Jan-Tage Kühling
Germany
Dr. Jan-Tage Kühling is a theatre and performance scholar, culture maker, and artist. Since 2023, he is serving as the director of the Goethe-Institute in Yerevan, Armenia.
His artistic focus revolves around the mundane, the everyday, and concepts of ‘home’ and belonging within art-in-context and community performance, emphasizing the connection to the more-than-human world and ecology. He explores small forms of performance and the interaction between human and non-human actors, with a particular interest in the representation of individual and collective history. His work often addresses these themes in a transcultural context, especially in Central and Eastern Europe. Kühling has directed and collaborated on various projects at festivals like Malta Festival Poznań, Teatr Kana, Wegajty Festival, Vougascapes, Mullae Artspace.
His research covers contemporary performance art, aesthetics, and the performative power of (un)making, with a focus on ecology and the Anthropocene. His dissertation, Ästhetiken des Engagements (transcript, 2024), critically examines the performative mechanisms between human and non-human actors within the eco-political context of the Anthropocene.
From 2015 to 2017, Kühling was part of the managing team at Centrum Amarant in Poznań, Poland, overseeing performance-in-context programming. Between 2021 and 2023, he worked with the Performing Arts Program Berlin, focusing on cultural policy and political initiatives for the arts, particularly regarding rehearsal and working spaces.