With ALI HUSSEIN AL-ADAWY, DOA ALY, YENNU ARIENDRA, STEFANIE BAILEY, ANTONIA BEESKOW, WALTRAUD BLISCHKE, MERV ESPINA, RAED IBRAHIM, NAEEM MOHAIEMEN, DIRK PAESMANS (JODI COLLECTIVE), BOJANA PISKUR, RITA PONCE DE LEON, KESHAV PURUSHOTHAM, SALWA ALERYANI, BARIŞ DOĞRUSÖZ, HÖRNER/ANTLFINGER, ANNA ZETT,KORHAN YURTSEVER ,YUSSIF MUSAH
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The fabric of the world continues to constantly change through wars, uprisings, migrations, pandemics, melting ice, devastating fires, scarcity of food resources and shifts in capital. Titled Not Afraid of Art the ADKDW invites to explore how the world, the world of art and the world of cultural institutions can be rethought.
With Not Afraid of Art, the ADKDW will be presenting a 3-year project in which the academy members and international artists and thinkers collaborate with the art scene in Cologne. The aim is to create a space for (co)learning and to cultivate an understanding of the social and political potential of the arts. Within this broad project, the exhibition Memory is not only past will kick off in April 2024. The exhibition probes time as it manifests itself not only in human memories, but also as institutional subjects, objects and archives. Our memories accumulate into biographies of individuals and societies. They also guide our actions in the present. What is at stake? Accompanying performances, film screenings and workshops provide an opportunity to explore these issues.
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Artists are also exploring the Not Afraid of Art project in texts, drawings and sound pieces. The commissioned works circulate in the ADKDW's digital and physical publications. Furthermore an annually summer academy will delve deeper into the leitmotif Not Afraid of Art. Accompanied by musical performances, the academy members and their guest speakers will enter into a dialogue with the local cultural scene in lectures and talks. We cordially invite artists, cultural professionals and all interested Cologne residents to engage, learn and discuss together with us!
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with FLAVIA BERTON, CORDÃO DO BOITATÁ, YLÊ ASÈ EGI OMIM, MUDA OUTRAS ECONOMIAS, SAÚVA, TARTAR INITIATIVE, PANAMÉRICA TRANSATLÂNTICA, THIAGO ROSA, JOTA RAMOS, BLACK PEARL DE ALMEIDA LIMA A.K.A. BLACK PEARL SAINT LAURENT, YÁ WANDA DE OMOLU, SAÚVA, THAIS NEPOMUCENO VAIGA, ALEX MELLO
In collaboration with LUSOTAQUE, CORAL VOZES DO BRASIL, MARACATU COLÔNIA
Curated by ADRIANA SCHNEIDER ALCURE UND KIKO HORTA
A Carnival project of the ADKDW in collaboration with the Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum, Cologne and the Carnival Association Cordão do Boitatá, Rio de Janeiro.
Carnival is not only a popular occasion for celebration in different longitudes and latitudes around the world. Carnival itself is also a socio-political event. From the history of Carnival, one can derive fundamental developments and changes in political and social nature. In addition to Cologne, Cologne's twin city Rio des Janeiro is also a famous carnival city. Of particular interest in the case of Rio de Janeiro - in relation to carnival - is the connection between the levels of spirituality, economy and politics. The project kaɦ.na.vˈaw | Spirituality, Economics and Politics wants to reflect this connection from Cologne and the Rhineland. Last but not least, the roots of the Brazilian carnival and the migration in Cologne and the Rhineland will be of central importance. Over the period between summer and autumn 2023, workshops, concerts and music performances, artistic presentations, as well as a performative symposium in collaboration with different institutions and migrant associations of Cologne will take place in this context. The project is artistically directed by Adriana Schneider Alcure, who is an ADKDW Academy Member, the co-founder of the carnival association Cordão do Boitatá and professor of theater at the University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), and the Brazilian film and theater director, actor and theater educator Alex Mello, who lives in Cologne and Bonn.
In cooperation with the Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum and the The Centre for International Cultural Education of the Goethe-Institut Bonn. Funded by the Kunststiftung NRW.
Exhibition
• Fri 08 04 – Sun 17 07 2022 •
POTOSÍ PRINCIPLE – ARCHIVE
a project by ALICE CREISCHER and ANDREAS SIEKMANN
with MONIKA BAER, JOHN BARKER, STEPHAN DILLEMUTH, INES DOUJAK, ELVIRA ESPEJO AYCA, MARIA GALINDO, DIMITRY GUTOV, HARUN FAROCKI, MIGUEL HILARI, ZHIBIN LIN, DANITZA LUNA, MALVINA (FREUNDE DER TULPE IM DREIECK), EDUARDO MOLINARI, STEPHAN MÖRSCH, MUJERES CREANDO, TOBIAS MORAWSKI, PSYLLOS, DAVID RIFF, ROTER PLATZ (FUSION), KONSTANZE SCHMITT, XAVIERA VILAMITJANA DE LA CRUZ, KARIN DE MIGUEL WESSENDORF a.o.
