Cultural discourse and close listening are more important than ever as existing rifts in the media and social policy landscape are widening. On Saturday 15th February at ADKDW, closing the first program cycle of Mutual Empathies, dear DAI alum Vanja Smiljanić (DAI 2012) and artist Saroot Supasuthivech will screen moving-image works, share their participatory research still in progress, and converse with the audience about their projects. Mutual Empathies is an international residency program, that brings together artistic positions that would not otherwise meet, responding to the countless, difficult ecopolitical questions looming for global society.
Mutual Empathies is an experimental residency framework developed by the three institutions, that brings together Germany-based artists with those beyond Europe for a series of residencies and public programming. It aims to platform artistic positions that would not otherwise meet, responding to the countless, difficult ecopolitical questions looming for global society.
Both artists presenting have parallel projects assessing our individual, emotional responses to compounding global crises. Supasuthivech has excavated the layered connections between migration, folkloric song, and the construction of nationality. Smiljanić has researched regional ethno-cosmology, extraterrestrial visions, and tuning our senses to engage the unknowable.
Sat 15 02 2025 | 6 pm - 10 pm
ADKDW Studio
Herwarthstraße 3, 50672 Köln
In english language
Free entry
The room is steplessly accessible
More details via ADKDW
About Vanja Smiljanić
DAI also wishes to highlight that Academy of Arts of the World (ADKDW) currently faces an uncertain future. Its existence is threatened by the 2025/26 draft budget of the City of Cologne. As the funding body of the academy, the city has significantly reduced its funding for the year 2025, and it is currently still uncertain whether a long-term perspective for the academy can be secured. A termination of their work would have far-reaching consequences – not only for the ADKDW itself, but also for Cologne's cultural richness, social diversity and international appeal. Read the statement by Monika Kerkmann, Ala Younis and Maria Helmis-Arend here.