The Healing Arts. Encounters in Arts and Medicine
Moderation by Lukas Feireiss
Lecture series, English/German, 1 SWS, 1 ECTS
Wednesdays, 18-20 h, 5 dates: 5.11.2025, 19.11.2025, 3.12.2025, 7.1.2026, 21.1.2026
Location: Paul-Ehrlich-Hörsaal, Virchowweg 4, Campus Charité Mitte

Registration to Prof. med. Anne Berghöfer, anne.berghoefer@charite.de

Over the last two decades, research into the effects of the arts on health and well-being has grown significantly. According to the World Health Organization, the arts can play a vital role in preventing ill health, supporting recovery, and fostering resilience across the life span. Engaging in creative practices – whether actively or through reception – has been shown to meaningfully enhance physical, emotional, and social well-being.
Building on the success of the previous edition initiated by curator and educator Lukas Feireiss, the Healing Arts lecture series continues this semester as a joint initiative of the International Society for Arts and Medicine (ISfAM) and the Arts and Medicine Network at the Charité in collaboration with the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK). This semester, the program further expands the interdisciplinary dialogue between art and medicine – exploring how diverse practices, experiences shape our understanding of healing.

In five curated sessions moderated by Lukas Feireiss, the series engages with perspectives from medical film research, philosophy, biotechnology, art-based medical communication, healing landscape architecture, film and video art, conceptual art, and performance art. It asks: How can artistic and scientific approaches together open new paths for transformation? What knowledge emerges when care becomes a method and the body becomes a site of inquiry? What does it mean to heal – individually, collectively, ecologically?

The Healing Arts series continues to break down disciplinary boundaries and foster dialogue across universities and fields. Open to students and professionals from the arts, medicine, science and beyond and everyone interested in the topic, the public lecture series invites shared reflection on the future of care, health, and cultural practice.

Streaming-Link for the lecture series: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84963574890?pwd=I8TXJA0f47q5SekEfjACgvWAIHPUvB.1

Speakers:
05.11.2025, 18:00 Uhr:          Dr. Mike Rüb + Thuy-Han Nguyen-Chi
19.11.2025, 18:00 Uhr:         Prof. Dr. Hans-Jörg Rheinberger + Lucie Strecker
03.12.2025, 18:00 Uhr:          Prof. Dr. Deborah Sloboda + Sarah Dickinson 
07.01.2026, 18:00 Uhr:          Dr. Luc Haenen + Ahmet Ögut
21.01.2026, 18:00 Uhr:         Dr. med Johann Ahn + Martin Binder + Ana Lessing Menjibar

More information here: https://thehealingarts.online

Requirements for receiving ungraded Studium Generale credit point (1 ECTS): Regular attendance and individual written reflections for each of the five sessions as well as one final written reflection (based on the lecture series as a whole) are mandatory.

Dr. Mike Rüb + Thuy-Han Nguyen-Chi

Dr. Mike Rüb is a resident psychiatrist at Charité and a visiting researcher at the Institute of Medical Education at LMU University Hospital Munich. He earned his doctorate on cinemeducation, for which he received the 2024 LMU Teaching Innovation Award with the project M23 Cinema. Together with Charité students, he is currently developing Cinema Charité. At the Locarno Film Festival, he coordinates the Medical Arts & Humanities exchange, fostering transdisciplinary dialogue among students of medicine, film, and the arts. He also founded the Public Health Film Festival in Munich and is a Trustee of the Global Health Film Festival in London.
Thuy-Han Nguyen-Chi is a Milky Way-based artist whose practice mutates in and out of film, sculpture, installation, performance, and interdisciplinary research. Collaborating with characters in search of consciousness, language, and freedom, she explores the aesthetic, political, and epistemological possibilities of image and sound in her recent body of work. Nguyen-Chi's work has been presented in art and cinema contexts, including Berlin Biennale; Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art; Belvedere 21, Vienna; Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University, Cambridge; De Appel, Amsterdam; Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center, New York; Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt; Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul; Roy and Edna Disney CalArts Theater, Los Angeles; Staatliche Kunsthalle, Baden-Baden; Villa Medici, Rome; Whitechapel Gallery, London; Copenhagen International Documentary Festival; Montréal Festival International du Film sur l'Art; New York Film Festival; Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin; Reykjavík International Film Festival; and Singapore International Film Festival. In 2023, she was included among the 20 New Talents in Art in America, nominated for the New:Vision Award1, and awarded the Jury Grand Prix2 and Golden Lola3 for Into The Violet Belly. Having studied Fine Arts at the Städelschule and Film at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, she is currently a PhD researcher at the Centre for Research and Education in Art and Media at the University of Westminster, and was most recently a fellow of the Junge Akademie at the Academy of Arts. https://www.instagram.com/hannguyenchi?igsh=MXV1bXpubmdpNW40eg==
1 The Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival.
2 The 25FPS International Experimental Film and Video Festival.
3 The German Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.

