Innovative hybrid Zoom Seminar for the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing

From May 25 to June 27, 2024, Klaus Siebenhaar held the latest online seminar entitled „Audiences – History, Research, Development in Theory and Practice“ for students of the Master’s programs in Arts Management and Arts Education at the Central Academy for Fine Arts (CAFA) in Beijing, China. (Seminar plan for download here: CAFA_Summer 2024_Audiences_Lecture Plan)

The seminar first gave an overview of the relationship between the arts, artists, their audiences and society from antiquity to the present. The image of the audience in the arts and approaches to categorizing it in audience typologies were also discussed.

As an indispensable basis for understanding, addressing and sustainably binding audiences methods of audience research were also discussed in detail  and tested in practice in customized own online survey.

An overview of audience development as an overarching management paradigm for the audience-oriented management of cultural institutions using the example of the Jewish Museum Berlin concluded the “studio” part of the IKMW seminar.

After that, it was going “into the field” for two days: In two hybrid tours broadcast live to China, the students in China first experienced important places along the former Berlin Wall from the Berlin House of Representatives to the Martin Gropius Building, the Topography of Terror and the Federal Ministry of Finance to Checkpoint Charlie.

The final highlight was the joint live excursion to the fan mile for the European Football Championship EURO 2024 with a thorough insight into the diverse accompanying cultural program as a successful example of unconventional crossover between entertainment and high culture.

In keeping with the innovative format of the seminar, students will not complete their assessments through a seminar paper, but rather by submitting proposals for audiences in China for an “Audience Award” – including an analysis and justification of why the nominated audiences are particularly noteworthy.