We launched the Culture of Solidarity Fund, looking to support imaginative cultural initiatives that, in the midst of the global pandemic crisis reinforce European solidarity and the idea of Europe as a shared public space.
We received more than 2,500 applications from all corners of Europe and beyond, in the first round. Out of it, we welcome the first 29 new grantees and their projects into our network! Their imaginative projects range from new international institutes for artists, virtual learning platforms for creatives engaging Black and African communities in Europe to digital handbooks that offer support during COVID-19.
Artivism for Solidarity
“Artivism for Solidarity” is a project initiated by the group of activists representing cultural and environmental initiatives around Eastern Europe.
Their vision is to inspire movement of hands-on campaigns for raising solidarity around urgent social and ecological issues during and after pandemic crisis. Besides, the project aims to support local artists by giving them an opportunity to share their knowledge and practice their mastery.
Geographically the project is focused on Latvia, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova and Russia.
It consists of a reach-out campaign, a series of educational online seminars, ideathon event for artivism campaigns, implementation of winning ideas and an exhibition of completed projects.
Art Workers Italia - Hyper Unionisation
Art Workers Italia is a non-hierarchical research group focused on cognitive work rights in the field of contemporary art, in Italy and Europe. In response to the COVID-19 world crisis, they aim to coordinate and support individual art workers – not exclusively artists – as well as national and international non-profit associations and institutions.
Continue to an interview.
Asociatia Vira - Harvesting Solidarity
A platform that gathers and shares European experiences of solidarity towards and among seasonal workers. The project will document stories of Romanians who have been dispatched for work in Western Europe, despite COVID-19 international travel restrictions. Video and text materials will be produced, describing both violations of workers’ rights and support received from Western trade unions and locals. With this project Asociatia Vira will foster and promote workers’ solidarity in Romania and in countries of destination.
ATAK - Stories from the balcony, Stories from the Balkans
In these times balconies, normally an architectural element, have turned into agoras and forums, they did become the public space of the world's citizens - Baroque mundi theater. ATAK works on restoring the democratic function of Balkan countries, that is, the function of participation. With this project they want to examine the micropolitics of various Balkan constituents, where the question of territory statehood has always been questionable.
Read an interview here.
Autostrada Tandem Biennale
Autostrada Biennale's project ‘Autostrada Tandem Biennale’ rethinks the Biennale model and their legacy: very local and yet very connected, after quarantine.
Autostrada Biennale will take place in Summer of 2021 and will not be postponed. It will rather directly take into account how much the pandemic made us think about our cities, our expanded localities, what we can go back to, what we can leave behind, and how necessary art is in times of uncertainty. Övül Ö. Durmusoglu and Joanna Warsza will take us upon that journey as co-curators of the next edition of our Biennale.
Read an interview here.
Busy Being Black
Busy Being Black is the podcast exploring how we live in the fullness of our queer Black lives. As Covid-19 continues to disproportionately impact Black people and communities of colour across the globe, conversations focus on how marginalised, othered and vulnerable communities are coming together in digital and virtual sites to share their stories, cultures and acts of resistance and solidarity.
Find Busy Being Black dedicated project page here.
Centrum pro podporu podnikani a zamestnanosti - Project incubator for the young
Centrum pro podporu podnikani a zamestnanosti believe that young people learn best through trying and discovering. Therefore they decided to create a project incubator for young people to guide them in the world of small projects and advise them how to improve their surroundings. Young people will be encouraged to implement small solidarity projects to help the community in which they live.
Read an interview here.
Encounter Activism
Encounter Activism is a collaborative project by four European art professionals. They are connected via the TAAT-collective that built an open source practice through ‘staging encounters between unknown Others’, quoting Levinas. EncounterActivism is an answer to the current distancing measures. In a series of ‘silent walks’ in Riga, Athens, Dundee and Brussels the collaborators invite people to occupy ‘a space for solidarity’ through a custom made walking experience and so transform social distancing into an experience of shareability.
An interview? Click here.
