The International Cooperation of the Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Arts

The article is devoted to the analysis of international relations, in particular, artistic and educational communications between the Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Arts (formerly the Kharkiv Art and Industrial Institute) and foreign art institutions, which contributed to the strengthening and modernization of the system of design education in the Kharkiv higher education institution. This took place in difficult conditions of the formation of a new direction of artistic and industrial education, which was fighting for its place under the sun in an artistic milieu, brought up on the aesthetics and ideals of easel art. The fruitful long-term relationship of Kharkiv designers with the Higher School of Art Design Burg Giebichenstein (Halle, Germany) gave the opportunity to many teachers and students of the then Academy to travel to Germany from the mid-1970s to the early 2000s to gain professional, design and pedagogical experience. Other isolated international connections, actions and design developments of teachers and students of the Soviet-era HUDPROM were supplemented in the difficult 1990s and early 2000s by only private contacts. The situation became much better in the second half of the zero, when the number and quality of international contacts began to grow before our eyes, both at the horizontal and vertical levels. The author shows the facts and results of such international contacts, which, in particular, led to the HUDPROM joining the European League of Art Institutions ELIA, partnership with a number of Polish institutions (the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, the Institute of Social Sciences from the sister city of Poznań, the Adam Mickiewicz Institute in Warsaw), Bar-Iran University in Israel, international foundations in Italy and Germany, etc. These relations have been supplemented in recent years by professional contacts with the People's Republic of China, Turkey, Poland, Lithuania, Georgia, Armenia and England. The result of the signed agreements, in particular, was the study of many Chinese students and postgraduates at the KSADA, regular trips to China by teachers to conduct master classes in the art and design profession. All this provided important experience and impetus for the expansion of further cooperation.