Venue:HGB galleryWächterstraße 11
04107 Leipzig
www.hgb-leipzig.de/galerieinstagram.com/hgbgallery15–17 October 2026 Workshops / Talks / Events
16–22 October 2026 Exhibition
22 October 2026 Closing event
In 2016, the HGB Leipzig established the Academy for Transcultural Exchange (AtA), Germany’s first regular degree programme for people with a refugee background in the fields of fine art and graphic design.
From the outset, the Academy for Transcultural Exchange saw itself as more than just a study programme. With its establishment, the HGB recognised migration as a fundamental part of our society and set out the aim of further developing the art college itself as a transcultural space. Facilitating access has always meant transforming the institution itself: broadening artistic and academic perspectives, challenging a white Western canon, and creating the conditions for a course of study that critically engages with discrimination.
With a programme of exhibitions and events, the HGB is celebrating the Academy for Transcultural Exchange’s tenth anniversary and reflecting on its history and present.
The social and political context has changed fundamentally since 2016. Funding programmes that made the establishment of the Academy possible have largely come to an end or are under threat of cuts. Programmes for refugee students have been discontinued at many higher education institutions. At the same time, terms such as ‘internationalisation’ and ‘diversity’ are gaining prominence in higher education policy, whilst flight, forced migration and their historical and contemporary causes are often overlooked.
Based on an understanding of transculturality as a process of encounter and mutual transformation, the programme also looks to the future. Former and current members of the Academy for Transcultural Exchange will come together with guests from the worlds of art, academia and higher education in lectures, discussions, workshops and an exhibition. The focus is on the future of the Academy for Transcultural Exchange at the HGB and the question of which artistic and institutional practices facilitate transcultural exchange.
