The ITI Academy is an exchange and qualification programme for emerging artists and curators consisting of various formats. Based on the first edition of the ITI Academy 2022/23 and the Academy Week, which the 20 Fellows of the ITI Academy will organise during Theater der Welt 2023 in Offenbach-Frankfurt am Main, the future of internationality and diversity in the performing arts is discussed. To this end, a space is opened up for encounters and discourses in order to strengthen the next generation in the performing arts in general and in the ITI in particular and to promote transnational, forward-looking exchange.

Burning issues of sustainability, climate change, decolonisation, equality and the impact of new technologies can no longer be ignored in the planning and implementation of a festival or transnational collaboration. First and foremost, young artists are already responding to current realities of comprehensive transformation with alternative concepts of collaboration and curation. They are concerned with forms and demands of contemporary (theatre) art and the relevance of artistic work for a diverse society and its communities. Many new and forward-looking festival formats and concepts of transnational collaboration in the arts are currently emerging, to which the ITI Academy is dedicated. As a seismograph and living laboratory, the performing arts can play their part in creating visions and utopian perspectives for a future worth living in planetary community.

Based on the conviction that the global transformation process must be supported by solidarity and can only be shaped with the participation of the next generation and diverse communities, the ITI Academy aims to stimulate pioneering collaborations, co-operations and co-creations.

The starting point was the Atelier Düsseldorf in June 2021 as part of Theater der Welt and in cooperation with The Festival Academy of the European Festival Association. The recordings of the livestreams, including the panel discussion with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Shahidul Alam, and Emily Johnson on "The role of the arts and festivals in today's society and the imaginative power of storytelling", can be viewed here.

The first brainstorming and kick-off weekend of the ITI Academy took place in digital form on 3 and 4 December 2021. Transnational and globally active artists, scholars, and experts from culture and politics analysed and discussed the future of international festivals and transnational collaborations. Thereby, inspiring ideas and impulses for the conception of the first edition of the qualification and exchange programme of the ITI Academy emerged. The programme as well as further information can be found here.