus and Maren Marzilger (Office for Culture and Monument Protection, City of Dresden)

In cooperation with the Gesellschaft für Universitätssammlungen e.V. (GfU) and the Amt für Kultur und Denkmalschutz, Landeshauptstadt Dresden