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What a year! As we are winding down for the year w

What a year! As we are winding down for the year we are taking a moment to look back over the last 12 months in which we worked with more than 100 artists, curators, and arts leaders from 16 countries through successes and challenges.

This year our programs supported 8 US and international artists embarking on Art Prospect residencies across Europe and Central Asia, a collaborative platform for Ukrainian art leaders to discuss the rebuilding of their cultural infrastructure during 4 ‘Beyond Greener Grass’ workshops in several European cities, and hosted in the Fall an exceptional cohort of 10 art leaders during 6-week residencies in the US. We were equally thrilled to organise the "Cultural Ecosystems at Risk: Global Insights from Local Challenges" event in NYC, exploring with 60 key participants and attendees crucial topics of strengthening systemic resilience.

The CEC ArtsLink team is profoundly grateful to all independent cultural workers and organizations, funders and individual donors who help us bring pioneering transnational artists together when it matters most.

As M. Carmen Lane said about our Fellowships program, "Artists in relationship with one another without borders, boundaries or mediation by larger systems…is what we all need."

This work, rooted in building deep human connections beyond political and geographic borders, is only possible because together we keep this mission alive.

Wishing you a most restorative end of the year with your loved ones and looking forward to seeing you in 2025.

#residency #artistopportunity #artsnonprofit #socialjustice #residencies #opencallforartists #artistresidency #artconnect #nonforprofit #nonforprofitarts

𝙋𝙖𝙧𝙩 𝟭: 𝗡𝗬𝗖. 𝙎𝙞𝙢𝙤𝙣 𝘿𝙤𝙫𝙚 (𝘾𝙀𝘾 𝘼𝙧𝙩𝙨𝙇𝙞𝙣𝙠)
When I first met Simon in 2022 we had roughly 15 minutes to talk. Boy did we fit some topics into that window! Education for cultural leaders, memory, arts and healing. Not your typical small talk at a conference.
«Showcasing and selling art is good, but I want more» – that was what I ended with. «Apply for the Fellowship» was Simon’s response. I did. Cue to March on Zoom with Simon and my host, amazing Adam Horowitz (@adam.s.horowitz) discussing what my residence would center on.
First – I’m eager to explore: what’s the role and contribution of the arts for the community of a country, heading into over 1000 days of war? Steve Lambert, an impressive visual artist and cultural organizer, whom Simon and I are meeting in NYC gives his optics: art doesn’t need to directly reflect reality - it is about distraction or even mindfulness. It is rather to rebuild the spirit than directly reflect reality. «What’s the point of winning the war if you forget how to live?» asks Steve. It’s hard to disagree. Encouraging a positive mindset, being funny – this is what I find an artist's role being even about the most serious topics.
Next question. Sure, art is to distract. But can it solve issues, important and vital for a community? We are, meeting Rob Blackson – and my jaw is in a constant state of being dropped, as he tells about a project «Symphony for a Broken Orchestra». Rob (based in Philly) has run into a broken piano in one of the schools. That span into finding 1500+ other broken instruments in all school districts, photographing them, and uploading to the website “Adopt an Instrument”. A $50 donation – and you can sponsor their repair. Oh yeah, and Grammy award-winning composer David Lang has composed a symphony to make sense of the sounds these instruments make in their broken state. «All that to address the issue of institutional funding?». Yeah, a small community project can definitely address a larger problem.
«Congrats», Simon tells me as I leave this stage of my Fellowship and head to Philly. «You’ve caught the civic engagement bug». Boy, I’m grateful to the Artslink Fellowship 2024 for that!

Participate in the action of art solidarity this w

Participate in the action of art solidarity this week in Brussels!

The site-specific intervention #FramedinBelarus: Interwoven Spaces, a collaboration between Rufina Bazlova's art project #FramedinBelarus and the Mission of Democratic Belarus, transforms a Brussels office into a creative studio. The artists create a space to present both the process and the results of a collective project created with countless hands and minds to honor Belarusian political prisoners.

#FramedinBelarus: Interwoven Spaces
📍 Mission of Democratic Belarus, Rue de la Science 23, Brussels
📅 Tuesday, 10th December, official opening at 17:30
📅 Wednesday, 11th December, 16:00 – 19:00
📅 Thursday, 12th December, 18:30 – 20:00

During the opening, the exhibition's authors will guide visitors to engage directly with the Framed in Belarus artefacts, discovering forms of gentle protest and art solidarity. The recommended visit time to fully experience the show is 2 hours.

For the #FramedinBelarus project, the Prague-based Belarusian artist and a member of Stitchit art group Rufina Bazlova @rufinabazlova (ArtsLink International Fellow 2023), invites people from around the world to stitch stories of political prisoners in her Belarus. "The project aims to create portraits of each of the over 1,500 illegally convicted citizens using the traditional Belarusian embroidery technique of red thread on a white background, thereby recording an important era of Belarusian history with a folk code - ornament. Participation in the project is a gesture of creative solidarity.” (framedinbelarus.net)

#FramedinBelarus: Interwoven Spaces is part of the Week of Belarusian Culture in Brussels, organized by The European External Action Service and the European Commission with the support of the EU4Culture project.

📷 Embroidery made for the project in memory of the death of political prisoner Vitold Ashurak.

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