The following discussion between Matze Schmidt (MS) and Mindaugas Gapševičius (MG) is an excerpt from a longer discussion on activities planned in the gravitation field of the big exhibition in Kassel in 2012. Schmidt was a lecturer at the number of art universities in Germany and he is a member of the > top association in Berlin, who is planning a set of activities in Kassel abbreviated as POT. Gapševičius is a mediator of Migrating Art Academies project, who contributes to the POT with a “Plan for Optimal Tactic” laboratory.

Mindaugas Gapševičius: Matze, you grew up and studied in Kassel, and probably many things for you were associated with Documenta. How did it influence your personality?

Matze Schmidt: Questioning personality can be a difficult undertaking. As a ‘citizen’ of Kassel the institution of this big “every-five-years event” in my view happened to be a huge artificial influx to the town and its population and a kind of “desert-situation” every time after the event was over. (more…)

Mindaugas Gapševičius

Standardization and rules are not the only issues art education must deal with in present times. Alongside increasing tuition fees, the challenges facing art education in a variety of art forms, also include the lack of professional and skilled tutors.[1]

The Bologna Process, a reform of higher education was created in 1999 in order to standardize education processes in European schools and to propose comparable academic degrees.[2] Although most higher education institutions have signed Bologna Process agreements, the reform was and still is hardly implemented within German schools.[3] Nevertheless, the Bologna Process is not only about standardization as it still leaves institutions the right to decide on fundamental principles of autonomy, for instance, the quantity of theoretical classes to be taken by practice based students.[4] The Bologna Process and European directives could also become very interesting by offering interdisciplinary approaches and mobility programs giving students a possibility to attend classes in other universities and still complete studies in their home universities.

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