Academy of Art and Design Basel FHNW

The Basel Academy of Art and Design (HGK Basel) is one of the ten schools of the FHNW, the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland. It describes itself as a varied community of learning, teaching and research of around 1,000 students and staff, with emphases on digitality, diversity and sustainability.

Five institutes carry the teaching: Art Gender Nature, Arts and Design Education, Contemporary Design Practices, Digital Communication Environments, and Experimental Design and Media Cultures. They offer bachelor’s and master’s programmes, a doctoral programme run with the Kunstuniversität Linz, and continuing education in art, design and art education.

The school works from the Dreispitz campus on Freilager-Platz in Münchenstein, on the edge of Basel, in a high-rise and a separate studio building. CIVIC, a social infrastructure and exhibition space, the der TANK gallery and the Campus.Werkstätten — wood, metal and plastics, digital fabrication, sculpture, screen printing, bookbinding, photo, video and audio labs, darkroom, sewing — shape daily life.

Its stated aim is to open individual free space while building a critical awareness of life in social contexts, and the academy presents itself as inseparable from civil society and its current questions. Public lectures, symposia and exhibitions extend the programme beyond the studios.