Curatorial collective WHW announces an open call for applications to participate in the fourth year of WHW Akademija, an experimental, interdisciplinary, tuition-free art study program based in Zagreb, Croatia.
The program starts in March and lasts until November 2022. It combines live and digital sessions, starting online in March and April and intensifying in May with a physical summer school that will take place in an outdoor location in Croatia. The programme continues online until the end of October 2022, when the final meeting of participants will take place in Zagreb.
Application Deadline: 25 January 2022
Selection interviews – in person (for Zagreb-based applicants) and over Zoom – will be conducted between 10–20 February 2022.
Applicants will be notified of their status by the end of February 2022.
The 4th edition of WHW Akademija is set up as a model that combines online and physical encounters and explores participatory modes of artistic and knowledge production based on the idea of collectivity and possibilities of co-learning. The year is focused on the notion of artistic ecologies that can foster interdisciplinary practice and cooperation, stimulate ideas, and engage communities.
To navigate the period of global disruption we will concentrate our studies on eco-social art practices and explore how we rethink art and ourselves in the current situation. How do we encounter something that is outside and external to us in (post) pandemic conditions? This something can be another human being, art objects, situations, animal or non-human existences. What kinds of artistic ecologies can be formed with these encounters? Adapting to the colossal and unpredictable changes that affected ways in which both learning and artistic exchanges can happen during the pandemic, the emphasis will be on various formats of artistic production in times of crisis such as these. These productions can rely on collectivity, shared imagination and the usage of materials at hand, such as: everyday objects, text, gesture and interventions.
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 onwards. The manifold artistic positions included in the Kontakt Art Collection will serve as one of the foundations for discussions and interventions from art and its histories in WHW Akademija.
The resident professor throughout the 2022 program is writer and curator Ivana Bago, who will develop a mentoring program in collaboration with participants and facilitate regular meetings with students online and offline. Guest professors are Tim Etchells & Vlatka Horvat and Pablo Martínez who will hold intensive workshops and mentoring sessions consisting of both collective and individual critiques with the participants in online and physical encounters. Additionally, the program will include two shorter seminars led by Zbyněk Baladrán and Daniela Ortiz.
WHW itself will provide mentoring support throughout the process.
While possibilities for meeting physically are drastically reduced, as in the previous years, a series of online public talks and workshops Evenings with WHW Akademija will share topics and experiences that are explored by the WHW Akademija with a broader audience. Apart from members of WHW Akademija 2022 professorial team, among others, Yael Davids and iLiana Fokianaki will be participating in the Evenings with WHW Akademija series. Participants will be invited also to actively participate and shape Evenings with WHW Akademija as part of the program.
The summer school is planned for May 10 – May 16 2022 when we trust that there will be a possibility for the participants to meet and share in person.
After three generations of WHW Akademija, we are concluding the first cycle of our program. Based on modes of critical reflection, curiosity and encounters among artists, artworks, arts professionals, scholars, and practitioners in various disciplines, WHW Akademija has established innovative forms of education and collaborations in different formats: workshops, intensives, exhibitions, summer school, actions in public space, lectures, conversations, practical workshops, podcasts and performances.
From 2018 to 2021, the program of WHW Akademija hosted the following eminent international curators, artists, scientists, activists, and cultural workers: Ben Cain, Tina Gverović, Sanja Iveković, David Maljković, Kate Sutton, Pierre Bal-Blanc, Banu Cennetoğlu, Alessandro Petti and Sandi Hilal/DAAR, Manuel Pelmuş, Rajkamal Kahlon, Adam Szymczyk, Wendelien van Oldenborgh, Oscar Murillo, Charles Esche, Ana Janevski, Kathrin Rhomberg, Alex Baczyński-Jenkins and Kasia Wlaszczyk – KEM collective, Dan Perjovschi, Vlatka Horvat, Marwa Arsanios, Aude Christel Mgba, Pablo Martínez, Hana Miletić, Jelena Vesić, Želimir Žilnik, Dubravka Sekulić, Zdenka Badovinac, Christine Tohmé, Denise Ferreira da Silva and Valentina Desideri…
Through generating new models and testing existing ones, WHW Akademija seeks to develop a reciprocal educational process. Its programmes encourage participants to co-produce critical content based on how knowledge is produced and questioned through the poetic, the physical, the material and the eco-social.