The city of Potosí in today's Bolivia was, based on forced labor, one of the most important silver mining areas in the world from the 16th to the 18th century. The history of this Latin American mining town illustrates that European capitalism is inconceivable without the colonial exploitation of people and nature.
12 years ago, the exhibition The Potosí Principle examined the decisive influence that silver exploitation had on the global economic power of the time and how the development of industry and banking was conditioned by colonialism and its crimes. The exhibition was shown in 2010/11 at the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid, Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin and the Museo nacional de Arte and MUSEF in La Paz.
The exhibition Potosí Principle – Archive now presents the archive of this project, with which the artists Alice Creischer and Andreas Siekmann want to explore its blind spots and reconnect to the question of where the 'Potosí Principle' - the principle of global exploitation - can be found today.
This re-questioning is done through contemporary works - images and artistic objects - linked to 36 artist-designed booklets. In doing so, the archive is rethinking the artistic practice of the original exhibition, which contrasted baroque imagery from Potosí and the La Paz region with contemporary new productions. The booklets are interwoven through their numerous references and, as in a reading room, invite visitors to engage with the themes of decolonization, extractivism, inquisition, and capitalism.
with PÁVEL AGUILAR, DANIELLE ALMEIDA, ANARCHIVO SIDA, AIMAR ARRIOLA, PALOMA AYALA, PAULA BAEZA PAILAMILLA, ADRIANA DOMINGUEZ, ESPECTROS DE LO URBANO, NANCY GARÍN, MAX JORGE HINDERER CRUZ, MAURIZIO LAZZARATO, DANIEL LOICK, JOANNE RODRIGUEZ, SARAH FATIMA SCHÜTZ, ANTOINE SILVESTRE, VANESSA EILEEN THOMPSON, MARGARITA TSOMOU
The Decolonial Studies Program (DSP) is an education-oriented series of events with a focus on post-colonial, de-colonial and anti-colonial studies. The DSP sees itself as a discursive framework and accompanying program to the major exhibition projects of the Akademie der Künste der Welt (Academy of the Arts of the World, ADKDW) and as a place of its own knowledge production. The content focus from 2022 to 2024 is the investigation of structural colonialism on a global as well as local level and its effects on forms of government, economy and environment, knowledge and knowledge transfer.
In fall 2022, the DSP launches with three event formats: In the joint discourse series On Violence, HAU Hebbel am Ufer and ADKDW will engage in an examination of contemporary expressions of violence together with invited philosophers. A Reading Group allows for a deepening of the content through the joint reading and discussion of Franz Fanon's The Damned of the Earth and the texts of the online lectures of the On Violence series.
An exhibition seminar explores the exhibition HERE AND NOW. Anticolonial Interventions at the Museum Ludwig (08 10 2022 - 05 02 2023), which aims to open up other perspectives of knowledge on the permanent collection of the house. The artists themselves will have their say and enter into a dialogue with the visitors. With the exhibition seminar, ADKDW invites participants to intervene themselves and continue the dialogue through #MLInterventions on social media.
Participation in the events of the Decolonial Studies Program is open to all interested parties. Registration and further information at decolonialstudies@adkdw.org
The ADKDW is a laboratory of experimental knowledge production and artistic research, carried out by a global network of members. In this sense, ADKDW is on the one hand an academy dedicated to the arts of the world; and at the same time, an academy of the arts that belongs to the world.
With the aim of bringing non-European perspectives into dialog with the European public, the ADKDW regularly welcomes artists-in-residence from all over the world to Cologne. The artists-in-residence present their work with their own events in the Academy's program. In the course of the residencies, exhibitions, talks, workshops and much more are created, which are regularly announced on the ADKDW's digital channels.
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The Participatory Residency Program is aimed at artists and activists who work interactively and takes place twice a year in collaboration with changing local partner institutions. In particular multi-marginalized individuals who are excluded from the discourses of mainstream society due to their origin religion, class, disability and/or sexual orientation, for example, are to be supported in expressing the reality of their lives through art.
For artists and/or activists:
- Two scholarships are given out per year for five months each
- Applications are invited via two open calls per year.
