Registration ends on 12.10.2026 at 23:59.

This class will explore aesthetics related to the concept of ruins. We will look at the late 18th to the mid-19th century European Romantics’ fascination with ruins as a site (in various projections of it). Influenced by the cultural production of the French revolution, colonial orientalist endeavours and criticism of the European enlightenment, Romanticism has left a persisting mark on politics and poetics of contemporary Europe and by proxy of colonialism, in colonised geographies. In a parallel comparative literature study we will look at the concept of ruins and sight in Arabic and Persian literature, Queer Punk music and film and further European scholarly criticism of the enlightenment in the early 20th century. Using the frame of a glossary as a departure point, we will collectively gather and construct our own glossary entries to engage with each participant’s approach to the course.

The class will be co-hosted by Nooshin Askari. Askari (b.1989, Teheran, Iran) lives and works in Berlin. Askari graduated from Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste Städelschule, Judith Hopf Class in 2022, and took part in the 2024-2025 Independent Study Program Of The Whitney Museum of American Art.

Askari’s work has been shown in numerous group exhibitions, including REAL LIFE... and how to live it at Kunstforum Baloise Park, Basel, Switzerland; Aashra, Ashkal Alwan online film program, Beirut, Lebanon; Half Life at Franz Kaka, Toronto, Canada; Die Wiessen at the neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst (nGbK), Berlin, Germany and TAXISPALAIS Kunsthalle Tirol, Innsbruck, Austria; Les Urbaines, Espace Arlaud, Lausanne, Switzerland; and Lash/Outs at O Gallery, Tehran, Iran, among others.

Conception and realization of an artistic glossary as part of an exhibition at Kunstraum Leuphana University Lüneburg

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