Prof. Dr. Hans-Jörg Rheinberger + Lucie Strecker

Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, born in 1946, studied philosophy, linguistics, and biology in Tübingen and Berlin. MA phil. in 1973, Dipl Biol. in 1978, Dr. rer. nat. in 1982, habil. in 1987 in molecular biology. Director of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin from 1996 to 2014, director emeritus there since 2014. Main areas of interest: molecular biology, history and epistemology of biology, history and epistemology of experimentation, relationship between the arts and sciences. https://www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/de/people/rheinbg
Lucie Strecker works internationally as an artist, curator, and author. Since 2016, she has been based at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, where she led the FWF-PEEK research projects The Performative Biofact (2016–2020) and Shaken Grounds. Seismography of Precarious Presences (2023–2026). Since 2020, she has taught performance art in the Department of Art and Communication Practices as well as at the Applied Performance Laboratory. She has also held teaching positions at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, ArtEZ Arnhem, UCLA, the Medical University of Vienna, and the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK). Her publications have appeared with Routledge, The Lancet, and De Gruyter, among others. Her artistic works have been presented at venues such as Tanzquartier Wien, Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin), the Beall Center for Art and Technology (Irvine), the Museum of Natural Science (Vienna), the Onassis Cultural Center (Athens), the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art (Omaha), the MAK, the 21er Haus, Künstlerhaus Wien, MAXXI – Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo (Rome), Palazzo Diedo / Berggruen Arts & Culture (Venice), as well as at the Vienna Biennale, Ars Electronica, and the Vienna Design and Art Week. Since 2017, she has curated group exhibitions such as Holobiont. Live is Other, Das Grosse Fressen – La Grande Bouffe, and On Microperformativity at Magazin 4, Bregenz, and at the Applied Interdisciplinary Lab. http://luciestrecker.com/

Prof. Dr. Deborah Sloboda + Sarah Dickinson 

Dr. Deborah Sloboda is a Professor and Associate Chair of Research in the Department of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences at McMaster University, Canada, and holds a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Early Origins of Health and Disease. Her research explores how early-life factors shape maternal, fetal, and placental development, influencing lifelong health outcomes. She leads both laboratory and community-based projects, including The Art of Creation, an arts-based science communication program that translates developmental health research into public engagement and policy advocacy. Dr. Sloboda has published over 145 scientific papers, supervised numerous graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, and received multiple awards for research and mentorship, including McMaster’s President’s Award for Excellence in Graduate Supervision (2024). She is also a founding co-President of the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease Society of Canada and a long-standing leader in the international DOHaD community. 
Sarah Dickinson is the Lead of Education Outreach and Community at the Art Gallery of Hamilton (AGH), where she oversees innovative arts education and community initiatives. She directs AGH: In-Class and AGH: Virtual, programs that connect Hamilton artists with classrooms across Canada, engaging over 5,000 students annually through creative, curriculum-linked learning. Since joining the AGH in 2018, she has co-created major initiatives such as The Art of Creation—an arts-based science communication project with McMaster University—and Speakers of Truth, which amplifies Indigenous voices and fosters dialogue on Truth and Reconciliation. With over 25 years of experience in arts education and cultural leadership, including her earlier work with the Royal Conservatory of Music’s Learning Through the Arts program, Sara continues to use the arts as a catalyst for learning, wellness, and community connection. 

