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.

If you have been admitted to the Bachelor's programme at Leuphana and have not yet received a personal invitation by e-mail, please contact us at openingweek@leuphana.de.

Preview of the Opening Week

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:

Art & Archives
Data & Value(s)
Power & Rights
Nature & Resources
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.