The G\u00fcnther Uecker Institute | Institute for Environment and Design (GUI | IUG) in Schwerin, Germany, is an independent cultural institution organized as a registered association (e.V.). It bears the name of a figure whose work and ideas offer us a sense of orientation to this very day. G\u00fcnther Uecker was a visual artist who held a profoundly humanistic outlook\u2014and one whose actions were rooted in that view. His artistic practice was shaped by a conviction that art carries with it a social responsibility. Uecker\u2019s works explore remembrance and reconciliation, violence and peace, vulnerability, and human dignity. This approach to acting and making isn\u2019t just something our institute pays lip service to; rather, it forms the very foundation of our identity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a dual institute, GUI | IUG brings together two fields of action. The G\u00fcnther Uecker Institute funds and publishes works of art-historical and cultural-studies research based on the work of our namesake, with a special focus on the German postwar avant-garde. The Institute for Environment and Design has an international outlook, and understands artistic research as its own independent form of knowledge production. It initiates interdisciplinary projects that examine German-German experiences, social change, and contemporary issues by fostering dialogues between artistic, scholarly, and public realms, all while making the resulting insights applicable to current global trends. The institutes find their intersection in the conviction that artistic, cultural, and scholarly work can and must make social processes visible and help to shape them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a registered association, our work has thus far been able to operate with a great deal of freedom. We have grown organically and developed our scope incrementally. With a core mission of supporting young scholars and artists, our structure provides the freedom that is indispensable for both conducting scholarly research and making art. At the same time, it has allowed us to build, with limited resources and external funding, an extremely agile and reliable institution. Though based in the city of Schwerin, the institute explores unconventional perspectives with unconventional collaborative partners from across Germany and far beyond any national border.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Possible scenarios of changes coming to the political landscape of the region of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, home to Schwerin, offer us new questions. Art and culture are radically public spheres because they both seek to \u201crender visible.\u201d They can incorporate the experiences, conflicts, and perspectives that shape how a society comes to understand itself. These are hotly contested fields of action, and German-German history is just one example of how quickly dynamics can shift beneath our feet. For just these reasons, the disputed zones of art and culture are vulnerable to political influence, often via the devaluation of those stories or lines of inquiry that do not fit neatly into prescribed narratives. How then, in today\u2019s world, can an independent scholarly and artistic institution such as ours secure long-term funding from public sources when, at the same time, the very content with which we deal is coming increasingly under political scrutiny? How to square the circle of needing state funding while demanding unconditionally a space in which we can act freely and honestly?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We could, of course, phrase things more cautiously, tiptoe around certain topics, or omit entirely those questions that provoke controversy. Such an adjustment, we hope we\u2019ve made clear, would undermine the very core tenet of our work. Contemporary art and aesthetic theory must not be afraid of the as-yet-unknown\u2014neither of the content it delivers nor of the diverse forms of authorship behind it. Art emerges through encounters and shifts, through translations, transpositions, and transformations. It thrives on interconnection and friction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We promise to continue our work with the same determination and approach that gave rise to this institute. We support researchers and artists who bring different perspectives into dialogue with one another\u2014especially the controversial and uncomfortable ones. We champion those positions that critically observe and help to shape true public discourse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our work is not to disrupt, but rather to actively engage as an integral part of a healthy, functioning democratic public sphere. For us, honoring the legacy of G\u00fcnther Uecker means understanding art as a form of unrestrained thinking that takes human dignity seriously and can help society see more clearly the conflicts of the present.<\/p>\n\n\n\n