Art Processes in Companies

This continuing education program is aimed, on the one hand, at employees in companies and consulting organizations who want to use artistic processes in their field of work. At the same time, artists are explicitly addressed who want to further develop their skills for designing and facilitating processes in a corporate context—whether as self-employed professionals, facilitators, consultants, or in employee development. The knowledge acquired in the certificate program enables them to better assess the possible applications of artistic methods in companies and to design and support transfer processes. This qualifies you for work in human resources, team development, and organizational development. It is precisely here that artistic approaches can help break routines and enable companies to bring something new into the world.

After successful completion and provided the admission requirements are met, the certificate “Art Processes in Companies” can also be credited toward the master’s degree program “Business Administration – Shaping a Sustainable Economy.” The certificate thus offers the opportunity to earn a master’s degree in business administration step by step while working.

The certificate requires participation in two modules totaling 10 ECTS from the currently offered module catalog (see “Module Overview”).
For each module (5 ECTS each), approximately 125 hours of workload should be planned:

• 30 to 40 hours of in-person attendance
• 80 to 90 hours for preparation and follow-up of the module

The required materials are provided to participants by the instructors.

After successful completion, you will receive a certificate from Alanus University of Arts and Social Sciences. It is also possible to take just one module. In that case, you will receive a certificate of participation.
The modules are offered by Alanus University of Arts and Social Sciences.

The certificate regulations will be available here soon.

Please choose two of the following modules if you would like to earn a certificate. Registration for individual modules takes place directly via the link provided.

Here you will find the detailed module descriptions offered by Alanus University of Arts and Social Sciences as part of this continuing education program:

Module “Artistic Methods and Interventions in Organizations”

Artistic methods and interventions are an important extension of the toolkit of sustainable leadership. Through the direct experience of artistic ways of acting and thinking, they open up new, unfamiliar perspectives and use materials that spark curiosity and invite exploration. One’s own actions and those of others are perceived as shapeable, and new options for action can be explored in a non-judgmental space for play. Thinking can leave behind its habitual routines. In this way, encounters with one another and with the material create new spaces for change, creativity, and innovation.

At the same time, artistic interventions reach employees (and other stakeholders) on other levels: emotional, radically subjective, activating. This creates new approaches and impact processes for the sustainable transformation of business and companies. Look forward to practical artistic experiences that go beyond the familiar, and discover yourself (anew) as a designer and changemaker.

The module imparts knowledge and skills in the following subject areas:

• Linking action situations and competencies in everyday professional life with artistic action
• The phases and specific characteristics of artistic processes
• Ways of perceiving and their application
• Selected artistic and creative methods
• Framework conditions for successful artistic interventions
• The importance of one’s own artistic attitude
• Possibilities for transferring specific artistic methods to everyday professional life

Lecturer: Anne von Hoyningen-Huene
Dates: 13 to 15 November and 12 December 2025

Module “Our Economy – Economy as Everyday Space”

In this module, we analyze and work on images of sustainability using the means of drawing. What power do images have to help us rethink and reshape the economy? On the one hand, we look back at historical narratives and images (e.g. the curve of endless growth); on the other hand, we explore and draw new forms and ideas of sustainability and economy. In doing so, we relate to the synchronous history of our current concepts of art and economy, identify unexpected similarities between fine art and the free market economy, and compare current developments in social entrepreneurship and social sculpture.

Artistic practice and economic action are positioned in the tradition of a decolonial perspective, which allows us to open up new connections and possibilities between economic action and shaping society.  We examine artistic action with regard to intended transformative and emancipatory socio-political movements. The expanded concept of art underlying the module is actively used as a way to dissolve oppositional thinking and binary classifications (e.g. art or math, thinking or feeling, economic or social, etc.)

Lecturer: Prof. Kathrin Böhm
Date: 16 to 19 April 2026 and 13 to 14 June 2026

Module “Aesthetic Corporate Design”

The sustainability transition in a corporate context requires profound changes in organizational culture, in our mental models and attitudes, and thus also in the images and narratives that shape our perception and thinking. Aesthetic approaches that take emotionality, visuality, and irreducible complexity seriously as elements of organizational design can be an effective extension of the dominant rational-analytical management perspectives. The module provides academically grounded access to perspectives on aesthetics in the corporate context, demonstrates the effects of the aesthetic in concrete fields of action, and offers opportunities for practical experimentation with aesthetic methods in corporate management. The aesthetic dimension thus becomes recognizable as an important space for shaping change processes, especially for the organization’s sustainability development.

The module imparts knowledge and skills in the following subject areas:

• Aesthetics and organization: terms, concepts, lines of research
• Aesthetic capitalism
• Functions of the aesthetic dimension in the organization as a whole
• Emotionality in the corporate context
• Aesthetic leadership and work
• Aesthetics in the organization’s sustainability development
• Methods of aesthetic organizational research
• Approaches to designing and staging materiality, body, and space in the organizational context

Lecturers: Prof. Dr. Susanne Blazejewski, Hans-Jürgen Frank
Date: 14 April 2026 and 15 to 18 June 2026

• Proof of higher education entrance qualification (e.g. Abitur, advanced technical college entrance qualification, vocational training with professional experience, in accordance with KunstHG §41)
• At least one year of professional experience relevant to the field
• International applicants must have sufficient German language skills, both written and spoken

After successful completion and provided the admission requirements applicable there are met, the certificate can also be credited toward the master’s degree program “Business Administration – Shaping a Sustainable Economy.” The certificate thus offers the opportunity to earn a master’s degree in business administration step by step while working.

Are you interested in the Academic Continuing Education Intro to Business Administration? We would be happy to advise you personally!

Prof. Dr. Susanne Blazejewski: 02222 9321-1629
Email: zertifikat_wirtschaft@alanus.edu

Please register for the Alanus University modules by email at: zertifikat_wirtschaft@alanus.edu.

You can find the terms of participation here.