Akademie der Künste der Welt

Info

The Academy of the Arts of the World is an international institution fostering intercultural dialogue in the arts.

Geschichte

Founded in 2012 by the city of Cologne, the Academy of the Arts of the World is a loose virtual collective of art practitioners – visual artists, musicians, dancers, writers, film-makers, curators – from different backgrounds and continents, as well as a cultural institution and a production platform.

Based in Cologne, a city of migrants, the Academy seeks to move beyond euro-centrist doctrines of cultural history, while attending to the global conditions of post- and neo-colonialism, and avoiding the romance of multiculturalism, globalism, and identity politics. Facing a social and political environment deeply affected by the overwhelming logic of global finance and neoliberal force, the Academy enables and supports practices that address and challenge these very conditions. It supports processes of reflection, intervention, and collaboration that aim at a critical understanding and transformation of the conditions of contemporary cultural production. As a nomadic institution, the Academy initiates events and discussions at different locations in Cologne, and elsewhere.

The Academy works in close cooperation with a diversity of cultural institutions and communities both locally and internationally. Ranging from member-developed projects to the funding of external projects and residencies, or the running of a Youth Academy, our programme reflects on the cultural flows, ruptures and questions that arise in a world where intercultural contact is increasing and inevitable.