Up to now under the auspices of Art Special: Hansa, a total of about sixty artists have agreed to an encounter, i.e. a sustained collaboration with young people over a long period, with the world of school, itself naturally alien to them. Among the participants, a great many pupils from the UNESCO School Hansa-Gymnasium examined a list of artists put forward by the organisers and picked a particular artist whose work appealed to them with the aim of becoming patrons. This duty entailed mediating between the artist, the school group working with the respective artist, the teachers and parents, as well as the organisers throughout the whole process. Once again, teachers and parents also contributed ideas and material assistance to the realisation of Art Special: Hansa. In 1996, the artists prepared the artworks on the topic of School and UNESCO together with the school students in their free time, and when everything was ready, the works transformed the school building into a temporary art museum. In 1997, Art Special: Hansa was geared towards genres in art and was governed by the overall theme of performance art. Artists worked on their presentations as team teachers in courses and classes. In 1998, the project was devoted to the 50th anniversary of the UN Declaration of Human Rights and was organised along interdisciplinary lines. The majority of the presentations took place outside the Hansa-Gymnasiums in different, well-established venues within the Cologne art scene; the projects were realized with pupils from other schools in keeping with characteristic networking ideas put forward by UNESCO’s Schools` Policy. Between1996 and 1998, Art Special: Hansa was a research project sponsored by the Federal Ministry for Education, Science, Research and Technology. In 2006 the range artistic genres was extended. Art Special: Hansa enabled individual collaborations between pupils of year groups with fine artists, musicians, and now for the first time with writers as well. It represented a manifestation culturelle involving art both inside and outside. The idea of a network—as was the case in the third edition of Art Special: Hansa—is at the centre of the 2010 event. The impetus behind this is the “Bildungslandschaft Altstadt Nord” (BAN), a pilot scheme instigated by the City of Cologne, which numbers the Hansa-Gymnasium as one of its co-participants. Six schools and youth centres will be taking part in this scheme initiated by the City council and sponsored by two federal ministries (BMVBS/Bundesministerium für Verkehr, Bau und Stadtentwicklung and BBR/Bundesamt für Bauwesen und Raumordnung). The aim is to promote a plan for a “seamless educational link” for children and young people and which envisages a communal refectory and sports facilities for the all the respective institutions. During this preparatory planning phase, Art Special: will stage events at participating venues and also invite fine artists, writers, and musicians to engage in dialogue with the pupils of the six BAN locations. Carl Richard Montag’s Bonn foundations are sponsors of the “Bildungslandschaft” in the Northern part of the cathedral City. The exhibition itself is not intended to be theme or hypothesis-based; it will be concerned rather with the inherent diversity of the identities of the participating educational institutions—and that is the exciting core component of this year’s event, coupled with the possibility of project work that is able to extend beyond the physical boundaries of a given venue. They include: the Cologne Night School and Technical College (Abendgymnasium und Weiterbildungskolleg Köln), the Klingelpütz Youth Centre, Gereonswall Primary (All Day), Gereonswall Secondary (All Day), the Tower Catholic Youth Centre (das Jugendhaus Tower der Katholischen Studierenden Jugend) and the UNESCO School Hansa-Gymnasium. The arena takes in Klingelpützpark and the Hansa-Park, two very small green areas with a football pitch, a children’s play area, a half-pipe for skaters, as well as several benches. Over different periods of time and different degrees of intensity! On the whole, the majority of the artists and pupils meet a full sixth months before the presentation, then visual artists and musicians collaborate either directly with the pupils, or via letters, telephone, Skype, or email. Some of the pupils are more like assistants, some actually get involved with the project’s overall design, whereas others actually become the object of the work. It the case of literature, there are encounters between the writer and the pupils—they are duly inspired by respective writers to create Literary Rooms, which in most cases is a multi-media space. This process is supervised by a teacher. Writers then read from their works within this constructed space.
The student sponsors have already signed up for duty a year in advance of the project’s start. They decide upon the specific artist they want to work with on the basis of material provided such as publications, videos, CDs. The collaboration between the artists and the pupils can take place in the pupils’ leisure time, but also within timetabled lessons. The institutions providing all day school supervision will use different set of timings than the other named schools or the night school and technical college.
Classes and interdisciplinary work in the spectrum of themes Leisure/School and UNESCO

1. The British artist Matt Hale installs interactive sculptures that visualize proverbs
2. The Chinese Heinrich Böll Stipend holder, Wang Cheng allows pupils— using Chinese calligraphy—to work on his painting
3. In the school cellar with its national socialist past, the Polish artist Ryszard Wasko installs spaces with the pupils that have both good and bad memories
4. The performance installation and recitation of self-written poetry by the Spanish singer, composer and performer Maria de Alvear with her project patron.

Genre-oriented approach by performance artists as coaches and team teachers in classes and courses

1. Cognitive and performative approach to chaos theory with the Finnish artist and mathematics professor Irma Optimist according to the formula "Animal Baby" + feminist mathematics = x
2. The Irish artist André Stitt visualizes ritual existential objects together with the pupils
3. Fluxus Improvisation Fast Food based on lessons on “Happening” and “Fluxus” by the French artist Charles Dreyfuss

Cross-school and cross-curricular projects on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the UN Declaration of Human Rights in accordance with UNESCO philosophy.

1. The American electronic musician Bob Ostertag in concert with pupils about human rights violations.
2. Pupils model heads for the sound installation entitled Türkenkopfstechen (a tournament game that took place in nineteenth century Vienna) by the artist Esra Ersen (Turkey).
3. By way of a commentary, pupils supplement the collection of the Museum of the City of Cologne

Cross-school and cross-curricular projects in pupils’ free time

1. Inspired by meetings with writers (Jorge Luis Arzola/Navid Kermani/Javier Salinas/Najem Wali), as well as their books, the pupils devised a Literary Room in conjunction with their teachers, in which the writers read aloud from their works.
2. Kati Barath invites Year 5 pupils to her studio, has them keep painting sketchbook diaries over the summer holidays and presents paintings and drawings in a class room within the school
3. The sound artist Ralf Schreiber constructs solar sound modules with the pupils and has them dance, animated by the light of the overhead projector, so that they appear as shadowplay on the ceiling.

Cross-school and cross-curricular projects in pupils’ leisure time

1. Inspired by encounters with writer Jaume Cabré and the authoress Juli Zeh as well as their books, the pupils set up a Literary Room in conjunction with their teachers, in which the writers read from their books. Secondary and grammar school pupils slam with the slam poet Florian Cieslik; the authoresses Kathrin Röggla and Anja Tuckermann the students and pupils of Night School and the Primary School respectively create their Literary Room.
2. The sound artist Erwin Stache stages a concert with lower school pupils from the Hansa-Gymnasiums in the art room using all the objects there that are electronically equipped
3. Using casual drawings and doodles produced during boring lessons, the artist Peter Zimmermann produces large-format murals in conjunction with students from the Night School and the Hansa-Gymnasiums.