Opening Week

5 October - 13 October 2023

Studies at Leuphana College begin with the Opening Week. The Opening Week is both a practical workshop and a forum for ideas. During the Opening Week, you will gain a first impression of how academic work, social practice and responsibility, as well as general educational goals are combined at the College. For seven days, you will be the centre of attention: the campus belongs to you.

Preview of the Opening Week

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Collecting

Autographs and weather reports, paintings and sacred bones, memories and even votes or data: what is it that we don't collect? While collecting can be a harmless hobby or a sophisticated cultural technique, it is never a simple or straightforward matter. Every day we are confronted with stories of museums grappling with the colonial legacies of their object collections, Big Tech companies being scrutinized for the personal data they collect, or emerging health and environmental crises that cannot be managed without expansive and real-time data collection. But what are we really collecting when we collect? How do these practices come to shape the world we live in? During Leuphana’s OPENING WEEK 2023, students get to the bottom of collecting.

The Opening Week 2023 takes place from 5 October until 13 October. Under the motto COLLECTING, we invite you to work in projects and to focus on one of the five focal themes: 

  1. Art & Archives 
  2. Data & Value(s) 
  3. Power & Rights 
  4. Nature & Resources 
  5. Trust & Recognition 

During the Opening Week that marks the very beginning of the semester, your ideas will be essential. Together with around 1400 first-semester students, you will create a digital collage comprising both visionary videos and journalistic commentaries. We will collect and save your ideas during the semester up until the conference week, the final of the semester.

Renowned guests and keynote speakers will take part in the Opening Week. Through a modular programme, you can exchange your ideas with international experts from different fields of social relevance such as politics and science. At the same time, you will work within your project groups – all events take place on the campus.

We look forward to generating the Opening Week 2023 together with you.
 

Programme Overview

Die Startwoche geht von Donnerstag, dem 5. Oktober bis Freitag, den 13. Oktober. Das Tagesprogramm geht in der Regel von 9:15-18 Uhr ©Leuphana
This is overview of the programme for the Opening Week 2023.

You can find the detailled programme here

Portrait Barbara Plankensteiner ©Paul Schimweg
Barbara Plankensteiner, Opening Speech
Portrait Sabine Fischer ©Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik
Sabine Fischer, Researcher at the German Institute for International Politics and Security
Portrait Özge Inan ©Leonardo Kahn
Özge Inan, Author and Columnist from Berlin
Porträt von Claudia Emmert ©Paul Tittel
Claudia Emmert, Direktorin des Zeppelin Museums in Friedrichshafen
Portrait Maike Scholz ©Deutsche Telekom AG/Norbert Ittermann
Maike Scholz, Senior Expert in Group Compliance at Telekom's headquarters in Bonn
Portraitfoto von Claudia Kalisch ©Claudia Kalisch
Claudia Kalisch, Mayoress of Lüneburg
Portrai Reinhard Bachmann ©Reinhard Bachmann
Reinhard Bachmann, Social scientist who teaches and researches at SOAS University of London
Cornelius Gesing Moderation ©Marvin Sokolis
Cornelius Gesing, Moderation Final
Ensemble Reflector ©Sophia Hegewald
Musical Intervention by ensemble reflektor
Portrait Martin Hartmann ©©Flurin Bertschinger, all rights reserved
Martin Hartmann, Professor für Philosophie an der Universität Luzern
Portrait Johannes Vogel ©Hwa Ja Götz, MfN
Johannes Vogel is Head of the Museum of Natural History Berlin and Professor of Biodiversity and Public Science at the Humboldt University of Berlin
Portrait Franziska Tanneberger ©Marlene Pfau 2021
Franziska Tanneberger is a scientist and director of the Greifswald Moor Centrum (GMC).
Portrait Maximilian Steinbeiß ©Maximilian Steinbeiß
Maximilian Steinbeis, journalist at Verfassungsblog

Contact

openingweek@leuphana.de
04131 677 4071

Head of the Conference

  • Sven Prien-Ribcke, M.A.

Press Enquiries

  • Henning Zühlsdorff