Symposium "Practices of Cooperation"

Impulses for the joint project “Digital Sovereignty for Art Universities”

Hosted at Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Karlsruhe together with Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe and Akademie der Bildenden Künste Stuttgart

Karlsruhe, November 4–6, 2026

Cooperation and collaboration are often cited as central values today, including within the realm of artistic and academic practices. At the same time, many educational and institutional systems are still structured around individual performance, competition, and narrowly defined responsibilities.

This contradiction is especially glaring in the digital space, as digital cooperation is often merely understood as the utilization of digital tools and applications. However, particularly in trans- and interdisciplinary contexts, cooperation also means negotiating shared processes, critically questioning tools, sharing knowledge, coping with uncertainties, and learning new forms of working together.

With the symposium “Practices of Cooperation,” we hope to examine cooperation and collaboration at art universities more closely, identify challenges, and explore new forms of digital cooperation.