For 12 years, the ADKDW has been an indispensable part of Cologne's and international art and cultural scene. We create programs, exhibitions and events that provide artistic impulses and enrich social discourse. The City of Cologne's 2025/26 budget proposal, which threatens the existence of the ADKDW, would prevent us from continuing our work of many years.
That is why we are currently receiving a lot of support and solidarity. Numerous friends and supporters of the ADKDW have sent us statements that we are publishing here, on our website and on social media.
Dr. Yilmaz Dziewior, Director of the Ludwig Museum:
The Academy of Arts of the World is of great importance for Cologne as well as for international and global art. It connects local artists with those invited to Cologne from different continents. The exchange that takes place here is of inestimable value and great sustainability. In its interdisciplinary program and unique structure, in which members from around the world provide important impulses for the program, topics are explored in depth and in sometimes very experimental formats. There is no other place like the Academy of the Arts of the World in our city, which is why Cologne's politicians must do everything they can to strengthen this nationally and internationally acclaimed institution.
Ekaterina Degot, artistic director of steirischer herbst, former artistic director of ADKDW:
The Academy of the Art of the World Cologne is a unique institution, and as its former artistic director, I am deeply troubled by proposed cuts to its funding that would put its existence to an end. Today, the racism, xenophobia, and totalitarianism of the past seem to be returning as part of a larger shift in politics. Cologne needs the Academy of the Arts of the World, which can and should be a beacon of diversity, pluralism, and democracy. To give it up means giving in to today’s worst tendencies.
donna Kukama, Professor of Contemporary Art / Global South at the Academy of Media Arts (KHM:
ADKDW is unique in NRW as the only institution dedicated to amplifying global voices while fostering a cross-cultural exchange with local artists. It has offered our students invaluable access to voices from the Global South that would otherwise remain out of reach. Its loss would harm Cologne’s cultural diversity and limit vital global perspectives for students, artists, and audiences in the region.
Binna Choi, ADKDW member, curator of the Hawai'i Trienniale 2025:
The diversity of culture across the world is what keeps fascinating us human beings. As much there is much to (un)learn in and about the world, while it’s up to us to shape the world in the way we think and want it to be. The Akademie der Künste der Welt is such a place where we learn and find joy in our differences and imagine the world otherwise. As an art institution of unprecedented form, the Akademie der Künste der Welt is what makes Cologne stay connected to the world, part of the world and be actors for new world. We cannot loose this power merely after twelve years of its becoming, that means Cologne loose a world for sure if not many more.
Silvia Fehrmann, Director of the Artists-in-Berlin Program of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD):
The ADKDW is unique. It makes it visible that Cologne is an international city, it drives the creation of new things. Its liquidation would leave a sad void. Who else brings the arts, science and society to joint action?
Prof. Dr. Isabell Lorey, Professor of Queer Studies in Arts and Science at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne (KHM)
For six years, since I started teaching at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne, I have been in discussion and cooperation with the various directors of the ADKDW: Madhusree Dutta, Max Jorge Hinderer Cruz and Ala Younis. The various collaborations have always been extremely enriching for the KHM. The ADKDW is one of the most important, innovative and pioneering art institutions in Cologne. Through its international artist program, the academy brings outstanding personalities to Cologne who have an impact across the city. The postcolonial studies program and the discursive events associated with it, led by Max Jorge Hinderer Cruz, have enriched and fruitfully stimulated contemporary debates on art and philosophy not only in Cologne, but as far away as Berlin. The name and activities of the academy are known far beyond Germany and Europe and shape Cologne's international perception. Cologne has hardly any other art institution that enriches the city with such outstanding discursive events. It is with great dismay that I hear that the city of Cologne is considering cutting funding to the ADKDW. I can only urge you not to let these considerations become reality. The work of the ADKDW must continue.
As artists, filmmakers, curators, educators, and community organizers from Hawaiʻi active within local and global art discourses we express our support of the Akademie der Künste der Welt (Academy of the Arts of the World, ADKDW). Furthermore, as recent artists-in-residence at the ADKDW we can attest first hand to the positive impact that the organization has had on our creative practice as well as the ways in which we have in turn contributed positively to the art ecosystem of Cologne.
