Old School – Institute for Contemporary Art, also known as Old School ICA or OSICA, is a non-governmental organisation dedicated to art exhibitions, performances, cultural events, and academic discourse, including lectures, seminars, and colloquia, located on the city island of Havelberg in the Landkreis Stendal of Saxony-Anhalt.
The house at Schulstraße 3 in Havelberg was built at the beginning of the 19th century and initially served as a tannery's production facility and as a residence for its owners. It survived the town fire of 1870 relatively unscathed, one of only a few buildings to do so. After the Spitter tannery ceased operations in the early 1950s, the building was used as accommodation for displaced persons and refugees, later, from the late 1960s until shortly after German reunification, as a primary school. The building is part of the archaeological site of Havelberg Island.

In 2014, cultural scholar and publicist Wolf Guenter Thiel acquired the building and, together with artist and graphic designer Anke Leonhardt, renovated it between 2014 and 2020 using historical building materials and respecting its former school use. In addition to their private living quarters, the building houses exhibition and seminar rooms, an open workshop and a guest studio for artists.
From May to October 2015, an exhibition by the Johann Heinrich von Thünen Institute, Braunschweig, was held at Old School ICA, coinciding with the 2015 Federal Garden Show (BUGA) in the Havel region. The exhibition showcased examples of sustainable development in rural areas, agriculture, forestry, fisheries and the timber industry. In autumn 2015, a collaboration with Landeskultur Jugend (LKJ) Sachsen-Anhalt began and is ongoing. In December 2015, a tea room for unaccompanied minor refugees was established in cooperation with Theater der Altmark, Stendal. Since 2015, Old School ICA
has participated in the annual Short Film Day, the annual Day of Printmaking, the Long Week of Sustainability, and the Intercultural Week. In August 2016, Hayati e.V., represented by its chairperson, Gerald Walter, started a fruitful cooperation with Old School ICA. A collaboration with Freiwilligenagentur der Altmark, represented by Marion Zosel Mohr, also started in 2016 and is ongoing. Since then, a wide variety of formats in the fields of youth culture and education, as well as adult education, have been continuously implemented. Kinderstärken e.V. proved to be a continuous partner representing a funding instrument of the Bundesministerium für Familie, Senioren, Frauen und Jugend via the federal programme „Demokratie Leben!“.

Guest artists who worked at the Old School ICA included Azby Brown, Hofstetter Kurt, Barbara Doser, Kristian von Hornsleth, Gerhard Bähr, Aneta Panek, Bruno Raetsch, Lado Karthishvili, Arif Amirov, Dana Laszlo da Costa, Thomas Redl, Iv Toshain, Tinkebell, Thomas Harzem, Günther Klam, Ingrid Bahrs, Heidulf Gerngross, Anna Baumann, Christine Liebich, Olga Fisch, Wieland Krause, Yoko Hata, Franziska Seifert ...

Old School ICA aims to promote arts and culture in Havelberg, the Altmark and Prignitz regions, as well as the whole federal state of Saxony-Anhalt. To this end, Old School ICA has developed educational programs that emphasise the connection between culture and social work and offers experiential learning programs with artists and cultural professionals. In 2024, the program "Zukunft Gestalten" was implemented in collaboration with Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle and Kinderstärken e. V., an institute at Magdeburg-Stendal University of Applied Sciences. Since 2025, Wolf Guenter Thiel has been on the board of Akademie der Künste Sachsen-Anhalt, Halle, and Anke Leonhardt is an active member of the BBK Sachsen-Anhalt. Since 2022, Old School ICA has organised an annual conference called UTOPIENALE. In 2025, UTOPIENALE moved partly to Berlin, cooperating with Silent Green, Half Sister and the Cordts Art Foundation. In 2026, the international conference will take place at both Silent Green, Berlin, and Old School ICA, Havelberg. UTOPIENALE is cooperating with Hayati e.V., Leipzig.