The Faculty of Fine Arts of Brno University of Technology (FFA) launched its Visiting Artists’ Studio (VAS) in the winter semester of 2019. Each semester, the FFA invites a renowned international artist to work with its students. The artistic profiles of the guests vary in order to ensure that the FFA’s art and design curriculum remains as broad as possible. Students enrolled in the Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Doctoral programmes may take part, and graduates of the faculty are also offered the opportunity to participate in the studio as a form of lifelong learning.

For more information, please contact Visiting Artist Programme Coordinator Šárka Zahálková.

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Thomas Helbig will lead the Visiting Artists’ Studio at FFA during the 2025/2026 winter semester, see more here.

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“A chain of temporary collectives with a distinctive personality in their center.”

Each semester, the Visiting Artists’ Studio (VAS) offers students a new opportunity to meet a prominent figure of the art world. The studio is a great opportunity for students to confront their established perceptions through encounters not only with the new studio head, but also with learners from other FFA studios. Curiosity, flexibility, communication, a desire to analyze, and willingness to share are prerequisites for studying in this studio.

The form and content of the classes are different each semester, based on the conception of the current head or studio manager. The tutors are selected from distinguished individuals after a list of potential candidates proposed by the faculty members and PhD students has been complied, based on their professional recommendations. The selected artists often come to us with different approaches. For many of them, running the art school studio temporarily is a welcome opportunity to develop their teaching experience which is based on their own experience of working on the international art scene. During the semester, students are often given the opportunity to observe the current work of their tutors, visit their current exhibitions abroad or their studios, and get a glimpse into the workings of the art world in a non-Czech environment.

The form of study in VAS is also a change for our students. The study can take place in a different rhythm than the regular weekly consultations. The programme may include intensive periods of several days of joint work and consultations or periods of more individual distance communication. A relatively high level of English is required for participation. For our students, the studio is beneficial not only in terms of the change in demands, in terms of language, time, and career, but also in terms of the opportunity to be part of a unique, temporarily established collective.

Students from any of FFA studios, including PhD students, are eligible to apply to study at VAS. We also offer participation to our graduates if there is sufficient capacity. Studying at VAS thus becomes an opportunity to meet colleagues with similar interests from various studios and to confront one’s own way of making and thinking with their approaches. The Visiting Artists’ Studio is a chain of temporary collectives made up of people with keen interests, always centered around distinctive personalities with highly original approaches and work.

Leading teachers at the studio since 2019: Przemyslaw Kwiek, Karol Radziszewski, Sidsel Meineche Hansen, Antye Greie-Ripatti (AGF), Zuzanna Czebatul, Zeyno Pekünlü, Yaryna Shumska, Alma Leora Culén, MSHR (Brenna Murphy & Birch Cooper), Ernst Yohji Jaeger, Julischka Stengele, Rebecca Salvadori, Thomas Helbig.

The studio’s Assistant Professor is artist and curator Šárka Zahálková.