Sophia New
Multiple Endings and Future Beginnings
Intensive Workshop, English/Deutsch, 2 SWS, 2 ECTS
Saturdays and Sundays, 15./16.11. & 29/30.11.2025, 10-18h, Hardenbergstraße 33, room 310

We are living through times of great change ecologically, economically and politically. How will that shape our futures? Lack of political action also means contemplating a world without us humans, leaving potentially a future of more adaptive creatures like plants. If we consider the role of the artist as reflecting on this current state of affairs and envisage other futures, how do we engage with the multiple endings we find ourselves in?

There are so many things to consider when one thinks about endings. What came before? How to go on? What next? How might the closing of one door open another? Also, when considering making time-based art such as performance or film, do we end with a fade out, an abrupt blackout, resolution, closure or openness and ambiguity towards other beginnings? What might one imagine for an ending and how does one think beyond that?

'How do we build the future on a deep yes, a deep longing for what we want?' asks adrienne maree brown in Loving Corrections. As the author of The End of the World Show podcast, she argues that despite gross inequalities and mass extinction we can become 'stewards for the future' through attention, care and sharing observations. In this workshop we consider the endings we deeply want to see within all art forms as well as speculative futures.

Taking stock in this workshop, we will share readings and exercises that examine different forms of endings mostly from an embodied perspective. We will be engaging in writing exercises, moving and vocalising as well sharing different student practices, alongside a contextualisation of other artists whose works engage with ends.

Fulfilment criteria for ungraded accreditation: Active participation and completitions of tasks set during the course.

SophiaNew studied Philosophy and Literature with German at Sussex University, received her Master in Feminist Performance from Bristol University and completed PhD from Exeter University in 2022. She has taught on performance courses at Gloucester University, Aberystwyth University and Das Arts in Amsterdam. She has run courses on Urban Interventions with Daniel Belasco Rogers at the Hafen City University Hamburg, Leipzig University and Art School, Bard and at UdK in Berlin. She was the Course Leader for MA Performance: Theatre Making and MA Performance: Politics and Social Justice at Wimbledon College of the Arts, UAL from 2022 to end of 2023. Between 2020-2022 she shared a Guest Professorship with Daniel Belasco Rogers, on the Interdisciplinary Art a Practice and Theory as part of the Studium Generale at University of the Arts Berlin.