Events

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

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2015

Projects

kaɦ.na.vˈaw | Spirituality, Economics and Politics


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.

The Potosí-Principle Archive

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.

Decolonial Studies Program (DSP)


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

ADKDW Residency


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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Participatory Residency Program


The Participatory Residency Program is aimed at artists and activists who work interactive and want to develop a program for the local scenes and communities in Cologne. With workshops, film screenings, readings, or open-mics, the program particularly addresses multiple marginalized individuals and groups who are excluded from the discourses of mainstream society, e.g. because of their origin, religion, class, disabilities, and/or sexual orientation. ADKDW hosts the Participatory Residency Program twice a year in collaboration with changing local partner institutions. The purpose of the program is to strengthen the social participation of marginalized groups and to support the actors in expressing their living realities in an artistic way.

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

The Participatory Residency Program is currently being shaped by the German-Nigerian artist and designer Olivia Emefiele. Her works reflect anti-racist and socio-political narratives and discourses. The artist will be working in creative workshops with pupils at the Jugendwerkstatt Chorweiler until mid-July 2024.

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Research- and work scholarships


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; applications are not possible
- The selection of the Artists-in-Residence is made by the Members' Council and the Artistic Director of the ADKDW

From April to June 2024, artist and filmmaker Dr Mriganka Madhukaillya will be our guest. With his film Swamp things, he makes the organic and inorganic voices of the city - from minerals to ecosystems and microorganisms - audible. Dr Mriganka Madhukaillya is realizing the film project in collaboration with Dr Maan Barua (University of Cambridge) and sound artist Ralf Wendt. In a lecture performance, they will present Swamp things to the Cologne audience and talk about how theory and visual thinking shed light on each other in the filmmaking process.

In May and June 2024, we welcome the artist Dardan Zhegrova, to Cologne as artist-in-residence, whose works were shown at Manifesta 14 in Prishtina in 2022, among others. Dardan Zhegrova's works are oriented towards objects and performance. His works are most often based on poems, which are always at the beginning of the conception of a new work. The breaking down of various boundaries in Zhegrova's work also reflects his queer identity, which oscillates between feminine and masculine attributes and consciously rejects and transcends a normative understanding of gender.

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We welcome your questions and suggestions!

residency@adkdw.org
phone +49 (0) 176 8597 8860

The ADKDW Residency is realized with the kind support of the RheinEnergieStiftung Kultur. The Participatory Residency Program with Olivia Emefiele is realized in cooperation with the Jugendwerkstatt Chorweiler.

Perverse Decolonization


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

Festival of Original Fakes


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


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.

Youth Academy

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.

Pluriversale

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.

Exhibitions

2023