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Membership

Alumni are people who have completed a course of study at ZHdK or at one of its predecessor institutions, or who have studied at one of these institutions for at least two semesters. Both former and current lecturers and staff who have worked at ZHdK for at least two semesters are similarly welcome at Netzhdk. Graduates receive a one-year trial membership free of charge upon leaving the university.

Memberships:
Individual membership: CHF 60.—/year
Dual membership, Netzhdk and the Circle of Friends of the Museum für Gestaltung: CHF 130.—/ year
Patrons: from CHF 300.—/year
Membership for life: once CHF 1000.—

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Organization

Netzhdk is the alumni organisation of the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK). It is an association based on the idea of a network that is effective across disciplinary and generational boundaries. Netzhdk sees its main task as helping to establish a lively culture of dialogue. One aspect of this task is to make visible the entire breadth of its members’ activities and the places and spaces where they are active.

Netzhdk goes beyond mere institutional historiography to ask who and what have shaped this educational institution in the course of its near-150 years of existence, and how its graduates have helped to mould today’s cultural landscape and creative industries. As an independent association, Netzhdk organises events and occasions to this end. Anyone who has studied or worked for at least two semesters at ZHdK or at one of its predecessor institutions can become a member.
Statuten (PDF, 200 KB)

History

The Zurich University of the Arts ZHdK was founded in 2007 as the result of a merger of the Zurich University of Music and Theatre (HMT) and the Zurich University of Art and Design (HGKZ). Both institutions, HMT and HGKZ, had in turn originated in various older, established educational institutions in Zurich. The merger of 2007 brought together practically all of Zurich’s tertiary institutions in the creative and design fields. ZHdK comprises five departments: Performing Arts and Film, Design, Fine Arts, Cultural Analysis and Music, all of which have been united at the Toni Campus since 2009. ZHdK also runs the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich on the Ausstellungsstrasse and on the Toni Campus, the Theater an der Gessnerallee, and the Mehrspur Music Club.
The history of ZHdK

Prix

The Prix Netzhdk was awarded from 2014 to 2022 and aimed to recognize individuals or teams who had completed their education at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) and distinguished themselves through special achievements. Through this, the Netzhdk intended to give the winners an additional boost for their professional development during an interesting creative period. The prize, endowed with CHF 10,000, has been awarded in this form since 2014. The list of winners and nominees is archived here and can be viewed.
Learn more

Office

Netzhdk’s office is the place where everything comes together. Its management team is responsible for the association’s operational tasks and is the point of contact for alumni issues. They organise events, help alumni to stay up to date with news about other members, about ZHdK and about Netzhdk itself, they ensure a wide range of offers for members, and coordinate and manage the work of the Board.

Mirjam Maag assumed the management of Netzhdk in 2018. She is an alumna of ZHdK with a Design Bachelor in Trends & Identity and worked for many years at assorted municipal theatres and institutions, such as the Schauspielhaus Zurich and the Lucerne Theatre. She was initially active as an assistant for stage sets and subsequently worked as a freelance scenographer. She later expanded her field of activity and began working more and more as a project and research associate for interdisciplinary projects and publications. 
Responsibility: Managing the association

Jill Böhringer has been working as Mirjam Maag’s assistant since 2019. After completing her Design Bachelor in Trends & Identity, she began the associated Master in spring 2020. In her studies, she engages with political topics from a design perspective, often examining them from a new angle. She is also active in the foundation “Real Time Trust” that is active in the Indian state of Orissa, and which develops and manufactures decorative objects and jewellery in collaboration with women’s groups. She has a keen interest in intercultural cooperation and network projects.

Board


The Board is responsible for developing and coordinating the strategy of the Netzhdk association, and implements that strategy in cooperation with its management. The work of the Board is focused on networking, on exchanging information among Netzhdk members, and on promoting a dialogue among ZHdK students, lecturers and employees both past and present.

Patrik Ferrarelli

Patrik Ferrarelli is a design director and the owner of the studio “Visuelle Gestaltung”. He works for clients in the commercial and academic sectors, and teaches at various universities in Switzerland and Germany. At ZHdK, he has a part-time post in Design Services in the Department of Design, where he is active in the field of visual identities and systems. He is responsible for the touring exhibition featuring the “100 Best Posters in Germany, Austria and Switzerland” and holds various mandates as art director for conferences, events and dossiers in the Department of Design. His posters have already been exhibited in Finland, Denmark, Austria, Switzerland and China. His “ZHdK_PosterLab”, organised in collaboration with a printing company, gained international attention when the student poster “City Space” was awarded the “TDC65 Certificate of Typographic Excellence New York” by the Type Directors Club. Patrik studied visual communication in Zurich and Bern, and subsequently worked in London and Zurich.

Hanja Blendin, Vice President

Hanja Blendin is deputy head of the Office for Accreditation and Quality Development at the ZHdK. She is the contact person for surveys and evaluations. In 2020, she headed the institutional accreditation of the ZHdK. Together with the ZCCE, she works on the topic of skills and is particularly interested in the question of whether the ZHdK's degree programs train the right and relevant skills and how we can tell. Previously, she was a consultant for monitoring and evaluation in the Quality Management Department at the University of Konstanz. In 2013, she received her doctorate in international politics with experimental studies on the decision-making behavior of state actors in international crisis situations. She has a degree in economics and comes from Cologne.

