What motivated you to take on the visiting professorship?
Stefan has already taught at various art academies. Folkwang stands out for him because of its exciting reputation and its range of programs. He was keen to try out his ideas of what modern, contemporary teaching in visual communication can be like at Folkwang. He also has to say that he already had a very nice semester. Good projects came out of it, which he really enjoyed, and the students enjoyed them as well.
What was your first impression of Folkwang?
In general, academic landscapes are of course very different. You can study design at art academies, but also at universities of applied sciences and private schools. Stefan has experienced the whole spectrum, and before his visiting professorship he already got to know Folkwang through a screen-printing workshop with Thomas Kühnen. Accordingly, he already knew the building. He finds the Zeche Zollverein site very exciting, even if a peripheral location always brings certain challenges. Ultimately, however, according to Stefan, it is the people who matter, not the building. You can of course tell that it is a new building. An art academy is allowed to look “used” – that develops over time, when traces of projects become visible.
Would you like to tell us something about your background?
Stefan originally comes from a music and moving-image background. He studied at the Berlin University of the Arts and worked for many, many years in communication design, especially for cultural clients. Posters have been a constant in his work. Later, exhibition design, the history of typography and a screen-printing studio for art prints were added, and finally a publishing house for experimental print graphics. Today, his focus is on teaching.