For associations, initiatives, collectives, etc.:
- Usually, one cooperation per year is established for twelve months at a time
- Interested organizations can contact residency@adkdw.org
From July to November 2024 the Participatory Residency Program is currently being shaped by RYM JALIL (they/them) - poet, visual anthropologist and food artist. Jalil's work orbits around relationships between memory, social space and cultural significations of food and coffee. Jalil's long-term project "Jebena Talks; Conversations and Ceremony Around Memory and Food" is a space for intimate gathering and exploration of ritual with a focus on themes of access and exclusion. Together with Un-Label, the ADKDW is organising a new residency from April to September 2025. Based on a topic of their choice, an artist-in-residence will develop a participatory programme for the Un-Label network and/or other communities with disabilities and implement it in collaboration with the ADKDW team.
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With research- and work scholarships, the ADKDW brings international artists, thinkers, and cultural professionals to Cologne. They are given the opportunity to get to know the region and its art and creative scene, to conduct research, and to find new impulses for their own work.
For artists, scholars and/or cultural professionals:
- On the recommendation of ADKDW members, 2-3 research and work scholarships are awarded annually by invitation
- The selection of the Artists-in-Residence is made by the Members' Council and the Artistic Director of the ADKDW
From October to December 2024, the film initiative KEKAHI WAHI, led by filmmaker SANCIA MIALA SHIBA NASH and artist DREW K. BRODERICK, will offer a series of interconnected public events including a meet and greet, weaving and reading workshop and film screening, designed to create space for discussion. This residency is realized with support by the DAAD and takes place in collaboration with the Hawai'i Triennial 2025 'ALOHA NŌ'.
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We welcome your questions and suggestions!
residency@adkdw.org
phone +49 (0) 176 8597 8860
Perverse Decolonization is an international research and discussion project addressing the current crisis of Postcolonial Studies and identity politics and its possible appropriation by new nationalisms emerging on a global scale. The project, launched in 2018, proposes to look closely at how the decolonizing agenda is enlisted in reactionary projects, and what new forms of solidarity and common action one might propose to resist these new dangers. The project convenes an international working group of researchers including artists, writers, curators and theorists from different regions (East Asia, Middle East, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, US). Together, they explore the notion of 'perverse decolonization' in the sense of an emancipative process gone wrong, but also bent to fit a rage of new transgressive appetites.
A publication on the project will appear in summer 2021.
Perverse Decolonization is funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation
Hybrid Transactions explores the meaning of hybridity in the face of an unprecedented exchange of people, cultures, goods, technologies and fantasies in modern times, and especially in the context of Western Europe.
found:erased:palimpsest is a public art project carried out in collaboration with Public Historians. The Public Historian is a proposed entity that participates in narrativizing and crafting a larger history by lending, annotating and speculating their personal, familial and social memories.
Original Fakes engages with the production processes that subvert the hegemonic logic of the market by employing various ‘post-original’ methods. These include, among others, upcycling as a material practice and smart post-colonial maneuver, re-inventing artisanal skills in post-industrial labor contexts, the individualization of technologies and the inversion of the politics of appropriation.
Sites at Stake is about the various stakes that work in the making and the un-making of a site – may it be a site of dwelling or a memorial, of minority public culture or hegemonic popular culture, a relic of a post-colonial or post-industrial regime, a territory of military invasion or of art extravaganza.
The Youth Academy offers a forum to artistically reflect on urgent political questions and to exchange ideas about them. In this way, everyone interested can get to know and help to shape alternative forms of education and the ways in which artistic and intellectual issues are being discussed. The projects in this program are based in different genres – from performance and music to video art and visual arts, dance and literature or photography and design. The common thread shared by all participants is their interest in the critical examination of aesthetically inquiring art, political issues and in the transdisciplinary collaboration with other people interested in art and culture.
Under the artistic direction of Ekaterina Degot, PLURIVERSALE took place twice a year from 2014 to 2017, each time for a period of two months. It consisted of site-specific projects, exhibitions, concerts, discussions, film screenings, and performative symposia, and proposed an alternative to the usual rhythms of biennials and their narratives – which too often turn out to be universalist and relativist at once. The format’s name referred to the concept of pluriversality as used by Enrique Dussel, Walter D. Mignolo, and other thinkers from the context of postcolonial studies: the idea that one needs not a universalist, but a ‘pluriversal’ hermeneutic to deal with a world of many entangled cosmologies, the interrelations of which are regulated by a colonial power differential. In this spirit, PLURIVERSALE could be imagined as a platform that rejected a unifying narrative in favor of a critical clustering of different ‘worlds’, nevertheless entangled through their critical, negative, and resistant attitudes to the power differentials of a singular modernity and its universalistic claim.