What, How & for Whom / WHW announces an open call for applications to participate in the sixth year of the Zagreb-based WHW Akademija, an experimental, interdisciplinary, tuition-free art study program for emerging artists. Through generating new models and testing existing ones, WHW Akademija seeks to develop a reciprocal educational process that encourages participants to coproduce critical content.

The program starts in March 2024 and runs through November 2024. It combines in person and remote learning, launching with online sessions in March and April, before convening an in-person summer school in Zagreb in May. The program then continues online until the end of October 2024, when the participants will once more reconvene in Zagreb.

Application deadline: January 15, 2024

Interviews: late January 2024, in-person (for Zagreb-based applicants) and over Zoom

Final status notification: by the end of February 2024

PRACTICAL INFORMATION

WHW Akademija is a tuition-free study program for 10 to 15 international participants. It is open to individuals who are still in the formative stages of developing an independent artistic practice and are seeking to deepen their formal, theoretical, and critical skills. Participants will be expected to engage in an intense process of collective working and learning through a model that combines discursive formats and a number of practical exercises, including encounters with the public.

The working language of WHW Akademija is English.

‍

HOW TO APPLY

For WHW Akademija 2024, participants will be selected through an open call. Applicants should be practicing emerging artists, with or without formal training.

Please submit applications only through this application form. Applications must be received by January 15, 2024 and include the following information:

• CV 

• short biography (250 words max.)

• statement about your work (2 pages max.) 

• one PDF portfolio (15 pages max.) containing work descriptions, images with captions, and links to media hosted on YouTube, Vimeo, and SoundCloud. 

Please title all your files according to the following formulation: “Your last name_Your first name[_CV / _biography /_statement / _portfolio].”

Candidates are selected based on merit as well as their application’s relevance to the aims of WHW Akademija. The WHW Akademija team will select an initial shortlist of candidates for interviews, which will be conducted over Zoom or in-person (for those based in Zagreb). Interviews will be scheduled between late January and early February 2024.

Applicants will be notified of their status by the end of February 2024.

Applicants must commit to the full assigned schedule and adjust other engagements to accommodate it. 

The program is open to applicants from all countries.

For additional questions, please contact ana.kovacic.whw@gmail.com.

‍TUITION & FINANCIAL AID

WHW Akademija is a tuition-free program. Participants will receive financial support during the program, consisting of a seven-month scholarship of 350.00 euro per month. Program-related costs in Croatia will be covered by WHW. Travel costs to Croatia will be reimbursed.  

‍

‍

ABOUT THE PROGRAM

As we transition from the pandemic era to an even more severe crisis related to the ongoing wars, rising austerity measures, international recession, and intensifying ecological disaster, WHW Akademija 2024 is structured to combine online and physical encounters and to venture new participatory modes of artistic production and ways of being with each other.

Through seminars and workshops, the program rethinks and redevelops notions of care and eco-social values, with particular attention to strategies of repair, artistic ecologies, and collective learning. Together, participants will explore methodologies developed by artists, cultural workers, thinkers, and activists to develop more inclusive, feminist, decolonial and ecologically sustainable models for engagement with one’s surroundings.

The professorial team for 2024 is: Andris Brinkmanis, Gabi Ngcobo, Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez and Elena Sorokina/ Initiative for Practices and Visions of Radical Care, Kate Sutton, Françoise Vergès and WHW. Alongside this core team, Evenings with WHW Akademija brings together artists, curators, thinkers, and alumni of WHW Akademija, in a series of public conversations, workshops, and lectures. 

WHW Akademija is realized in partnership with the Kontakt Art Collection. The collection focuses on experimental and neo-avant-garde art activities in Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe from the late 1950s onward. The manifold artistic positions included in the Kontakt Art Collection will serve as a point of departure and stimulus for the interdisciplinary approach of WHW Akademija, which bridges divisions between theory and practice.

The 2024 program will be realized in conjunction with the collaborative project Care ecologies, organized between WHW, G&A Mamidakis Foundation, State of Concept Athens and Idensitat.

After launching online in March, the participants of WHW Akademija will later physically gather twice in Zagreb: for the summer school in May 2024, and again in October for the conclusion of the program. 

Through a series of bodily and somatic collaborative exercises, seminars, presentations, discussions, workshops, and collective actions led by Andris Brinkmanis, the WHW Akademija summer school will initiate an intense exchange between the participants, the professorial team, and the local setting. The summer school takes place May 13–20, 2024, in Zagreb. Guests of the summer school program include Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez and Elena Sorokina/ Initiative for Practices and Visions of Radical Care. 

This program will also include public presentations and seminars led by Gabi Ngcobo and Françoise Vergès, while Kate Sutton will provide mentoring support throughout the entire WHW Akademija 2024.  

As in previous years, a series of public talks and workshops, entitled Evenings with WHW Akademija, will share topics and experiences with a broader audience. 

Since 2018, WHW Akademija has enacted and established innovative form of education and collaboration in different formats: workshops, intensives, exhibitions, summer schools, actions in public spaces, lectures, conversations, practical workshops, podcasts, and performances. 

Between 2018 and 2023, WHW Akademija has hosted numerous eminent international curators, artists, scientists, activists, and cultural workers: Ivana Bago, Zbyněk Baladrán, Ben Cain, Tina Gverović, Yael Davids, Sanja Iveković, David Maljković, Kate Sutton, Pierre Bal-Blanc, Banu Cennetoğlu, DAAR – Alessandro Petti and Sandi Hilal, Manuel Pelmuş, Rajkamal Kahlon, Adam Szymczyk, Wendelien van Oldenborgh, Oscar Murillo, Charles Esche, Ana Janevski, Kathrin Rhomberg, Kem collective – Alex Baczyński-Jenkins and Kasia Wlaszczyk, Dan Perjovschi, Vlatka Horvat, iLiana Fokianaki, Marwa Arsanios, Aude Christel Mgba, Pablo Martínez, Hana Miletić, Daniela Ortiz, Jelena Vesić, Želimir Žilnik, Dubravka Sekulić, Zdenka Badovinac, Christine Tohmé, Denise Ferreira da Silva and Valentina Desideri, Marina Naprushkina, farid rakun/Ruangrupa, Miguel A. López, and Adelita Husni-Bey.

The Advisory Board of WHW Akademija are David Maljković, Emily Pethick, Kathrin Rhomberg, and Christine Tohmé.

‍‍

‍FUNDERS

WHW Akademija is funded by Kontakt Art Collection, ERSTE Foundation, Foundation for Arts Initiatives, and Trust for Mutual Understanding.

Additional funds for the public program are granted by the European Commission’s Creative Europe program, Ministry of Culture and Media of Republic of Croatia, and City Office for Culture and Civil Society.

‍

‍