Jan Ennker: The art of doing what you want

All in all, Jan Ennker grew up in a sheltered environment in the tranquil town of Lahr in the Black Forest. Only the fact that both his father and mother worked in cardiac surgery at a heart center sometimes had an unfavorable effect on everyday family life. When he did get to see his parents, it was mostly early in the morning and late at night. As a result, he was mostly surrounded and cared for by au pairs from Kazakhstan, Belarus and Ukraine during his childhood. "But that had the advantage that I grew up bilingual in German and Russian," mentions Ennker.

Open and receptive to other people and cultures, Jan Ennker moved to Switzerland at the age of 14 to continue his youth and schooling there. At a boarding school where pupils from more than 45 nations come together, he was certainly no stranger to teething troubles. "What remains from that time are above all the friendships we made around the world, many of which have endured to this day," notes Ennker.

The realization that being a doctor was not just a profession, but rather a calling to help and heal, also prevailed among his siblings. Not so for Jan Ennker: "I don't know exactly why, but the frequent absence of my parents in my childhood certainly played a part in the fact that the medical profession was out of the question for me. But because I otherwise felt disoriented, I put off making a decision about my own professional future for as long as possible," says Ennker, who adds: "My mother and sister in particular encouraged me to go my own way. The main thing is that I stay true to myself and can look in the mirror with pride."

However, his first phase of discovery after his Swiss school-leaving certificate was not completely detached from his family's expectations and ideas. And so he returned to Germany, more precisely to Leibniz University in Hanover, to study law - and to spend more time with his mother, who now lived and worked mainly there. The reason he ended up in an art gallery with her one day was because the motifs on display there seemed familiar to him. A short detour turned into a long conversation with the co-founder of the Kunsthaus Hannover, Frank Hoff, who happened to be there at the time. "We liked each other so much that he suggested I get in touch with him if I was interested in an internship," says Ennker. An offer that he took up after two semesters of law - "a course of study that frustrated me more than it inspired me".

He had barely started his internship when he was given responsibility for a showroom. "It was also my job to introduce our artists to galleries with a similar profile and program," adds Ennker, who, with his engaging manner, even managed to convince the then Albertina General Director Klaus Albrecht Schröder in a phone call to loan an oil painting from a private collection to the Albertina Modern. "That was the moment when I tasted blood," says Ennker. Or to put it another way: A moment so lasting that he has seen himself and his professional future in the art field ever since. And suddenly there are childhood memories of visits to museums with his family or Russian Orthodox icons hanging or leaning on walls. Or the book entitled "Medicine in the Mirror of Art", which stood on the shelf in his mother's apartment and which he leafed through countless times during his law studies and a lockdown.

The question of which degree program would best reflect his newly awakened interest led him to the CCM Bachelor's program at ZU. He was ultimately convinced by questions such as: How do you curate an exhibition? How do you get funding? What skills does a museum director need? How do cultural organizations work? And what are the interfaces between culture and politics? "But what fascinated me most about my studies was that I was suddenly able to name and substantiate my practical observations theoretically. For example, when French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu's habitus concept explains why people behave the way they do in a museum, or his capital theory explains the cultural, symbolic, social and economic value of works of art."

Another particular highlight for him was his participation in the تواصل [Tawasol] Cultural Production and Policy Network. A network that explored transcultural collaboration in the field of tension between the role of the arts in society between the WANA region and Germany; that took him to Beirut, Cairo and Tunis; that led to the exhibition "Places in the In-Between", curated together with Ricarda Hommann and Julia Hartmann, which was dedicated to the transitional spaces between geography, identity and political localization.

However, it was not theory alone that made Jan Ennker opt for the CCM Bachelor's degree, but also the prospect of applying the knowledge he had acquired in practice. And so he enrolled on a practical course, which was all about designing and curating a cultural festival as part of a student team. After six months of preparation, the time had come in the fall of 2023: under the motto "Fluid Spaces. A Festival for Decentralized", the Seekult Festival took place all over the city. Jan Ennker was primarily responsible for requesting, inviting and supervising musicians. He was also the one who, together with the owner of Blumenhaus Mayer, Florian Mayer, revived an idea: while the greenhouse used to host certain ZU events, it was now once again used as a venue for student-organized concerts. "Playing at such a well-known venue was of course a great opportunity for us to facilitate encounters between students and citizens," explains Ennker.