As part of the international research project Worlding Public Cultures: The Arts and Social Innovation (WPC), the WPC Academy "Lessons Learned? Transcultural Perspectives in Curating and Pedagogies" took place from 14 to 16 July 2022. The three-day event was conceptualised by the WPC Heidelberg team led by Prof. Dr Monica Juneja and organised in cooperation with the Transcultural Academy of the Dresden State Art Collections (SKD) in the Japanisches Palais.

Launched in 2020, the WPC project investigates how common narratives about our globally connected and yet conflicted world can be questioned with the help of art, exhibitions, conferences and publications. Particular emphasis is given to the cultural, historical and socio-political realities in which art is created. Central to this project is the concept of "worlding" that gives it its name. In contrast to common discourses that consider the global as a passive effect of capitalism, the "worlding" concept suggests that the global is actively co-produced from many different locales. WPC's aim is to build on this diversity of positions. New perspectives on our transculturally entangled presents as well as our shared and sometimes difficult pasts are to be provided and new ways of living together in the future are to be explored.

The international structure is fundamental to the project: WPC brings together local teams from four countries. These teams are situated at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Universiteit van Amsterdam (both Netherlands), University of the Arts London (UK), Carleton University, Concordia University, Université de Montréal and Université du Québec à Montréal (all Canada) and Heidelberg University. Each of the four national teams organises at least one major event, which on the one hand serves as a gathering of the members of the project, but on the other hand also constitutes a thematic conference, at which a specific subject area of the WPC project is explored in greater depth.

While the focus of the 2019 WPC Academy in Ottawa was on decolonisation and indigeneity, the 2021 WPC Assembly in Amsterdam was on activism, and in the same year the same WPC Gathering in London was on Caribbean thought, the WPC Heidelberg team chose transcultural pedagogy as the theme for the Academy it organised – with a special focus on museums. Accordingly, the three-day event addressed the successes and failures of existing pedagogical practices in museums and explored the potential of new transcultural and "worlded" approaches, in the sense of a practice that both makes and critically reflects world(s) and situates them (historically).

This focus is in line with the agenda of the SKD, which itself deals intensively with similar questions of transculturality and for its part organises an annual Transcultural Academy, in which it awards three-month residencies for artists and curators. For the Transcultural Academy of the SKD 2022, the WPC Academy "Lessons Learned? Transcultural Perspectives in Curating and Pedagogies" was the kick-off event.

Day 1 of the WPC Academy

The Academy consisted of a variety of events such as impulse discussions, visits to exhibitions and archives in the SKD's wide range of offerings, as well as thematic panels. The papers belonging to the panels were recorded and can be watched here, as well as the opening event with the welcome remarks by Noura Dirani (SKD), Monica Juneja (Heidelberg University) and Doreen Mende (SKD) and the introduction to the WPC project by Paul Goodwin (University of the Arts London) and Ming Tiampo (Carleton University).

The first panel was entirely dedicated to emerging research. Moderated by Franziska Kaun, Seung Hee Kim and Moritz Schwörer (all Heidelberg University), it addressed "Reciprocal Learning across Art Institutions - Futures of Transcultural Knowing".

Noura Dirani (SKD) presents her concept of a transcultural museum that is being developed within the Japanisches Palais Dresden, thus at the same time introducing the institution in which the Academy took place. Pansee Atta (Carleton University, Ottawa) speaks about the decolonial potential of storytelling during Egyptian henna nights. Nathalia Lavigne (Universidade de São Paulo) outlines how the collective use of hashtags in social media can be used to reclaim the agency over collection objects. Di Liu (University of Cambridge) reports on her experiences as a participant in documenta fifteen. And Varda Nisar (Concordia University, Montreal) presents a case study of the “Karachi Art Anti-University”, which opposes the military's takeover of Pakistani society.

An originally planned paper by Silvia Gaetti (Grassi Museum for Applied Art, Leipzig) on the exhibition “CULTURAL AFFAIRS” (2021) was unfortunately not able to take place.

