WAYS Academy

Prasanna Oommen and Cora Hegewald, Co-Lead Programme WAYS

In conversation: Katarzyna Wielga-Skolimowska, Artistic Director, German Federal Cultural Foundation, and Prasanna Oommen

Sharon Dodua Otoo, Novelist, Editor & Curator

They are three German words. But they are not just "Culture. Power. Courage." How could they be? In poetry as in life, the sum is always greater than its parts. In her literary keynote, Sharon Dodua Otoo will explore the gaps and the echoes which linger between the full stops. Between the three German words. 

A quick and playful way to discover who’s in the room.

Input & conversation: Fernando Sáez Carvajal, Malpaso Dance Company, Founder and Executive Director, Havana

Logan February, a multidisciplinary Poet & Artist

Games anchored by dividing lines still take two sides to play. Logan February’s video and essay performance Recipro(cities) considers the intimacy in healing history: a turn from conflict and defenses toward sharing and togetherness. Are we still capable of childlike play? Can there be victory on both sides?

Quick live poll: 

What has been your best experience during the initiation phase? 

What was/is challenging?

Breakout Sessions: 

The breakout sessions are designed to introduce you to the themes and questions behind the Roadmap of Collaboration and inspire further conversations with your partner. They offer space to exchange experiences with other WAYS participants and help identify the questions, potentials and challenges that are most relevant to your own partnership. The sessions are facilitated by practitioners with experience in the respective fields. Rather than providing ready-made solutions, they invite you to look at what you may want to discuss with your partner as you develop your Roadmap. The sessions are offered in the same format on both days. Please register each day for different session, choosing different sessions from your partner. This way, you will each participate in two sessions and, together, cover four different sessions over the two days. 

Goals, motivation, values
What brings us together – and what do we want our partnership to be built on? This session invites you to explore the questions behind your shared goals, motivations and values. What do we each want from the collaboration? Which expectations do we bring? Where might our understandings of fairness or sustainability differ? Exchange with other participants will offer perspectives and questions that can feed back into your own partnership and discuss with your partner as you develop your Roadmap of Collaboration.

Moderation: Aisha Camara

Power sensitivity
How do power dynamics shape our partnership? What questions should we be asking about them? This session invites you to look beyond formal structures and consider how power can be acknowledged, discussed and addressed – and how greater openness, reciprocity and awareness can become part of everyday collaboration. You will hear which questions other partnerships are asking themselves and reflect on which aspects of power and inequality are important to make explicit and discuss with your partner in developing your Roadmap. 

Moderation: Anja Schütze

Responsibilities
Who is responsible for what – and how are responsibilities negotiated and shared? What factors, frameworks, understandings etc. need to be clear between partners to work well over time? This session explores the questions behind roles, expectations, decision-making and shared responsibility. Rather than looking for ready-made answers, you will consider how responsibilities can be made transparent, negotiated with care and adapted as the collaboration evolves. The exchange with other participants will help you identify questions worth bringing into your own partnership.

Moderation: Katja Sonnemann

Authorship
Who gets to shape, name and represent what we create together? This session opens up questions around authorship, recognition, rights, communication and representation. Which assumptions do partners bring to these questions? What needs to be discussed and agreed in advance, and what might remain open to negotiation? This applies not only to artistic work, but also to related matters - including the drafting of applications, reporting, and the public presentation and communication of the collaboration. Through exchange, you will reflect on how different understandings of authorship can be negotiated and how agreements can support equitable collaboration.

Moderation: Felix Sodemann

Learning of No-Collaboration
What can we learn from deciding not to collaborate? What can we learn by asking when and under which conditions collaboration may not be possible? What lessons to learn from in case we did not find a suitable partner? This session invites you to think about the boundaries and conditions of a partnership. What made you reconsider a collaboration? Which situation made it necessary to say no to collaborating? In hindsight, what conditions and factors needed to be taken into consideration when trying to find an international partner?  Rather than seeing non-collaboration simply as “failure”, we will explore how recognising when collaboration is not possible or desirable can itself be part of a fair and sustainable practice.

Moderation: Julia Alfandari

Fragility Map
Where is our collaboration particularly vulnerable, dependent or exposed to uncertainty? In this session, the Fragility Map will be introduced as a tool for making potential points of fragility in international artistic collaborations visible. It helps to explore how political, financial, institutional, personal or contextual changes can affect a partnership. You will learn how the tool can help you map different perspectives, identify vulnerabilities, expectations and cultural assumptions and generate questions to take into your own partnership and Roadmap of Collaboration.

