The Silent University, initiated by artist Ahmet Öğüt in 2012, is an autonomous platform for academics who cannot share their knowledge because of their status of residence, unrecognized degrees or their access to academia is blocked for other reasons. It is a solidary school by refugees, asylum seekers and migrants who contribute to the program as lecturers, consultants and researchers.
The Silent University proposes a new institution outside of the restrictions of existing universities, migration laws and the other bureaucratic or juridical obstacles many migrants face. At the same time it mimics the idea of exiting universities, using their representational logics by developing alternative structures of pedagogy beyond border politics, race/ethnicity and normative education.
This first comprehensive publication about the Silent University introduces the initiative and contextualizes it in the wider framework of both radical pedagogy and socially engaged art projects. In addition, all current branches of the Silent University – in Amman, Athens, Hamburg, Mülheim/Ruhr, London, and Stockholm – describe their very different achievements as well as their struggles and failures.

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Inspired by the Israeli memorial day Yom HaShoah, the holiday that commemorates victims and resistance fighters of the Holocaust, Yael Bartana’s Two Minutes of Standstill took place on June 28, 2013, at 11 a.m., as part of the Impulse Theater Biennale in the city of Cologne. A symbolic interruption of everyday life, Two Minutes of Standstill was a political act, a social sculpture, and a collective performance.
 Historically, the act of a silent standstill is a way to commemorate the dead. Bartana’s artwork, however, also calls for a reflection on the present. During the preparation for the performance a range of reactions occurred that were both positive and critical. What does the specific way this history is told in Germany tell us about the country today? And why did Bartana’s performance provoke such strong reactions?
This catalogue is a documentation of Two Minutes of Standstill, revealing the ideas behind the work and the process that led to its realization. The book includes several essays that discuss possible interpretations and consequences of the artwork, questioning the role of history and commemoration in Germany today.

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