Leko teaches social art practice at the Institute for Art in Context at the Berlin University of the Arts. It is a non-consecutive postgraduate master's program combining artistic practice and cultural and social theory studies. www.kunstimkontext.udk-berlin.de She runs a project colloquium entitled Intervene and Experiment in Public and Social Space as well as theory-practice courses and study projects, and supervises MA theses. As well as her artistic practice, her teaching has focused on memory, post-migrant and post-colonial urbanities and related decolonial strategies, cultural participation and representation and its critique, strategies and methods for inclusive artistic production. Her university-based projects include feminist interventions in public space (2020-21), a series of student projects exploring the potential of cultural participation with different social groups (Bernau near Berlin, 2014-2016), an open community seminar in collaboration with the Afrika Akademie / Black Adult Education Center exploring guidelines for a decolonial monument (2017-2018), and a series of projects within the Latin American Berlin diaspora focusing on intervening into the Humboldt Forum (2018-2021), among others.

Creating opportunities for artists/students to work with communities and institutional partners to create change and empower themselves in the process has been the focus of my teaching at Art in Context, as well as elsewhere. I/we also welcome guest students in my/our project colloquium, especially older women* artists and progressive activists of all backgrounds. (From an unpublished conversation, 2020.)

Leko’s Study & Cooperation Projects @ Art in Context/Selection

2022 – ‘This is not a Love Song - Räume für Aktivierung – Kunst im Stadtraum auf der Marzahner Promenade‘ – a project on the theme of global justice and its local aspect in cooperation with Projectspace Galerie M, New Art Initiative Marzahn-Hellersdorf, and Degewo AG.

2022 – ‘Implicated Subject’ – DAAD Exchange program with the study group Changing narratives: New memory devices in the public space in Colombia, from the University de los Andes, Bogotá.

2020/2021 – ‘The Usmeka Territory: Walking with the Ancestors – An exhibition at the Center for Memory, Peace and Reconciliation in Bogota and a series of interventions in Usme, Bogotá‘  – a cooperation study project with the Jorge Tadeo Lozano University, Bogotá. https://www.utadeo.edu.co/es/noticia/novedades/observatorio-de-poeticas-sociales/267991/territorio-usmeka-caminando-con-los-ancestros (accessed 28.05.2023)

2019/2020 – ‘Berlin: The Guilt Environment‘ – a cooperation project with the Global Urban Humanities Initiative, University of California, Berkeley.https://globalurbanhumanities.berkeley.edu/berlin-the-guilt-environment (accessed 28.05.2023)

2020 – ‘¡DEVUELVE, PÉ! (Give it back!) – Restitution and Self-Determination: Latin American Cultural Heritage‘, an experimental study project and international panel discussion.
https://decolonizem21.info/deuvelve-pe (accessed 28.05.2023)

2018-2021 – ‘Decolonize M21‘ – a series of intervention related to Humboldt Forum, an experimental artistic research project in cooperation with the State Museums of Berlin.https://decolonizem21.info/  (accessed 28.05.2023)

2017/18 – ‘A Memorial in the African Quarter?’ & ‘Guidelines for a Memorial Against Colonialism’ - open seminars of the Africa Academy / Black Adult Education Center - SVHS and the Institute for Art in Context. http://www.kunstimkontext.udk-berlin.de/project/ein-mahnmal-im-afrikanischen-viertel/
http://www.kunstimkontext.udk-berlin.de/project/visionen-fur-ein-mahnmal/ http://www.kunstimkontext.udk-berlin.de/project/visionen-fur-ein-mahnmal-3/ http://www.kunstimkontext.udk-berlin.de/project/visionen-fur-ein-mahnmal-4/ (accessed 28.05.2023)

2014-2016 – ‘KONTEXT LABOR BERNAU – Kunst im Stadtraum’ – a series of participatory and collaborative projects with diverse social groups in the town of Bernau bei Berlin, a cooperation with the local cultural office and several social institutions and organizations.http://www.kontext-labor-bernau.de/(accessed 28.05.2023)

Leko’s Teaching Related Talks/Selection

2019 – ‘Berlin Colonial, Migration and Labor Memories: Guidelines for an Anticolonial Memorial – In Search of New Formats’, symposium contribution/lecture, Symposium Techniques of Memory - Landscape, Iconoclasm, Medium and Power, Global Urban Humanities Initiative, University of California Berkeley. http://globalurbanhumanities.berkeley.edu/4.17.19-4.18.19-techniques-of-memory-landscape-iconoclasm-medium-and-power (accessed 28.05.2023)

2018 – ‘Dropping Social Sculpture’, keynote lecture, Symposium Out Now! Art In Public Space, Berlinische Galerie, Berlin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXKsyzGllMo (accessed 28.05.2023)

2018 – ‘Hacer frente al pasado y zonas de democratización - Una estrategia posible: Perspectivas de arte comunitario y participativo en relación con los procesos de paz’, lecture for the symposium Arte, cultura, deporte en el posconflicto,  at the Catedra de sede Manuel Ancizar, Universidad nacional de Colombia Bogotá. https://radio.unal.edu.co/detalle/sesion-06-construccion-de-paz-en-comunidad-diferencia-y-otredad (accessed 28.05.2023)

OPERATION KLINKER, 2015-2016, a project by Gregor Kasper, within KONTEXT LABOR BERNAU 2015. Photos: Micha Winkler. http://operationklinker.de/ 










ICH HABE MEINE WUNDEN WEIß GEZEICHNET, 2014, a project by Christoph Szalay in cooperation with FRAKIMA-Werkstatt and Mandy Westphal, Lea Bathelt, Petra Stolle, Kerstin Traskowski, Julia Clara Baeckes, within KONTEXT LABOR BERNAU 2014 in Bernau bei Berlin. Above: textual intervention in public space, inauguration, 15.09.2014. Below: public reading in Bernau South, 15.09.2014. Photos: Micha Winkler. Photos: Micha Winkler.


WASCH-WASCH FEST, 2015, a project by Eunbi Kwon in cooperation with FRAKIMA-Werkstatt, AWO Bernau, and the citizens, within KONTEXT LABOR BERNAU 2015. Below: installation view, Herrensbekleidungswerk; happening. Photos: Micha Winkler.

ORAKEL PLAY - READING TEA LEAVES – Future Visions in the Cornelius Frederiks Street, 02.06.2018, participating artists/mediators: Wanda Grove, Julia Gutekunst, Vivian Chan – street-action at the Lüderitz Street Festival dedicated to renaming streets in the Berlin African quarter. Within the course NO-BUDGET-INTERVENTIONS IN POSTCOLONIAL URBAN SPACE, the group developed a method of reading tea leaves to passers-by and mediating and discussing colonial history during that conversation. Photos: Wanda Grove, Kristina Leko.

2017/18 - 'A MEMORIAL IN THE AFRICAN QUARTER?' & 'GUIDELINES FOR A MEMORIAL AGAINST COLONIALISM' - open seminars of the Africa Academy / Black Adult Education Center - SVHS and the Institute for Art in Context.
On the photos below: The students of the seminars interview members of the Afro-German communities during the street festival in Berlin Wedding. They use a special interview method developed in the seminar, which includes scripted interview questions, open conversation, graphic recording, subjective Berlin cartography, and a portrait of the interviewee. Photos: Kristina Leko.