Images by WHW Akademija (WHW Academy)
About
WHW Akademija, founded in 2018 by the curatorial collective What, How & for Whom/WHW in Zagreb, Croatia, is an innovative, tuition-free interdisciplinary program for emerging artists. It embodies the acronym of its founding collective, signifying the focus on economic organization's key questions: What, How, & for Whom. The program, accepting 8–12 fellows annually for a seven-month period, is centered on new forms of self-determination, critical reflection, and artistic encounters. The curriculum includes intensives, experimental exercises, workshops, and seminars, alongside public exhibitions, performances, and discursive programs. A partnership with the Kontakt Collection, Vienna, enriches the program, focusing on experimental art from Central, Eastern, and South-Eastern Europe since the late 1950s. The program’s design emphasizes “learning by doing,” fostering a dialogic educational process and collective co-learning and co-production of critical content. Structured to blend exhibitions, performances, and collective actions, the program alternates between two-week intensives and ongoing workshops and seminars, inviting curators, artists, and theorists to engage in various co-learning formats. This unique approach allows participants to test ideas, make discoveries, and engage in trial and error, encouraging a blend of theoretical and practical learning without traditional academic constraints.