European Family - Women for the Future Association / Independent Theater Hungary
European Family by Women for the Future Association / Independent Theater Hungary is a online theatre video series that shows the life of a multi-ethnic Roma family whose members live in different regions and face different challenges in current time regarding education, digital tools, housing, employment and other issues.
Fairy Circles – community resilience and environmental restoration with fungi
‘Fair-y Circles’ – community resilience and environmental restoration with fungi’ by Csilla Hódi is a programme that provides practical knowledge of working with mushrooms (local food production, habitat restoration, eco-architecture) and mentoring for community and network development. It mobilizes a diverse groups on a regional (Central and East Europe) level by strengthening the leadership and solidarity capacities primarily of women and other vulnerable groups.
Kara Agora
Kara Agora is a participatory online art and research center. It is organized by a European team of curators [Tina Sauerlaender from Germany, Julia Hartman from Austria, Ágnes-Karolina Bakk from Hungary, Gleb Divov from the independent Republic of Užupis (Vilnius, Lithuania), Nikita Khudiakov from Ukraine and Mara-Johanna Kolmel from the UK]. During its running time, the art center will be based in the freely accessible virtual 3D environment of mozilla hubs. It is there a series of participatory experimental events will take place. Each event is conceived to bring unusual groups of people from different European countries together and to address and raise social, personal, ecological, and political questions concerning Europe, its regions, and its inhabitants.
LATRA - Letters from the front
Lesbos based ‘Letters from the front’ will empower citizens, refugees, civil society organisations and grassroots movements to work in-sync in gathering stories from the frontlines of the refugee and humanitarian crisis in Lesvos-Greece that capture the essence of Europe as an open and shared public space. In a second stage, LATRA will help transform these stories into personal narratives that help reveal Europe’s face of solidarity. The project is also supported by an Open Society Foundations grant managed by the Centre for Applied Human Rights - University of York (UK) [Art + Activism Against Repression During the Covid-19 Crisis].
MN Consult Creative Projects - It’s a process
If we see Europe as a shared emotional and creative space then we can coordinate resources and help the ones in need, irrespectively of borders. This project connects stories of psychological distress with female-identifying artists to process the significant impact across Europe. Victims can submit their stories online and through local networks. Their stories are matched with artists who reflect their experience through art.
Click here for an interview
New Women Connectors - Leading resilience
New Women Connectors will organize webinars to inform, connect and amplify the voices of refugee and migrant women across Europe, during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The webinars will function as a cross-border virtual space of solidarity where the needs and challenges of migrant and refugee women during COVID-19 become visible and heard, and where experts and peers will support in finding common solutions. New Women Connectors wants to compile information on coping-strategies, resilience and needs of refugee and migrant women through self-representation.
image coming soon
Open Past - We are what makes us human?
Open Past will produce a colouring book that shows how cultures throughout history have taken care of the sick, the hurt, the disabled and the old. This will demonstrate that what makes us human is our willingness to care for others. Each image will be produced by a different artist from countries around Europe, and all images will be released freely.
Read an interview here.
PANDEMOS - Rizoma
Rizoma’s Pandemos builds a community of 12 Mediterranean artists to engage in a process of artistic creation and dissemination bearing witness to the pandemic and offering a vision for the world of tomorrow. The work will be exhibited online and in connected local home events and will prepare the ground for longer-term cooperation in 2021.
Interview? Online exhibition? Click here.
Powszechny Theatre named Zygmunt Hubner in Warsaw - The Forum for the Future of Culture: Solidarity and Care
This is a critical attempt to imagine and implement strategies of enhancing social and ecological solidarity in the face of the pandemic crisis. The main event, The Forum for the Future of Culture, is a platform of exchange between artists, researchers and organizations operating within the field of social and ecological diversity. The Forum will be preceded by the research and debates with audiences.
The Radicals
The Radicals is a storytelling initiative that reclaims what it means to be radical, explores contemporary radical movement builders and showcases the diverse faces of root-cause-activism across Europe.