We are saddened to learn that the proposed 2025/2026 budget of the city of Cologne includes plans to discontinue funding for the ADKDW. We believe the work of the ADKDW and the numerous individuals and communities it serves is important and should continue as it helps to perpetuate cultural diversity, international appeal, and critical discourse within Cologne. It is our hope that the city will continue to provide funding for future residencies and collaborations through the ADKDW. Doing so will ensure that the arts and artists of Cologne continue to be in meaningful dialogue with those of the world. Indeed, exchange between the cultures of the world through creative expression—art, film, performance, exhibitions, workshops, panel discussions, etcetera—within community venues, institutional settings, and educational environments is vital to the health and well-being of every society.
From the very beginning, the academy has thrived on the involvement of its members. Unlike the usual advisory boards, these members do not have a purely representative function. They shape the academy with their projects and discussions, in terms of both content and structure. As a result the ADKDW is always very specifically grounded, or local – in Cologne, in North Rhine-Westphalia, in Germany – and global, committed to an internationalism that accompanies, informs and permeates all its processes. What allows us members to participate and contribute – testing formats, researching topics, playing through constellations, putting art in practice – is the ADKDW’s openness: The academy extends invitations. I for one am very grateful for the ones I have received.
For us as artists, the Academy of Arts of the World is an indispensable place where important discourses are conducted in an open and inclusive way. Our students also appreciate the ADKDW for exactly this reason. To no longer support an institution that is firmly committed to addressing social issues such as migration, racism and the consequences of colonialism would be a disastrous signal – not only for Cologne.
David Riff, writer, artist and curator, former ADKDW member:
I was deeply saddened and worried to hear about the impending closure of the Academy of the Arts of the World in Cologne. Its disappearance will close off an important space for cultural exchange and diversity and a crucial international venue for Cologne’s huge cultural potential.
I had the honor of being a member of the Academy in its early days and helped to define its content and programming for several years. Together with the Academy’s amazingly hard-working team, we built a sustainable structure for an eye-level institution that could hold challenging debates and foster new artworks impossible in larger and more “official” spaces.
Cologne, like any German city, faces troubled and complex histories of racism, antisemitism, and violence against minorities. To address these today in open spaces for debate remains paramount and to close the Academy is a huge strategic mistake, impoverishing Cologne and destroying its democratic culture and values.
Yvan Herve Butera, artist and curator, ADKDW Artist-in-Residence 2023
As an alumnus of the ADKDW's Participatory Residency Program in 2023, I witnessed firsthand the transformative power of the ADKDW. It provided me with a platform to explore my art and curatorial skills as an artist, curator and theater director while fostering meaningful connections with an international community of creatives. ADKDW is more than an institution, it is a vital space where cultural innovation, social diversity, and global dialogue converge. Its presence significantly enhances Cologne's reputation as a vibrant, inclusive, and forward-thinking city. Discontinuing its work would not only silence countless underrepresented voices but also diminish the city's international cultural appeal and social fabric.
Sabine Keller, cultural program at the Alte Feuerwache in Cologne:
For me, the Academy of the Arts of the World is an integral part of Cologne's cultural scene. It brings together creatives from all over the world and ensures that Cologne remains diverse and open. Without it, Cologne would lose an important center for international exchange and innovative art projects.
Adriana Schneider Alcure, artist and dramaturge, ADKDW member:
The Akademie der Künste der Welt is a crossroads of ways of life, experiences, perspectives, worldviews and, why not, cosmopoetics. This crossroads institution is a place (also a non-place) of continuous movement for the encounter between people. The political-aesthetic project of the ADKDW is to create territorialities in Cologne, while at the same time being deterritorialized by the presence of its members who, in turn, territorialize themselves in Cologne, and so on. This concept of an institution is, in fact, sophisticated and bold. Even though its governance model is complex, also because it does not fear dissent, it has simultaneously carried out transversal projects of local-international relevance and scope. It should be noted that the commissioning of projects by the ADKDW is never a one-way street; on the contrary, its members bring assets from their own institutions and networks in their countries of origin. We do not work for events, but rather for the continuity, duration and legacy of projects. We have already experienced moments in the history of Nation-States in which budgets for the arts and culture were cut in order to militarize societies. And we know where this will lead. The terrible surprise is that we are in 2024, and the option is still the economy of fear and war. And even local politics are surrendering to warlords.
Prof. Dr. Nina Möntmann, Professor of Art Theory, University of Cologne:
Since its inception, the Academy of the Arts of the World has developed a profile that has created a space with high-profile exhibitions and discursive formats in which local participation meets a program of international standing. Diversity is not just a buzzword here, frozen in the bureaucracy of an institution, but a lived artistic, academic and social exchange, in Cologne as well as in global networks. When democratic spaces falter and forms of social interaction become increasingly violent, the city of Cologne must do everything it can to support and maintain this place.
