Art, design and digital media – just give it a try

If you ask pupils what they would like to be when they grow up, you will either hear very specific ideas that can change every few months, or enthusiasm for fashionable professions, but also uncertain expressions of self-discovery. On Girl's Day and Boy's Day, Bremen's children and young people can therefore get a taste of various professions at companies and organizations and thus broaden their career choices and horizons, possibly even breaking down gender role stereotypes. In research and educational institutions, they can also get to know scientific and artistic opportunities in the world of work. At the University of the Arts Bremen (HfK), the Future Day offers some insights into the world of art, design and digital media. Participants can discover training opportunities at the HfK and try things out in the workshops.

37 students - aged 10 to 16 from the 5th grade up to and including the introductory phase of the upper secondary school - registered at the HfK Bremen and appeared at 9 a.m. on April 3, 2025 for a cheerful check-in in the large auditorium of Speicher XI in Überseestadt. They quickly noted their first names on sticky dots, stuck them to their sweaters and assigned themselves to the working group that had been determined in advance. A curious silence spreads through the auditorium. And off they go.

Introducing themselves as team leaders: Markus Walthert, Workshop Manager Interaction Lab, as well as Felix Pankraz Fisgus, Workshop Manager Electronic Experiments, and student Malte Servaty invite pupils with an interest in electronics to the “Open Lab”, where circuits are soldered, combined with metal constructions and designed as games of skill. Jukka Böhm, head of the audio lab workshop, opens the doors of the audio lab to music-loving young people to create spatial sounds and program a drum machine. Nicola Essig, Head of the Fashion Workshop, and students Viktor Saleh, Stephanie Da Silva Faria and Setareh Tourian sew small shoulder bags with “Boys” and “Girls”. Anja Engelke, head of the photo workshop, explores portrait photography with her course participants in a professional studio setting.

We accompany Zane Zlemeša, Head of the Manual Printing Workshop, as well as student Igor Golczewski and eight young artists to the screen printing workshop, where they will transfer their own motifs and individual designs onto fabric in a group project. “Please bring clothes that can get dirty - we're working with colors,” the announcement said. The fact that it was a good idea to stick to this was clear to everyone in the brightly colored workshop. Zane describes the technique to be practiced as “printing shadows”. They learn how to do this from scratch. 

For screen printing, of course, you first need a screen, i.e. a close-meshed plastic fabric that is stretched over a metal frame and coated with a light-sensitive emulsion. Images drawn on paper with chalk or an Edding pen, or cut into printing foil with a cutter knife, are applied to the emulsion and exposed to a UV light lamp or simply the sun. The screen is then washed out. The result is a finished stencil that can now be used to print properly. In this case, the screen printing frame is placed on a yellow canvas bag and ink is pressed through the screen. When the students remove the frame, they discover a clean print of their picture.

But first they all experiment with the tools of the trade. They try to depict anime heroes, draw animals and design logos. Amandus, aged 11, from Rockwinkel secondary school finds it all “very exciting”. He also likes to draw and paint at home, but now wants to “gain new experiences” at the HfK and composes zigzag lines, squiggles and waves. Zoe, 12, from the Hamburger Straße grammar school works with dots, line patterns, color gradients and letters. Uma, 13, from Kippenberg-Gymnasium works with hearts and the word “Hello”. She has already redesigned her sweater in a screen printing course and printed T-shirts. “I thought it was great, that's why I signed up for the course here.”  Everyone quickly works together intensively on their pictures, with four of them going into each bag. The young artists proudly go home with them. 

Everything has been set up in the photo studio for a big shooting session with the future supermodels. A gigantic light set is set up and the students have the opportunity to photograph each other in front of a cove. Anja gives a brief explanation of the white balance, introduces them to the handling of the professional camera and shows how different photos of the same person can look. When photographed from a distance, faces appear compressed, while close up, the proportions are distorted in a creepy film-like manner; photographed from a distance of two to four meters, everything looks realistic. “That's because of the different focal lengths,” explains Anja. Ben (11 years old, Kippenberg-Gymnasium) is already focusing on Joaquin (14 years old, Oberschule Am Barkhof), letting lightning rain down on him and capturing how the initially rigid facial expressions of the statuesque body relax and fill the gestures with life. Poses are tried out until Joaquin searches for an expression of himself. This development can be seen beautifully in the sequence of images. Ben and Emil from the Mitte comprehensive school have the same experience. The photos are viewed, cropped and selected for the design of autograph cards on a computer screen. The more childlike the pupils look, the more likely they are to say that the photo is out of the question. Looking at their own portraits is always an examination of themselves: How you see yourself and how you want to be seen.

Joaquin and Ben came to the Future Day with previous experience. So far, they have only taken photos in private, mainly of landscapes in Bremen and on vacation or in their garden at home. People have not been in front of their lenses so far. That's why they decided to take part in this Future Day course at the HfK. “I'm particularly interested in how lighting works in the studio,” says Ben. And he is thrilled that they are also trying out what great effects can be achieved when lamps are fitted with blue and orange color foils. All photo course participants go home with a poster of themselves and lots of little autograph cards. “We'll give them away to our family,” they say.

“It was a lot of fun today,” everyone agrees at the farewell meeting. Some of the students will certainly incorporate artistic work into their future plans.

Contact: zukunftstag@hfk-bremen.de