In light of current challenges, the world is more dependent than ever on new impetus and radical rethinking in all areas of life. At a time when profound transformation processes are fundamentally changing the conditions of life, consequences are emerging at the local, global, and planetary levels that will have unforeseeable consequences for the health of all living beings on this planet. The ever-recurring question of the conditions for health can be considered one of the most important problems at all levels, exacerbated by armed conflicts, climate crises, pandemics, and growing challenges in public health care. It is essential not only to advance the development of medical sciences, but also to consider health in a broader context. This requires interdisciplinary strategies and radically new approaches, because health means much more than freedom from disease.

Artistic dimensions can contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of health in the present and future and can become experimental, aesthetic, and structural categories of description for specific world conditions and rapidly changing living conditions. By reflecting on the aesthetic-conceptual foundations and framework conditions that influence and shape the perception and experience of health and well-being, the research program aims, on the one hand, to analyze the mechanisms, instruments, and orders that define existing systemic and normative structures. On the other hand, it aims to formulate proposals from the arts to reveal new frames of reference that understand health as a dynamic relationship between different ways of life, (im)material conditions, and systemic contexts.

Funded by the Hamburg State Research Fund
Funding period: March 1, 2025–June 30, 2028

Doctoral students are offered a specially developed curriculum that deals with the methods and practice of artistic research. To this end, seminars are offered that form a conceptual, methodological, and structural basis for joint work and also deal with practical research questions within the framework of the individual projects.

Once per semester, an artistic research colloquium is held to discuss the respective developments in the projects. Here, connections within the group are explored and mutual networking is strengthened. External guests provide impetus and expand the network’s connections. The format varies between workshops and presentations of prototypes, joint excursions, public elements, and discourse events.