Day 2 of the WPC Academy

The second day of the Academy opened with a panel on "Recuperating Voices through Museum Collections", moderated by Miriam Oesterreich (Berlin University of the Arts). Central to this panel was the question of how members of origin communities of objects can actively engage with museum collections and thus regain agency over cultural belongings.

In the first of the panel's two papers, Cristina Juan (SOAS, University of London) presents the Mapping Philippine Material Culture Project, which she co-initiated. With the help of a database, Juan and her fellow project participants are trying to deal in an activist way with the fact that a large part of Philippine cultural artefacts from before 1930 are now in the depots of Western museums, thereby denying Philippine society access to these objects.

In her paper, Ruth B. Phillips (Carleton University, Ottawa) addresses how museums can be made "fit for today". For this, it is essential to present different perspectives on museum objects - especially those of the communities of origin. Phillips presents a practical approach on how students can develop the required awareness through work in and with museum collections as well as through exchange with representatives of the communities of origin of cultural artefacts – a project from which also the institutions could benefit.

With the second panel of the day, chaired by Franziska Koch (Heidelberg University), "(Re)Thinking through Exhibitions", the Academy shifted away from museum collections and towards the public presentation of objects and its implications: How can exhibition making itself be reconceptualised and what are the obstacles in this process?

In her paper, Claire Farago (University of Colorado Boulder) starts from the premise that most museums are still shaped by a coloniality of knowledge, which makes institutional critique urgently necessary. Using the example of an exhibition she developed together with her students, she demonstrates how this critique could be implemented on a practical level.

In contrast, Maria Silina (Université du Québec à Montréal) takes a look from the outside at exhibitions that link global and local political actions. Based on the travelling exhibition "Soulèvements" / "Uprising" (2016-18) curated by Georges Didi-Hubermann, Silina draws parallels between contemporary curatorial practice and the digital culture of the internet.

Day 3 of the WPC Academy

The last day of the Academy also featured two panels. Moderated by Paul Goodwin, the first panel focused on archives. Following the title "Identifying Problem Spaces and Absences in Archives", two completely different approaches to these institutions were presented.

Carine Zaayman (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) explains why archives are an expression of colonial structures and thinking. Using the "Clanwilliam Arts Project" (South Africa 2001-18) as a case study, she shows other forms of knowledge that do not receive any attention in archives and must therefore be considered a deficiency within these institutions.

In the second paper of the panel, Doreen Mende (SKD) shares the results of her first research in the in-house archive after becoming head of the SKD's research department. With her case study of an exhibition of art works from the Dresden Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in New Delhi (1984-85), Mende illustrates the political implications of curating cross-border exhibitions during the Cold War.

The last panel of the Academy, chaired by Eva Bentcheva (Heidelberg University), was titled "Situating Art in Communities and Contexts". Accordingly, both of the papers were dedicated to art and museum projects that are fundamentally shaped by local-specific thought and approaches.

Contrary to the current exhibition trend of placing positively connoted subjects such as healing and repair as the thematic focus, Sarah Hegenbart (Technical University of Munich) presents art projects that are rather dedicated to difference and conflict. To contextualise these examples, Hegenbart points out political traditions which also emphasise difference and asks what conclusions European democracies could draw from such approaches.

In her paper, Nuraini Juliastuti (Universiteit van Amsterdam) questions the Eurocentric concept of the museum, which can also be observed in many institutions in Indonesia. She contrasts this concept with the "commons museum", which should be oriented towards the specific needs and wishes of local communities, and elaborated on this idea with two case studies of collectively organised projects.

"Lessons Learned? Transcultural Perspectives in Curating and Pedagogies" is part of the public programme of Worlding Public Cultures: The Arts and Social Innovation (WPC), an international research platform funded by a Social Innovation Grant from the Trans-Atlantic Platform for the Social Sciences and Humanities and (within Germany) by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF/DLR Project Management Agency).

The Transcultural Academy of the SKD is generously funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.