What started out as a plan for a small model school has grown into a comprehensive cultural and educational project for the entire neighborhood. The Leipzig Model School, with its learning culture laboratory, wishes to develop a healthy world for people of all ages to learn and live in, in the neighborhood of Grünau.

With the ARTplus structural programme, the Hamburg-based umbrella association EUCREA ensures greater diversity in the arts and culture sector. It gives artists who require assistance with improved access to professional training facilities. Art colleges and associated institutions from various federal states are closely involved in the programme.

In the midst of the fairy-tale like forests of Frau Holle Land (an expansive Geo-Nature Park near Kassel), the nature-based Naturkindergarten Oberrieden e.V. has its base. Surrounded by woods, meadows and trickling water, the 3- to 6-year-olds learn and grow in the rhythm of the seasons.

As a long-time lecturer, vice rector and managing director, Prof. Andreas Kienlin has not only shaped the sculpture degree programme but also fundamentally moulded the development of the Alanus University of Arts and Social Sciences in Alfter near Bonn. When he retired in autumn 2021, we spoke with him about inner and outer opposition, the particular challenges of stone carving and the social power of art.

Today’s children and young people are growing up in a world increasingly dominated by digitalisation. In order to survive in this world and acquire the necessary skills at an early age, some believe they need as much exposure to (digital) technology as possible, starting in primary school or even earlier. Prof. Dr. Paula Bleckmann and Brigitte Pemberger from Alanus University in Alfter are pursuing a different path with their project entitled “Analogue Digidactics”.  ...