Dr. Hildegard Kurt

Dr. Hildegard Kurt is a cultural researcher who lives in Berlin, Germany. Her work focuses on art and sustainability, the aesthetics of sustainability, art and agriculture, interculture and the dialogue of cultures. She has recently published a new monograph entitled WACHSEN! Ueber das Geistige in der Nachhaltigkeit (GROWTH! Concerning the Spiritual in Sustainabilty). Although available currently only in German, parts of it will be translated into English. 

Hildegard is co-founder of  und. Institut für Kunst, Kultur und Zukunftsfähigkeit  http://www.und-institut.de/) (and. Institute for Art, Culture and Sustainability), located in Berlin, Frankfurt/Main and Hamburg. She has recently been awarded an International Visiting Research Fellowship at Oxford Brookes University.

Hildegard is involved in several collaborative projects with the SSRU. These include co-authoring a book with Shelley Sacks entitled 'Making the Secrets Productive', exploring new thinking and practices that connects the aesthetic to sustainability. This book draws on several years of collaborative work between Hildegard and Shelley - in particular, on an annual interdisciplinary programme, which they co-led for the Weimar-Jena Academy between 2003 and 2009: 'Shaping Society as an Aesthetic Challenge'.  Hildegard is also involved in the devlopment of the university wide Art, Culture and Sustainability research group at Brookes (which draws its name from the und.Institut).

In 1999 Hildegard Kurt received her doctorate from the Institute for Cultural Science, Humboldt University, Berlin, with a thesis on "The New Muse - Impulses in Art for Overcoming Consumer Culture". The term "New Muse", coined by Joseph Beuys in his installation "Stag Monuments", stands for the awareness of a creative potential that reaches beyond the art world: a non-technical and non-commercial creativity which cultivates respect instead of superiority; whose objective is no longer primarily the production of artefacts; a creativity which exercises receptivity for transformation processes and no longer separates human beings from nature. 

Hildegard Kurt's research, projects, lecturing and teaching - mainly in Germany, but also in Italy, Switzerland, England, Ireland, Korea, Georgia, Hungary and the USA - all centre around the role art and culture play in shaping a humane and ecologically viable future.

Although known initially for her writing, lecturing, consultancy and public speaking, Hildegard's work has evolved into one which incorporates working in contexts with people and processes. Her recent 1 year social sculpture process, linked to school in Lueneburg as well as a sustainability project at the University of Lueneburg, is an example of this work.

For more information see  http://www.hildegard-kurt.de/ 

Hildegard and Shelley are currently developing a 'branch' of University of the Trees for a group in Florida, USA, that is closely linked to ecological issues in the Everglades. Further details will be posted. 

During 2011 Hildegard Kurt will, together with Wolfgang Zumdick, replace Shelley Sacks at Oxford Brookes - during her sabbatical. They will contribute actively to the MA in Social Sculpture and co-supervise her doctoral students.