Cologne 50670
Germany
Artist and curator Ala Younis becomes Artistic Director of the Academy of the Arts of the World (Akademie der Künste der Welt, ADKDW) in Cologne. Ala Younis has been a member of the ADKDW since 2018 and curates widely acclaimed exhibitions worldwide, including the Singapore Biennale 2022 and the Berlinale section Forum Expanded. She is also well connected to the Cologne art scene already: With the exhibition HANDS: an art campaign(2021), she succeeded in making artistic practice accessible and anchoring it in everyday life, even in pandemic times.
In her programming for ADKDW Ala Younis focuses on innovative and critical artistic practices that will enable encounters and dialogue between the international art scene and the Cologne audience. “As a key contributor to the shaping of the public’s awareness, the Academy of the Arts of the World fosters the potential of art as an essential service to the society. In this spirit, I would like to see the Academy continue to grow as a live, conversing and reliable network," says Ala Younis.
About Ala Younis
Ala Younis is an artist, with curatorial, film and publishing projects. Using objects, film and printed matter, Younis often seeks instances where historical and political events collapse into personal ones. She holds a BSc. in Architecture from University of Jordan and MRes in Visual Cultures from Goldsmiths, University of London. She is a recipient of the Bellagio Creative Arts Fellowship, as well as two art prizes from Cairo Youth Salon (2005) and Jordanian Artists Association (2005). She is co-founder of the publishing initiative Kayfa ta, co-Head of Berlinale’s Forum Expanded, member of the Academy of the Arts of the World (Cologne), and co-Artistic Director of Singapore Biennale 2022. She is research scholar at al Mawrid Arab Center for the Study of Art, at New York University Abu Dhabi.
The Academy of the Arts of the World
The Academy of the Arts of the World is an international platform for contemporary art and public discourse in Cologne. The Academy members—a global collective of artists, scholars, and cultural practitioners—shape the ADKDW and its program through their interdisciplinary perspectives and artistic practices. Through its program, ADKDW promotes a critical understanding of the arts and aims to reveal and rethink the contemporary conditions of cultural history and cultural production. With this in mind, ADKDW organizes events and exhibitions, produces publications, and initiates research and study projects.
