For the Academy of Fine Arts, equal opportunities and the social and cultural diversity of its staff and members are important prerequisites for a forward-looking, internationally-oriented and vibrant academy of art. The Academy of Fine Arts strives for the equal opportunities of all disadvantaged groups and persons and views itself as an institution with a cosmopolitan welcome structure.
For the Academy of Fine Arts it is of particular importance to create an atmosphere, in which the individuality of all academy members is perceived as a source of enrichment and is actively encouraged. The primary focus is on equal opportunities for all students in all fields of academy policy and study. The attentive, respectful coexistence of teachers, employees and students is the core element of equal opportunities work along with the reduction of disadvantages related to gender and background.
The academy strives for the equal representation of women at all levels and in all status groups along with the creation of gender and diversity-sensitive artistic training with a special focus on the next generation of artists.
Against this backdrop the equal opportunity policy objectives of the academy are tackled on several levels:- Flexible, continuous analysis of the situation with regard to equal opportunities,- Measures, awareness-raising and specific concepts for the improvement of equal opportunities in all committees and groups.
In the process the objectives are: an increase in the proportion of women amongst the W2 and W3 pay grade professors, the support of people with a migration background at the Academy of Fine Arts and the gender-sensitive support of the next generation of artists and human resource development and finally the alteration of structural and organisational conditions under the principle of equal opportunities and compatibility.
The Academy of Fine Arts is also a member of the Charter “Family Life and Academia” and promotes effective equal opportunities and the compatibility of family, study and work.
#wessenfreiheit
In association with other art and music universities, the HGB publicly positions itself on contemporary emancipatory discourses such as #MeToo and #notsurprised and poses the question towards the "freedom of art" and who it actually applies to.
Students, staff and teachers of the HGB enter into an open exchange, discuss the situation at the university and present various contributions and artistic approaches. The aim is to make institutional power structures and their effects visible in general and at the HGB in particular. The aspiration is to create space for criticism of structural inequalities such as sexism, racism, classism, transphobia, anti-semitism and other forms of marginalisation and mechanisms of discrimination and to work together on emancipatory strategies that are aimed to be firmly anchored in everyday university life beyond this day.
As part of the digital campaign day, posters were hung in the windows of the HGB building on Wächterstrasse. The idea was initiated by the Muthesius Kunsthochschule's poster campaign “Visual Resistance” in 2019. The statements created in this format were taken up and expanded for the day of action in the HGB. The posters designed by Hanako Emden and Sophie Florian were available for download and could be distributed digitally and analogously.
A documentation of the campaign days in 2018 and 2019 can be found at www.hgb-leipzig.de/hochschule/gleichstellung and in the HGB library.