Academy Towards a Worlded Public

The Transcultural Academy, Towards a Worlded Public (2022), at the Japanisches Palais of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (SKD), engages with research inquiries and public articulations of transdisciplinary processes in museums. It explores how artistic practice and curating may speak to—and further develop—a museum public with different perspectives, voices and positionings. The two-day Public Assembly (November 24–25) offers insights into the Transcultural Academy’s current residency programme. This features invited artists and curators from Cameroon, Lebanon, Spain, Vietnam, the Philippines and Germany whose work explores methods for activating transversal publics in exchange with art historians and museum curators at SKD.

SKD’s foundations date back to 1560 as the courtly “Kunstkammer” of Elector August and Electress Anna. Later expanded during the time of the Holy Roman Empire by Augustus II (also known as “Augustus the Strong,” 1670–1733), SKD’s cosmogony cannot be separated from tensions between the collections’ imperial property and artistic virtuosity; to this day, SKD remains entangled in structures of coloniality and the power of imagination. In this respect, it also embodies an exorbitant richness of “potential history” (Ariella Aïsha Azoulay), transmitted across generations through forms of knowledge about resistance, care and the undocumented. The 2022 Transcultural Academy addresses this complex history. It further asks: what perspectival shifts can be induced in existing categories of museum classification? What would a true recognition of different positionings look like? Furthermore, can histories which have been violently repressed in the past return to reflect a “worlded public” in the present? How does the notion of “worlding” differ from “transcultural,” “cosmopolitan,” “diasporic,” or “international”? More specifically, what does “worlded” mean in the context of a museum complex like SKD with a 500-year history? What are the limits of the museum in generating a “worlded public”? And most importantly, who constitutes such a public?

These questions draw upon the notion of “radical co-presence” (Bonaventura De Sousa Santos) in which different memory cultures, definitions of art and cultural practices are used to conceive a multi-layered public. Together with resident Fellows and guests of the Transcultural Academy, the Public Assembly aims to deepen transcultural learning processes, rehearse artistic action and discuss methods for creating a more just museum in the 21st century with the SKD as a case study.

Fellows of the Transcultural Academy: Patricia Esquivias is a research-based artist and lives in Madrid. She studied in London (1997-2001) and San Francisco (2005-2007).  Saba Innab is an architect, artist and urban researcher working with historical research, drawing, mapping, model making and spatial interventions. Choy Ka Fai is a Berlin-based artist from Singapore. His multidisciplinary art practice operates at the intersection of dance, media art and performance. Interdisciplinary experimental artist Tuan Mami is constantly exploring new methods to evolve through reflective questioning and social research. Lizza May David (b. Quezon City, Philippines) lives and works in Berlin and studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Nuremberg and the Berlin University of the Arts King Mayesse Foundation with Sebastian-Ménas Sprute is working on its visibility and self-determined representation through the collection of the Staatliche Etnographische Sammlungen Sachsen.

The researcher, curator and author Agnieszka Roguski has been invited to join the Transcultural Academy “Toward a Worlded Public” as a critical commentator and editor of a living document of the conversations, deepenings, questions and reports. She will focus on infrapolitical resonances to the academy, developing a dislocated, multivocal and transmedial platform of “speaking back” (Sara Ahmed) to the museum complex.

Concept: Noura Dirani and Doreen Mende, in collaboration with Eva Bentcheva
Coordination: Anna-Lisa Reith
Study Groups (internal): Conceived by Eva Bentcheva, Franziska Kaun and the Lektürerunde der SKD 

The Transcultural Academy Towards a Worlded Public (2022) at the Japanisches Palais results from a collaboration between the Cross-Collections Research Department and the Staatliche Ethnographische Sammlungen Sachsen at Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden. This year’s edition has been conceptualised in consultation with Heidelberg University’s team of the international research project and network Worlding Public Cultures: The Arts and Social Innovation. More information here.

The Transcultural Academy of the SKD is made possible by funding from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.

A Worlded Public: Where do we stand?
November 24, 7pm 
A conversation with Eva Bentcheva (Worlding Public Cultures) and Isabel Raabe (Talking Objects Lab) with an introduction by Doreen Mende (SKD and HEAD Genève).
Participation is possible both analogue at the Japanisches Palais Dresden and online. We kindly ask you to register via the following link for further information.

Research Reports by the Fellows of the Transcultural Academy
November 25, 10am–5pm
Including Patricia Esquivias, Saba Innab, Choy Ka Fai, Tuan Mami, Lizza May David and the King Mayesse Foundation with Sebastian-Ménas Sprute
Participation is possible both analogue at the Japanisches Palais Dresden and online. We kindly ask you to register via the following link for further information.

Conversation with the Fellows of the Transcultural Academy
November 25, 7pm
Moderated by Christiane Mennicke (Kunsthaus Dresden) and Thomas Geisler (Design Campus, SKD)
Participation is possible both analogue at the Japanisches Palais Dresden and online. We kindly ask you to register via the following link for further information.