RECUP’ART - Cultureghem
Cultureghem’s project RECUP’ART invites artists to share their work and interact with a new audience, by adding artworks to their food aid parcels. With their food sharing platform Collectmet Deliveries, they want to recuperate art along with food. They will launch an open call to invite European artists to share their art with people in need. They provide income for artists and comfort for the people who most need it.
Click here for an interview.
Rete della Conoscenza - SOL.MAP - Solidarity, Mutual aid, Activism, Participation
The project will collect and share social innovation practices developed during the lockdown. The current situation presents us with both new needs and already existing necessities are made more difficult to deal with by social distancing, especially for those who are marginalized. By organising digital and live events, Rete della Conoscenza will strengthen social bonds inside local communities around European countries.
Click here for an interview.
The Solidarity Space - B.A.S.S
The Solidarity Space by The Black & African Solidarity Show (B.A.S.S.) is both a creative-based virtual learning platform and arts festival for creatives engaging Black and African communities in Europe. The art festival takes place in a different European country each year. Both platforms provides opportunity for collaboration, education, career development, and project sharing.
Supporting marginalised people through solidarity of culture, experiences and knowledge - INSP Foundation
INSP Foundation (International Network of Street Papers) supports 48 street papers in 21 countries across Europe to share stories, resources, experiences, skills, innovation and knowledge with each other by providing a platform for alternative perspectives, cultural diversity and unheard voices.
Symptoms of the future - Stereovizija
STEREOVIZIJA's project ‘Symptoms of the Future’ is a printed poly-functional book/object that consists of commissioned artworks, texts and interviews. A collection of untold imaginaries, confessions and stories of solidarity from the past, present and possible future from the European perspective.
Click here for an interview.
Szovetkezetiseget Tamogato Egyesulet - Boosting the European culture of solidarity
Collaborations between solidarity initiatives from different sectors show the actual potential of solidarity in Europe, and helps broaden the horizon of such initiatives across Europe. The initiators depart from the culture of solidarity embedded in everyday practices. They want to work with cultural workers and organizations working for solidarity-based housing, care work and media to continue cultural production independently from state institutions. Their focus on Hungarian initiatives helps emphasize the potential of solidarity in the face of authoritarian crisis responses.
Thriving Regardless. Community Support Networks in times of COVID-19 - Almudena Caso Burbano and Carlos Buj
Almudena Caso Burbano and Carlos Buj’s initiative ‘Thriving Regardless. Community Support Networks in times of COVID-19’. Creates a digital archive and a handbook collecting and shedding light on these networks’ collaborative knowledge and praxis through observation, documentation, archiving, interviewing, and podcasts.
Read an interview here.
The Bureau of Care - State of Concept
State of Concept project ‘The Bureau of Care’ gathers artists, activists, writers and social workers to script and visualise the foundations for a European post-pandemic politics of care.
The European Declaration of Urban Rights - Zuloark
Zuloark’s initiative ‘The European Declaration of Urban Rights’ is an ongoing initiative with a new digital iteration of the project that constructs a virtual network of collaborators to compile and learn from emergent initiatives and local innovations to tackle the great challenges that the COVID-19 crisis presents in the European context.
Read an interview here.
Tools to Transform: Workbook for Asian Diasporic Organising in Europe - Asia Art Activism
Asia Art Activism’s initiative, ‘Tools to Transform: Workbook for Asian Diasporic Organising in Europe’ offers a vital resource of inter-community skills and strategies for Asian diasporic artists, educators and activists to challenge racism and build European solidarity.
Click here for an interview.
Walking Festival of Sound - Twin Cities of Krakow and Edinburgh
Drawing on the idea of twin cities that emerged after the WWII as a form of solidarity and support, the grantees will develop two editions of Walking Festival of Sound, in Krakow and Edinburgh. Initiated in 2019, Walking Festival of Sound is a small initiative uniting local artists and cultural producers who work with sound and walking as artistic, research and activist techniques for exploring and challenging the ways we perceive, navigate through, and care for our shared environments.
Read an interview here.