Inside Us

Ulysses Foundation was established in 2009 by Emi Alicka und Julia Alicka, as a non-profit foundation according to the Albanian legislation.

It focuses on the support of Albanian art, culture, education and research as well as the networking of the respective institutions with their European partners. We develop cultural and educational projects, find solutions and implement them together with our partners. The Foundation acts also as a partner and promoter of projects and individual initiatives. Since we both were active in music and arts, we felt the need to support our country's cultural variety and it´s tradition as well.

Ulysses is the symbol of a long, adventurous journey (The Illiad & the Odyssey), a search for new ideas and an extraordinary mind. A journey that has contributed to the development of a new culture and has shaped European art, culture and humanities right up to the present day. In addition, Ulysses (as a novel by James Joyce) stands for a modern, artistic and trend-setting work. These are terms with which we identify as a team and through which we can be inspired for our project.

about

Emi Alicka-Ebhardt

Emi Alicka-Ebhardt studied music education (IGP)/piano at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. She also engaged in complementary studies in musicology at the University of Vienna, Faculty of Philological and Cultural Studies. She was subsequently involved in an intense programme of concerts in different countries and worked with chamber music groups and renowned contemporary composers and musicians.
Since 2004, inspired by the work of Rudolf Pietsch and Gerlinde Haid, she has been intensively immersed in ethnomusicology, especially in organising projects, concerts and supporting folk musicians and folk music research in Albania. From 2007 she has been the principal developer and organizer of mozaik, an annual cultural festival in Albania which she has made into a venue for annual courses, symposia and cultural events where the various genres of creative and performing arts and their practitioners can engage in active collaboration.
In 2009 she established the Ulysses Foundation in Tirana together with Julia Alicka. After becoming a mother to two wonderful children, she discovered her passion for children’s singing and the songs and games they create when interacting and playing with each other. She would like to expand her knowledge of this topic in the future via ethnomusicological research.

about

Julia Alicka

Julia Alicka was born in Tirana and has been living in Mannheim and Heidelberg, Germany for over 25 years. She has been working in the cultural sector of the city of Mannheim for years and has designed and implemented several projects in the field of cultural development assistance between Germany and Albania. From 2006 to 2010 she co-conceived and co-directed the German-Austrian Culture Festival, mozaik.
Currently, she has been working at the Mannheim National Theater since 2016. During the last 6 years, in collaboration with the city of Mannheim, she has been involved in the cultural and educational project ALTER, which has won several awards, on a federal level.
Since 2020 she is in charge of the new national development policy project (Nationale Stadtentwicklungspolitik) of the Federal Ministry of the Interior (Bundesinnenministerium), called Die Oase. At the same time, since 2008 she has been working with the International Center for Women in Heidelberg, whose goal is to accompany refugee families in times of crisis.