Prof. Dr. Lilian Haberer, Professor of art studies with an expanded concept of material Kunsthochschule für Medien, Cologne (KHM):
The ADKDW must be preserved as a sustainable, intercultural, social centre for shared thinking, learning and critical discourse within Cologne's cultural fabric! As an indispensable part of the city with a sophisticated, international programme of heterogeneous voices, it is particularly important right now.
Anna Bromley, Assistant professor art and media studies at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne (KHM):
The planned 100% cut will attack an institution whose artistic and dialogic program, well known far beyond North Rhine-Westphalia, has been built up over years with funding from the city of Cologne. I call on the city council to stop the liquidation of the ADKDW, as well as other socially relevant initiatives!
Michael Mayer, DJ, producer and head of the techno label Kompakt:
Since 2021, the music-related discussion format “Learning to Listen” has been held monthly at Kompakt Record Store as a collaboration between Kompakt and the ADKDW. This event has provided the neural network of Cologne's cultural life with completely new, valuable connections.
Madhusree Dutta, filmmaker, former artistic director of ADKDW:
The name of the institution Akademie der Künste der Welt was given by the Cologne City council and it was founded as a non-profit company owned by the city, in 2012. The current proposal from the city – advocating liquidation of the institution – proves that the authority took it literally that an Academy of Arts of the World is only a mere company, and can be founded and liquidated at the will of its owners. But in this intervening 12 years large number of artists and thinkers from all over the globe, some as members, some others as fellows and as guest artists, have raised the stake of this ‘company’ by contributing their intellectual and creative labour, and thus have put the name of Cologne in the contemporary culture map. They agreed to be part of this exercise as the statute of the institution promised a new vision. From the Statue of the Academy: “§ 2 Objectives and activities (1) As a cultural institution of a new type, the Academy reflects on and addresses the social and cultural transformation brought on by processes of globalization, migration, post-colonialism, etc. Its purpose is to promote the international, and especially non-European, contemporary arts and to enrich the cultural life of Cologne. The Academy activates the capacities of art and public discourse to highlight the potentials of an intercultural urban society. It operates as an independent platform of intellectual, aesthetic, and political engagement with questions of interculturality and global cultural production in all their dimensions. Guided by the idea that it is a steadily changing cultural and political experiment, the Academy develops and supports new forms of thinking about art and culture in the globalized world. It aims to build networks, offer hospitality and support for creative artists from all over the world, and create access to cultural and artistic practices for people who have been excluded from them for sociocultural, economic, political, or other reasons.” The Academy, with deft guidance from its members, has been continuously working on developing a model of art practices that is simultaneously pedagogical, dialogic, counter-hegemonic, speculative and also healing. Academy’s functioning is different from other conventional and mono-disciplined institutions – because it has been committed to interfaces and exchanges. Are we to understand that the City of Cologne is now embarrassed of its own vision declared in 2012 and want to liquidate this forward-looking institution, in favour of some jaded monolithic institution? If so, who will compensate for the time and efforts of the members – around 50 eminent artists, authors, curators and thinkers from across the globe? And thereafter, who will take responsibility for the new hope for inter-culturality that Academy had developed among the various marginalized communities in the city and in the region?
Daniel Loick, philosopher and social scientist:
It's simple: there can be no democracy without art and discourse. Artistic institutions should therefore not have to justify their existence to state authorities. On the contrary, these authorities should be constantly asking themselves whether they have done enough to promote free discourse and artistic exchange. Maintain the ADKDW, increase their budget tenfold!
We are writing to express our support for Academie der Künste der Welt. Together we have been involved in ADKDW programming and highly impressed with its impact. This institution has been an invaluable resource to students in North Rhineland-Westphalia as the principle body to promote and showcase both local and international artists representing the Global South. The institution fosters cooperation and creativity in the valuable arts scene of Cologne in particular. Without it, the city and the region, and especially university students in the region, would be greatly disadvantaged in developing an accurate global perspective on contemporary art.
Over the years, ADKDW has provided unwavering support for artists, created fertile grounds for exciting art, and bridged gaps between art and community. Our culture, our cities, and society would not be the same without institutions like ADKDW.
Dr. Nikolai Blaumer, Consultant for Residences, Goethe-Institut:
The Goethe-Institut and the ADKDW work together in a spirit of trust, for example in the Working Group of German International Residency Programs (ADIR). The closure of the academy would be a real loss for Cologne and for international cultural exchange.
