In
News, Voices from gd:c
We are delighted to share that our former fellow Julian Warner (fellow 2024/25) has been appointed professor of performance and artistic research at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Stuttgart (HMDK).
Julian Warner is a German-British artist and curator. Before joining HMDK, he served as artistic director of the Brechtfestival Augsburg (2023–2025) and curated the Festival der KulturRegion Stuttgart (2022). He has designed performances and festivals for institutions such as Künstlerhaus Mousonturm and Münchner Kammerspiele.
During his fellowship at global dis:connect, Julian co-organised a workshop entitled The Grand Method. Brecht without guarantees together with Prof. Dr. Moritz Ege (UZH). The event, held as part of the Brechtfestival Augsburg, explored Brecht’s notion of the Grand Method as a practical doctrine and tool for creative and political action under changing social conditions. In line with Warner’s curatorial vision for the festival, the workshop brought together scholars, artists and curators to reflect on what it means to act without guarantees in cultural and political practice.
We look back fondly on this riveting event and the fruitful collaboration that made it possible.
Congratulations, Julian, and all the best for this exciting next chapter! Continue Reading
Julian Warner appointed professor at the HMDK Stuttgart
We are delighted to share that our former fellow Julian Warner (fellow 2024/25) has been appointed professor of performance and artistic research at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Stuttgart (HMDK).
Julian Warner is a German-British artist and curator. Before joining HMDK, he served as artistic director of the Brechtfestival Augsburg (2023–2025) and curated the Festival der KulturRegion Stuttgart (2022). He has designed performances and festivals for institutions such as Künstlerhaus Mousonturm and Münchner Kammerspiele.
During his fellowship at global dis:connect, Julian co-organised a workshop entitled The Grand Method. Brecht without guarantees together with Prof. Dr. Moritz Ege (UZH). The event, held as part of the Brechtfestival Augsburg, explored Brecht’s notion of the Grand Method as a practical doctrine and tool for creative and political action under changing social conditions. In line with Warner’s curatorial vision for the festival, the workshop brought together scholars, artists and curators to reflect on what it means to act without guarantees in cultural and political practice.
We look back fondly on this riveting event and the fruitful collaboration that made it possible.
Congratulations, Julian, and all the best for this exciting next chapter! Continue Reading
30 October 2025
On November 19, we open our film series “Dis:connection: Cinema and Globalization” with the impressive documentary 
On Tuesday, 12 November 2024 (7:00 - 8:30 p.m.) the LMU’s public lecture series adressed the complex topic of “
In March Jie-Hyun Lim commenced his term as a fellow at global dis:connect. Welcome.
Jie-Hyun Lim holds the CIPSH Chair of Global Easts and is a founding director of the Critical Global Studies Institute at Sogang University.
At gd:c Jie-Hyun will work on multilingual versions of victimhood nationalism as a conceptual tool to illustrate competing memories of victimhood in the postwar Vergangenheitsbewältigung across Europe and East Asia. 
Our associated fellow Kevin Ostoyich is celebrating a major achievement: The documentary film Gary’s Letter, which he helped inspire, recently premiered in Cuxhaven and has already been selected as a semi-finalist at the New York Indie Shorts Awards. Even more exciting, the film has won the L’Eclisse Award at the Blow-Up International Arthouse Film Festival in Chicago, USA. 🎉
The film tells the moving story of Gary Sternberg, who was born into a Jewish family in Nazi Germany, fled to Shanghai in 1940, and later built a new life in the United States. Decades later, he discovers stumbling stones (Stolpersteine) bearing his parents’ names in front of his childhood home in Cuxhaven. This unexpected discovery leads him to reach out to the house’s current residents, rekindling a connection to the country he left behind so many years ago.
The film originated from a conversation between Kevin Ostoyich and the director, who has spent years exploring her own family’s history. Gary’s Letter is a powerful testament to memory, reconciliation, and the forging of new connections across generations.
Additionally, Kevin Ostoyich has just published a new article about Gary with the Spungen Foundation. You can read it here: