Akademie der Künste der Welt

The Academy of the Arts of the World was founded in 2012 by the City of Cologne. It is operated by the nonprofit company “Akademie der Künste der Welt / Köln, gemeinnützige GmbH”.

To begin with, the Academy was thought of as an internationally-abled institution in dialogue with the local. The word ‘international’ here only stands for across cultural practices and identities, and not in any narrow sense of nation-border. Similarly the word ‘local’ is used to address the diverse audiences / spectators / artists / sites in and around the city and not any parochial concern. “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.“ – the Statut

The base of the Academy is the board of members comprising cultural producers, related to a wide range of niches and practices, who live and work in different places across the globe. The members guide and help the Artistic Director in shaping the operative schemes for programming.

The Academy initiates productions, forges networks, facilitates debates and interfaces, participates in public culture initiatives, provides fellowships and residencies, and regularly hosts public events and exhibitions. Although the Academy is not an academic institution, but rather a cultural platform, we do offer a curated pedagogical program as part of our Youth Academy. The Academy is committed to build a critical audience in Cologne around contemporary practices on minoritised histories, post-colonial discourses, non-hegemonic lived-in systems, urban developments, border-related contestations, rights of moving people, and other emerging new forms of thinking about art and culture in the globalized world.