What Motivated Us to Create the Diversity Platform Project?
Author: Antje Lehn (Red)
Following the implementation and anchoring of the Academy Goes to School (AgidS) project at the Academy in 2018, a working group was set up to address the accessibility of Universities of the Arts for educationally disadvantaged groups.
Certain student groups are underrepresented at art universities, especially those for whom access to knowledge about artistic professions and studies is difficult due to their social and/or regional circumstances. Intensive exchange between teaching and administrative staff facilitates the joint effort in counteracting these structural disadvantages. Initially, potential obstacles in the application process and while studying were examined. The next step involved low-threshold offers for young adults who don’t yet have experience with art or contacts at the Academy.
Finally, a project proposal was submitted in 2019 as part of a call for proposals for “social and digital transformation in higher education” from the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research. The project concept “Encouraging Diversity: Developing a Process-oriented, Socially Inclusive Information and Communication Platform for Artistic Studies” was jointly developed and written at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna by the following teachers and administrators: Barbora Chen, Christina Fasching, Astrid Fingerlos, Antje Lehn, Ruth Sonderegger, Elisabeth Sattler, Anna Pritz. They received additional support from Elisabeth Freiss, Manisha Jothady-Haller, and Michaela Glanz.
