Rundgang Awards presented in GRIMMWELT

Nine awards endowed by sponsors were presented on Sunday evening (July 25, 2021) at the Rundgang of the Kunsthochschule Kassel. Visitors were able to take part in the awards ceremony digitally, while the jury announced the individual award in GRIMMWELT Kassel. 

On Sunday (July 25, 2021) the Rundgang of the Kunsthochschule Kassel came to an end. At this year’s Rundgang, entitled “Dezentraler Kunstgenuss,” art enthusiasts could explore numerous artistic positions by students both on the internet and also analog on site in Kassel’s urban spaces, as well as in the ateliers at the Kunsthochschule, with hygiene requirements being taken into account. Alongside the exhibition of current student works, performances, film screenings, and a variety of other actions, the program also included an awards ceremony.

Each year at the end of the Rundgang, the Kunsthochschule presents several art awards to its students, made possible by the sponsorship of its longtime partners. The prize amount directly benefits the award winners and honors the work that they are presenting at the Rundgang. The award sponsors are: Birgitt-Bolsmann, HÜBNER GmbH & Co. KG, Kasseler Sparkasse, SV SparkassenVersicherung Holding AG, and the Universitätsgesellschaft Kassel e.V.

This year’s jury was made up of: Reza Afisina (artist and member of ruangrupa and ruruHaus documenta fifteen), Manuela Greipel (GRIMMWELT Kassel, project management exhibitions), Iswanto Hartono (artist and member of ruangrupa and ruruHaus documenta fifteen), Marco Krummenacher (Kulturhaus Dock 4, Managing Director), Danijel Matijević (Fridericianum, Curatorial Assistant), Daniel Opper (University of Kassel, Director of UniKasselTransfer), Julia Schleis (Fridericianum, Curator).

The jury members of this year’s KhK Rundgang highly acknowledge the entirety of the achievements of all students who participated. In particular, we would like to recognise their efforts and self-sufficiency in creating individual works, collective projects, and collaborative forms of presentation, given the challenges caused by the pandemic on a personal and social scale. We are impressed and inspired by the creative polyphony of the students’ cross-class, cross-disciplinary, and cross-institutional collaborations throughout the city, reclaiming public space as well as exemplifying togetherness on a communal level.

Prize Winners 2021:

SV SparkassenVersicherung Holding AG (2,500 EUR)
Languages and Beyond Versus Hairless Chauvinism organised by class Al Solh in cooperation with Annette Weisser:

• collaborative diversity of participants (organisers, speakers, artists, audience, etc.)
• exploring urgent social issues of gender, language, body, health, and their intersectional entanglement in the question of care in precarious times of pandemics (Corona and HIV)
• variety of artistic, societal, and research programmes that focuses on togetherness, exemplified by the collective potentials of diverse communities

Ratanke by collective Goldfish AG (Zora Jöst, Tobias Lob, and more):

• self-sufficiently organised meeting place by cross-class student collaborations, reclaiming public space in the city and enabling a variety of both artistic and communal projects
• merging art, politics, and activism with a focus on social questions like togetherness, common responsibility, ecological-economical sustainability, and care for each other

Birgitt-Bolsmann Preis (1,100 EUR)
Business as Usual by Frauke Rohenkohl with Christiane Muñoz and Jonas Brust:

• aesthetically as well as thematically persuasive multimedia artwork, exhibiting usually invisible transit areas in global economies and confronting us with our entanglement in the globalised movement of goods and their production
• all is translated into a spatial body of metal slides, photographs, a video work, and sound piece that manifest the global and local inextricability of the production and movement of goods – then and now

Universitätsgesellschaft Kassel e.V. (750 EUR)
Chirales Labor für händische Zwischenstände by Klasse Neue Medien:

• the project is exemplary for the collaboration between art and the natural sciences and for their productive exchange, engendering new insights as well as inspiration and innovation on each side

new art city by Klasse Animation, Games and Neue Medien:

• virtual exhibition platform, enabling access to creative worlds of new media, animation, and game design through the digital in times of analogue constraints due to the pandemic

Kasseler Sparkasse (500 EUR)
Talkie Walkie presented by Basisklasse Bildende Kunst:

• engaging collaborative project by the students of Basisklasse Bildende Kunst, inviting visitors to get together and directly exchange ideas about art, personal matters, and all sorts of other things  
• bridging gaps between people after a long time of social distancing, digital meetings, and reoccupying actual space again by strolling together

Koma Klar - Digital Burnout presented by Klasse Virtuelle Realitäten:

• important critical examinations of and commentaries on our current pandemic time and its dangers in regards to our personal and societal health
• a haunting warning against the systematic fear of stagnation and a post-pandemic plea for reoccupying refuges of regeneration

HÜBNER GmbH & Co. KG (500 EUR)
Fuchs und Habicht:

• innovative eco-friendly design, sustainable and socially aware manufacturing
• circular economic model

Textile Composites:

• cross-institutional and interdisciplinary project, focusing on artistic-experimental innovation/creation
• merging the aesthetic with the functional potentials of textile composites from locally grown natural fibres
• multitude of application possibilities (architecture, landscape architecture, product design, etc.)
• sustainability
   

Our sincere thanks go to all the sponsors of the Kunsthochschule Kassel. With the support of Birgitt-Bolsmann, HÜBNER GmbH & Co. KG, Kasseler Sparkasse, SV SparkassenVersicherung Holding AG, and the Universitätsgesellschaft Kassel e.V., the students could be distinguished for their works. Our special thanks go to the seven jury members for their high level of commitment in selecting the award winners.