The Advisory Board members of WHW Akademija are David Maljković, Emily Pethick, Kathrin Rhomberg and Christine Tohmé.
PRACTICAL INFORMATION
WHW Akademija is a study program for 8 to 15 international participants. It is open to individuals seeking to deepen their formal, theoretical and critical skills in art, and who are at the beginning of developing an independent artistic practice. Participants will be engaged in an intense process of working and learning, combining discursive formats and a number of practical exercises, including encounters with the public.
The working language of WHW Akademija is English.
ADMISSION
For 2021, participants will be selected through an open call. Applicants should be practicing emerging artists with or without formal training.
Your application should be submitted only through this Application form by 25 January 2022, and include the following information:
• A full CV
• A short biography of 250 words
• Statement about your work (2 pages max)
• PDF document with work descriptions and captioned images (15 pages max) including links to media from YouTube, Vimeo and SoundCloud. Please title your files according to the following formulation: “your last name_your first name.”
Candidates are considered on merit, as well as on their application’s relevance to the aims of WHW Akademija. The WHW Akademija team selects an initial shortlist of candidates for interviews. Shortlisted applicants will be contacted for a Zoom or in person (for those based in Zagreb) interview, conducted between 10–20 February 2022.
Applicants will be notified of their status by the end of February 2022.
Applicants must commit full-time to the assigned schedule and adjust other engagements to 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 tuition free program. Participants will receive financial support during the program consisting of a scholarship for 6 months of 350,00 euro per month. Program related costs in Croatia will be covered by WHW. Travel costs in Croatia will be reimbursed.
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 have been granted by the Ministry of Culture and Media of Republic of Croatia and City of Zagreb.
.jpg)
ABOUT THE PROFESSORIAL TEAM
Ivana Bago is an independent scholar, writer and curator based in Zagreb. She holds a PhD in Art History and Visual Culture from Duke University and is the co-founder (with Antonia Majača) of Delve | Institute for Duration, Location and Variables (www.delve.hr). Her writings on(post) Yugoslav art, contemporary art and theory have been published in academic presses and journals, as well as magazines such as e-flux journal and Artforum. She is on the editorial board of the journal ARTMargins,and is the recipient of the Igor Zabel Award Grant for 2020. Her curatorial projects include: Moving Forwards, Counting Backwards, MUAC,Mexico City, 2012; Where Everything is Yet to Happen, Spaport Biennale, Banja Luka, 2009/10; The Orange Dog and Other Tales,Zagreb, 2009; Stalking with Stories, Apexart, New York, 2007. Sheis currently working on her book manuscript Yugoslav Aesthetics: Monuments to History’s Bare Bones, 1908-2018, and developing a research and publishing project on Sanja Iveković’s work and personal archive.
Zbyněk Baladrán is an author, visual artist, curator and exhibition architect. In his works he is investigating territories that are occupied by that part of civilization, which we call Western. Using methodology similar to those used by the ethnographer, the anthropologist and the sociologist, this post-humanist “archaeologist” is digging up the remnants of the not-so-distant past, looking particularly at societal systems in relation to the heritage of the political left. He studied art history in the Department of Arts, Charles University and New Media at the Academy of Fine Arts, both in Prague. In 2001 he co-founded Display – Association for Research and Collective Practice, where he is working as curator and organizer. He took part in exhibitions like Manifesta 5 in Donostia / San Sebastian, the 11th Lyon Biennial, at the 56th La Biennale di Venezia and also at MoMA. He is represented by the Jocelyn Wolff Gallery in Paris, Gandy Gallery in Bratislava, Hunt Kastner in Prague and cooperative Salvator Rosa.
