From August 15 till August 28, 2022 our transsectoral Summer School Viadrinicum will get back to an offline format, inviting representatives of academia, civil society and the arts to the German-Polish twin city Frankfurt (Oder)-Słubice.

This year it will take place under the title University in Ruins. Scaffolding Futures.

Overshadowed by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Viadrinicum 2022 will be devoted to the role of university as a societal actor, especially in times of war, with an emphasis on its capacity to provide social imaginaries for better futures. The project is designed to give students, civil society activists and cultural workers an opportunity to reflect in practical and theoretical terms on the questions of rebuilding Ukrainian cities and thus to counteract the common feeling of futurelessness created by the war. In this regard, the image of a university in ruins is simultaneously a part of a concrete war reality – our partner university in Kharkiv has been partially destroyed by the missile attacks of the Russian army – and a metaphor of an institution that might have lost one of its foundational functions as a crucible for social universality.

The summer school will also be combined with an urban intervention, which will start with engaging local communities already in the beginning of August.

Updates on the current edition of Viadrinicum will be posted on this blog.

A collaboration of: 

European University Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder)
ZOiS – Zentrum für Osteuropa- und internationale Studien
Center for Urban Studies
Goethe Institut Ukraine
Brandenburgisches Landesmuseum für moderne Kunst