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Remember Freedom, WHW Akademija 2026
The eighth year of the tuition-free transdisciplinary studyprogram WHW Akademija continues under the title RememberFreedom.
Thematically and methodologically, the programme, just as in2025, addresses questions that seem to be in opposition – poetry andborders. Together with the participants, we will investigate the notion ofborderlands and the role they have performed historically and in the present.What makes this pertinent here today, when the empire normalizes extremeviolence outside of its core, is that the borderlands of Europe, such asCroatia, offer a unique perspective to consider the formation of whiteness andits strategies of inclusion and exclusion. At the seemingly opposite pole,poetry has become ubiquitous in the art world as a signal of philosophy, aconnection to the contemplative and metaphysical, and a response to the disdainfor the promotional language that dominates the art world. We see the turn ofcontemporary art towards poetry as a response to the centrality of theaffective and personal in contemporary theory and criticism, protests, and thedigital sphere. The question of the relationality between concrete borders andthe abstract freedom of poetry is one we want to explore together, asantagonism, as counterbalance and as different aspects of the intimatetreatment of bodies trying (and failing) to cross.
The program started in April 2026 and runs through October2026, launching with online sessions in April, before convening a firstin-person intensive: gathering in Zagreb from 21th to 30th ofMay. During online sessions in April, participants worked with the WHW team onan exhibition that will open on May 22nd at Ko:keStudio.
The second part of the program is scheduled from October 4thto 11th. From October 7th to 10th, we will visit Bihać – a bordercity, shaped by Ottoman/Habsburg rivalries, with a heavy history both duringWWII and the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s. Located close to the Croatian border,today it is one of the key points in the attempts of migrants to enter the EUand the location of two EU-funded migrant camps. The program in Bihać isrealized in collaboration with the Center for ContemporaryCulture KRAK.
The program in 2026 includes twelve participants: BetülAksu, Ines Borovac, Farah Hasanbegović, Ioana Lupascu, Klodiana Millona,Esteban Prudencio, Mia Ribić, Maša Seničić, Selena Hana Sokolović, Abd Tammaa,Sana Shahmuradova Tanksa and Paula Tončić.
Curator Sebastian Cichocki serves as a residentprofessor in 2026. In her hometown of Bihać, Bosnia and Herzegovina, theparticipants will work with artist Selma Selman.
As in previous years, WHW Akademija programworks with participants on new forms of self-determination based on criticalreflection and curiosity, and supports this through encounters with artists,artworks, arts professionals, scholars, and practitioners from variousdisciplines. All members of WHW serve as resident professors, with additionalguest professors and lecturers invited in from different disciplines.
Throughout the program, besides working with WHW in groupand individual modes, the programme will deepen the connection with the Kontaktcollection, which is our partner. The Kontakt Collection focuseson Central, Eastern and Southeastern European artistic activity and itsrelations to social and political developments since the late 1950s. Byemphasising the power of artworks to process historical burdens andmanipulations, this collection amplifies how artists actively seek allyship andclaim agency through self-organized infrastructures, which is crucial toanalyse and rework in today’s conditions. Through a focus on artists and worksfrom the Kontakt collection, participants will have intensive contact with pastartistic endeavours which are not part of widely taught art history.
WHW Akademija offers localized knowledge of the region, its artistsand (hi)stories, as well as its political urgencies. It aims to escape theregime of total visibility and competitiveness, by offering a framework forartistic work that is not about inclusion in the art system, but a critical andpropositional challenge to the image/role of art and the system in which itoperates. WHW Akademija takes its autonomy seriously and webelieve it is a safe space for emerging artists and all other participants involved,while also encouraging risk-taking with its autonomous trajectoriescollectively shaped and defended.
Special thanks to the Ko:ke Studio, Zagreb; KRAK,Bihać; DAZ - Croatian association of architects, Zagreb; TheInstitute of Ethnology and Folklore Research, Zagreb; KONTEJNER,Zagreb
The main funder of WHW Akademija is KontaktCollection / ERSTEFoundation.
WHW Akademija is supported by:
City Office for Culture and Civil Society
FfAI – Foundation for Arts Initiatives
Kultura Nova Foundation
Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia
Trust for Mutual Understanding (TMU)