Tim Etchells is an artist and a writer based in the UK. He has worked in a wide variety of contexts, notably as leader of the world-renowned performance group Forced Entertainment and in collaboration with a range of visual artists, choreographers, and photographers. Under Etchells’ direction Forced Entertainment won the International Ibsen Prize 2016. He won the Manchester Fiction Prize in 2019. His work spans performance, video, photography, text projects, installation, and fiction. In recent years Etchells has exhibited widely in the context of visual arts, with solo shows at Ebensperger-Rhomberg (Berlin), VITRINE (London), Bloomberg SPACE (London), Contemporary Art Gallery (Vancouver) and Kunstverein Braunschweig. His work has appeared in the biennales Manifesta 7 (2008) in Rovereto, Italy, Aichi Triennale, Japan 2010, with Vlatka Horvat, Manifesta 9 (Parallel Projects) 2012 and as well as part of The Great Exhibition of the North at Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art (2018). Selected group shows include …of bread, wine, security and peace (Kunsthalle Wien, 2020), Lichtparcours Braunschweig (2020), The Cipher & The Frame (Cubitt Gallery, London, 2015), MirrorCity (Hayward Gallery, London, 2014), Version Control (Arnolofini, 2013), as well as Netherlands Media Art Institute (Amsterdam), MUHKA (Antwerp), Galleria Raffaella Cortese (Milan), Sparwasser HQ (Berlin), MACBA (Barcelona) and Kunsthaus Graz. His work has been commissioned for permanent public installation in several UK and mainland European cities and is held in numerous private collections around the world. He is currently Professor of Performance & Writing at Lancaster University.
Vlatka Horvat works across a wide range of forms, including sculpture, installation, drawing, performance, photography, video and writing. Her work is presented internationally in a variety of contexts – in museums and galleries, theatre and dance festivals and in public space. Recent solo exhibitions and commissioned projects include: Kunsthalle Wien, the Pavilion of Croatia at the 16th Architecture Biennale, Museums Sheffield, Theater Spektakel Zurich, Renata Fabbri gallery (Milan), GAEP Gallery (Bucharest), Marta Herford Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb, Bard Center for Curatorial Studies (upstate NY), Stroom (The Hague), Wilfried Lentz Gallery (Rotterdam), CAPRI (Düsseldorf), Bergen Kunsthall, the Kitchen and MoMA PS1 (both NYC), etc. Her performances have been commissioned by venues across Europe, North America and beyond, including HAU Hebbel am Ufer (Berlin), LIFT – London International Festival of Theatre, PACT Zollverein (Essen), Tanzquartier Wien (Vienna), Outpost for Contemporary Art (Los Angeles), KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen (Hannover) and many others. Born in Croatia, she moved to the US as a teenager and spent 20 years there. She holds a BA in Theater from Columbia College Chicago, an MA in Performance Studies from Northwestern University and a PhD from Roehampton University in London. Her work in visual art is represented by GAEP Gallery (Bucharest), Renata Fabbri arte contemporanea (Milan) and annex14 (Zurich). She currently lives in London, where she teaches in the Fine Art department at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. www.vlatkahorvat.com
Pablo Martínez is a researcher and educator whose research focuses on the potential of images for constructing political subjectivity, institutional imagination and experimental pedagogies. In the last decade his institutional work has explored the possibilities of an eco-socialist museum: from the creation of a garden in the roof of CA2M and a permanent group of gardening, to open a kitchen at the MACBA and establish a research group on food sovereignty; from seminars about the impact of oil on 20th century culture to debates on agriculture. He worked as Head of Programming at the MACBA from 2016 to 2021 where he also directed the Center of Studies and Documentation and its exhibition programme, the Independent Studies Programme and the et al series of essays (Ed Arcàdia) where he published texts by Elisabeth Lebovici, Marina Garcés, Kristin Ross, Jodi Dean or Jaime Vindel, among others. He worked as Head of Education and Public Activities at CA2M (2009–16), and Associate Professor of Contemporary Art at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (2011–15). He's part of the editorial board of L'Internationale Online as well as of the journal of art and visual culture #Re-visiones. He is a founder member of Las Lindes, a research and action group working on education and cultural and artistic practices (2009 - today). He curated solo shows of Werker Magazine and Adelita Husni-Bey.
Daniela Ortiz (Peru, 1985). Lives and works in Urubamba. Through her work she aims to generate visual narratives in which the concepts of nationality, racialization, social class and genre are explored in order to critically understand structures of colonial, patriarchal and capitalist power. Her recent projects and research revolve around the European migratory control system, its links to colonialism and the legal structure created by institutions in order to inflict violence towards racialized communities. Also have produced projects about the Peruvian upper class and its exploitative relationship with domestic workers. Recently her artistic practice has turned back into visual and manual work, developing art pieces in ceramic, collage and in formats such as children books in order to take distance from eurocentric conceptual art aesthetics. Besides her artistic practice she is a single mother of a four years old child, gives talks, workshops, and participates in various discussions and struggles against the European migratory control system and institutional racism.