Moderation: Sophia Stepf

Input & conversation: Nanette Snoep, Artistic Director, Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum, Cologne

Breakout Sessions: 

The breakout sessions are designed to introduce you to the themes and questions behind the Roadmap of Collaboration and inspire further conversations with your partner. They offer space to exchange experiences with other WAYS participants and help identify the questions, potentials and challenges that are most relevant to your own partnership. The sessions are facilitated by practitioners with experience in the respective fields. Rather than providing ready-made solutions, they invite you to look at what you may want to discuss with your partner as you develop your Roadmap. The sessions are offered in the same format on both days. Please register each day for different session, choosing different sessions from your partner. This way, you will each participate in two sessions and, together, cover four different sessions over the two days. 

Goals, motivation, values
What brings us together – and what do we want our partnership to be built on? This session invites you to explore the questions behind your shared goals, motivations and values. What do we each want from the collaboration? Which expectations do we bring? Where might our understandings of fairness or sustainability differ? Exchange with other participants will offer perspectives and questions that can feed back into your own partnership and discuss with your partner as you develop your Roadmap of Collaboration.

Moderation: Aisha Camara

Power sensitivity
How do power dynamics shape our partnership? What questions should we be asking about them? This session invites you to look beyond formal structures and consider how power can be acknowledged, discussed and addressed – and how greater openness, reciprocity and awareness can become part of everyday collaboration. You will hear which questions other partnerships are asking themselves and reflect on which aspects of power and inequality are important to make explicit and discuss with your partner in developing your Roadmap. 

Moderation: Anja Schütze

Responsibilities
Who is responsible for what – and how are responsibilities negotiated and shared? What factors, frameworks, understandings etc. need to be clear between partners to work well over time? This session explores the questions behind roles, expectations, decision-making and shared responsibility. Rather than looking for ready-made answers, you will consider how responsibilities can be made transparent, negotiated with care and adapted as the collaboration evolves. The exchange with other participants will help you identify questions worth bringing into your own partnership.

Moderation: Katja Sonnemann

Authorship
Who gets to shape, name and represent what we create together? This session opens up questions around authorship, recognition, rights, communication and representation. Which assumptions do partners bring to these questions? What needs to be discussed and agreed in advance, and what might remain open to negotiation? This applies not only to artistic work, but also to related matters - including the drafting of applications, reporting, and the public presentation and communication of the collaboration. Through exchange, you will reflect on how different understandings of authorship can be negotiated and how agreements can support equitable collaboration.

Moderation: Felix Sodemann

Learning of No-Collaboration
What can we learn from deciding not to collaborate? What can we learn by asking when and under which conditions collaboration may not be possible? What lessons to learn from in case we did not find a suitable partner? This session invites you to think about the boundaries and conditions of a partnership. What made you reconsider a collaboration? Which situation made it necessary to say no to collaborating? In hindsight, what conditions and factors needed to be taken into consideration when trying to find an international partner?  Rather than seeing non-collaboration simply as “failure”, we will explore how recognising when collaboration is not possible or desirable can itself be part of a fair and sustainable practice.

Moderation: Julia Alfandari

Fragility Map
Where is our collaboration particularly vulnerable, dependent or exposed to uncertainty? In this session, the Fragility Map will be introduced as a tool for making potential points of fragility in international artistic collaborations visible. It helps to explore how political, financial, institutional, personal or contextual changes can affect a partnership. You will learn how the tool can help you map different perspectives, identify vulnerabilities, expectations and cultural assumptions and generate questions to take into your own partnership and Roadmap of Collaboration.

Moderation: Sophia Stepf

Sebastian Hoffmann, Project Coordinator, Touring Artists

In this introductory session, Sebastian Hoffmann of the International Theatre Institute (ITI) Germany will highlight the key administrative hurdles in cross-border mobility: visas, taxes, social insurance, and customs. He will also introduce the network of 'Mobility Information Points,' free information and consultation services in multiple countries, including the Mobility Information Point in Germany, 'Touring Artists' (www.touring-artists.info).

Quick live poll:

What’s your most pressing question during the Initiation phase?

Summary & outlook, in conversation: Prasanna Oommen, Cora Hegewald and Julia Alfandari, Co-Leads Programme WAYS

Visual impressions from the initiation phase.