Prof. Dr. Elena Zanichelli
Prof. Dr. Elena Zanichelli, was until 2023 an Assistant Professor for Art Studies and Aesthetic Theory, Head of the Mariann Steegmann Institute: Art & Gender; Institute for Art Studies - Film Studies - Art Education
"With changing exhibition formats and venues, we face the topics of "Art & Gender" together with students in an interdisciplinary and ever new way!"
The Mariann Steegmann Institute was founded in June 2010 as a non-profit foundation for the promotion of women in art and music at the University of Bremen. What is behind this neutral description of the institute on the website? - Definitely a lot of enthusiasm and expert knowledge for the task of examining the conventional methods of art production and reception with regard to media-specific power relations as well as their gender-specific connotations.
After studying art history in Parma, Bonn and Zurich and completing her doctorate in Berlin, Elena Zanichelli decided to join the University of Bremen in 2019 because she was attracted by the interdisciplinary nature of the research focus, which is grounded in media and discourse analysis. Her experience as a curator of numerous exhibitions, as a member of various committees (including the Board of Trustees of the Cultural Foundation of the Federal States), as a visiting professor at Stanford and Cologne, and as the author of numerous art-historical publications teaches students that artistic production extends far beyond the exhibition spaces of the institutional art establishment. In doing so, she consciously works across borders in every respect - both as head of the institute and as a lecturer: she leaves the seminar and exhibition rooms, identifies perspectives far beyond her own discipline and thus draws attention to the fact that art history should be practised and perceived as an ongoing historiography. In the research field of Art & Gender, she sees "an ideal terrain" for her own professional and personal development as well.
Fifty years ago? Then it was probably still a concept in the minds and hearts of her parents in northern Italy, when Don Camillo and Peppone was still being filmed in the area.
Even today, she sees the University of Bremen as a forward-looking place where conventional analytical tools are critically questioned and new horizons are made visible. This is a direction in which the university will continue to develop over the next 50 years: "Committed, open, dynamic - on the pulse of time!"