Dr. Luc Haenen + Ahmet Ögut

Dr. Luc Haenen, Born in Antwerp 1959, works and lives near Antwerp (Belgium), Received a medical degree and trained as a heart and vascular surgeon.  Active surgical practice till December 2024. During his youth, the five baroque churches in Antwerp were an inspirational ground for getting to know the old masters as was a contact with a patient journalist and a book on Kandinsky (2000) for getting a profound interest in especially, contemporary art.  This led to a fascination how old masters like Caravaggio and Rubens portrayed disease without knowing the pathology and up to contemporary artist who continue to find inspiration in illness and decay.  If the main format during the old masters and moderns was painting, we see that in the contemporary art period a multimodal materiality is being used; painting, photography, moving image etc…. Even the artist as a patient becomes a source for artworks.  During the years a large database of artworks relating to disease and (or) decay was built up. The link between “art and disease” or “disease and art” is unequivocally present in the artworld and in lectures for, as well a lay public or a medical trained public, forensic and focused analysis of the artwork is proposed.  In an era where focusing and attention span is under siege, by helping the viewer to focus on eventual disease or illness depicted in the work a deeper ‘viewing’ is promoted. Luc Haenen is member of Wiels (Brussels) and SMAK (Ghent).  Author of the book: #whatpatientsreadafterheartsurgery (2025). https://www.instagram.com/luchaenen?igsh=MXBldnI1cXRlZjV3ZA==
Ahmet Öğüt, Born in Silvan, Diyarbakir, Ahmet Öğüt completed his BA from the Fine Arts Faculty at Hacettepe University, Ankara, MA from Art and Design Faculty at Yıldız Teknik University, Istanbul. Currently living between Amsterdam and Istanbul, he works across different media and has exhibited widely, more recently with solo exhibitions in institutions including Art on the Underground & New Contemporaries, Van Abbemuseum, State of Concept Athens, Kunstverein Dresden, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Chisenhale Gallery; Berkeley Art Museum; and Kunsthalle Basel. He has also participated in numerous group exhibitions, including; Singapore Biennale (2025); Sense of Safety, Yermilov Centre Kharkiv (2024); Dhaka Art Summit (2023); 17th Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul, (2022); FRONT International 2022, Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art, Ohio (2022); Asia Society Triennial: We Do Not Dream Alone (2021); In the Presence of Absence, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (2020); Zero Gravity at Nam SeMA, Seoul Museum of Art (2019); Echigo Tsumari Art Triennale (2018); the British Art Show 8 (2015-2017); the 13th Biennale de Lyon (2015); Performa 13, the Fifth Biennial of Visual Art Performance, New York (2013); the 7th Liverpool Biennial (2012); the 12th Istanbul Biennial (2011); the New Museum Triennial, New York (2009); and the 5th Berlin Biennial for Contemporary Art (2008). Öğüt was awarded the Visible Award for the Silent University (2013); the special prize of the Future Generation Art Prize, Pinchuk Art Centre, Ukraine (2012); the De Volkskrant Beeldende Kunst Prijs 2011, Netherlands; and the Kunstpreis Europas Zukunft, Museum of Contemporary Art, Germany (2010). He co-represented Turkey at the 53rd Venice Biennale (2009). Lives and works in Amsterdam and Istanbul. His works in institutional collections such as Guggenheim Museum New York; Kadist, San Francisco, US - Paris; Rennie Collection, Vancouver; Sammlung Goetz, Munich; Frans Hals Museum; FRAC Nord-Pas de Calais, Dunkerque; Laumeier Sculpture Park, St. Louis; KIASMA Museum of Contemporary Art, Hesinki; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; Fondazione Giuliani, Rome; MSU Broad Art Museum, East Lansing; Vehbi Koç Foundation, Istanbul. https://ahmetogut.com/

Dr. Johann Ahn + Martin Binder + Ana Lessing Menjibar

Dr. Johann Ahn is an internist, hematologist-oncologist, and palliative care physician. As a senior physician at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, he is dedicated to clinical and scientific research into how cancer medicine can be designed to be patient-centered and tailored to individual needs and requirements.
Martin Binder: Die Auseinandersetzung mit öffentlichem Raum und Umweltfragen zieht sich als roter Faden durch Martin Binders interdisziplinäre Studienlaufbahn in Kunst-im-Kontext an der UdK Berlin und Industriedesign an der Freien Universität Bozen. Binder arbeitet mit analogen und digitalen Medien, verbindet manuelle mit maschinellen Prozessen und nutzt innovative Materialien. Derzeit realisiert er die Kunst am Bau für das Bauhaus Archiv Berlin, bei der er die Materialien im Neubau filmisch bis zu ihrem Ursprung zurückverfolgt. @bindermartin_art; https://bindermartin.com/ .
Ana Lessing Menjibar is a German-Spanish dancer, choreographer, and multidisciplinary artist based in Berlin. With degrees in Solo/Dance/Authorship (HZT Berlin) and Visual Communication (UdK Berlin), her expanded choreographic practice merges body, sound, video, and sculpture. In this context, she explores flamenco’s transformative potential, asking how this embodied knowledge can shape forward-looking conceptions of body and society, engaging with (body) archives, wounds, healing, memory, and resistance. She frequently teaches at HZT and UdK Berlin. https://www.analessingmenjibar.com/