Seline Baumgartner

Seline Baumgartner arbeitet hauptsächlich mit dem Medium Video und inszeniert dieses meist räumlich-installativ. Die Künstlerin untersucht in ihren Werken das Verhältnis von Individuum und Gesellschaft beziehungsweise die Auswirkungen von gesellschaftlichen Normen und Machtstrukturen auf den einzelnen Menschen. Choreografie und Tanz spielen dabei eine zentrale Rolle. Körperliche Gesten und Bewegungen sind die Sprache, mit denen Baumgartner Geschichten erzählt, beziehungsweise Geschichte anders erfahrbar macht.


Von 2018–2021 Master of Fine Arts an der ZHdK. Baumgartner wurde mit zahlreichen Preisen ausgezeichnet, unter anderem 2009 Kiefer Hablitzel-Preis, 2010 Stipendium für Bildende Kunst der Stadt Zürich, Werkbeitrag, 2014 Preis der Dr. Georg und Josi Guggenheim-Stiftung. 2008 wurde sie mit dem Stipendium für bildende Kunst der Stadt Zürich, Atelier New York prämiert und lebte anschliessend bis 2018 in Brooklyn. Einzelausstellungen 2015 im Centre Culturel Suisse, Paris, und im 83 Pitt Street, New York, sowie 2016 im tanzhaus nrw, Düsseldorf. Werke in öffentlichen Sammlungen (Auswahl): Aarau, Aargauer Kunsthaus; München, Sammlung Goetz; Kunsthaus Zürich; Kunstsammlung Kanton Zürich.

Nadja Baldini, President

Nadja Baldini is an art historian who lives and works as a freelance curator and art educator in Zurich. She studied art history and French literature and linguistics at the Universities of Zurich and Geneva, and in 2015 she graduated with a Master in Advanced Studies (MAS) in the Postgraduate Programme in Curating at the Zurich University of the Arts ZHdK. She works for various art and educational institutions as an independent curator, including for the Helmhaus Zürich, and is involved in various long-term art education and publication projects. She develops experimental art education formats in close collaboration with artists, promoting unusual forms of learning and knowledge exchange in which the focus is always on dialogue and mutual action. Since 2019, she has been organising a series of transdisciplinary education projects on “work, fleeing and migration” together with Club La Fafa. She also teaches at the F F School of Art and Design in Zurich, and is the executive manager of Visarte Zürich.

Johanna-Maria Raimund

Johanna-Maria Raimund is originally from Vienna and is a freelance dramaturge and production manager in the fields of theatre, dance, performance and radio drama. She completed her Bachelor in Theatre and Dramaturgy at ZHdK in June 2017 and currently lives with her family in Zurich. Johanna-Maria was a member of the strategic management team of netzwerk wildi blaatere (a group that participated in the Z-Kubator programme “What’s Next” in 2021). Since 2021, she has organised the biennial festival “Tanzmehr Bühne” together with the choreographer Tina Mantel, and is also the production manager for the children’s play SUPER BRUNO by super!@Firma für Zwischenbereiche, which has toured throughout Switzerland. In her role as dramaturge, she was most recently involved in the productions “Women’s perspektives – BODIES” by GenauSo (in Zurich in 2021) and “Joseph and his brothers after the novels by Thomas Mann” by Rock the Babies / Laura Huonker. From 2018 to 2021, Johanna-Maria was active as the administrator and project manager of Tanztheater Dritter Frühling. Since 2017, Johanna-Maria has also developed several versions of the site-specific sound performance “Flüstern – Eine Vorstellung” with Benjamin Ryser. Two radio plays that she co-authored with Benjamin Ryser (“Ortsbegehung”, 2014) and Laura Ferrari respectively (“Das Gesicht als Bühne”, 2016) have been released online by Swiss Radio SRF 2 Kultur.

Isabel Gehweiler

Cellist Isabel Gehweiler, who was trained at the Juilliard School of Music in New York, among other places, first gained international attention when she was awarded the "European Promotion Prize for Young Artists" in 2007 at the age of 19. Since then, she has worked with numerous classical artists, but also pop icons such as Andreas Vollenweider, Gianna Nannini, and director Christoph Marthaler. The cellist has played almost 1,000 concerts to date and has established herself as a versatile and multifaceted musician and composer. Isabel Gehweiler is the winner of the European Promotion Prize for Young Artists, the Art Prize of the Baden-Württemberg Art Foundation, and the Markgräfler Art Promotion Prize, among others. From 2016-2021, Isabel Gehweiler held a teaching position for violoncello at the University of Applied Sciences in Hanover and is currently teaching guest seminars at the ZHdK.

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Contact

Netzhdk office
Toni-Areal
Pfingstweidstrasse 96
P.O. Box, 8031 Zürich
alumni@netzhdk.ch
+41 43 446 50 40