PRESS RELEASE
31 May 2022
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Artists at Risk (AR) Partners with the Goethe Institut to Coordinate German Network of Hosting Institutions
The German cultural scene has reacted to the war in Ukraine with great solidarity and countless offers of help – including grants, work stays, studios or residences. In order to coordinate the offers from Germany and target them towards cultural professionals from Ukraine, the Goethe-Institut has entered into a partnership with the international NGO Artists at Risk (AR) to coordinate and set up a central matchmaking portal. Offers of support from institutions in Germany will be collected centrally via the Goethe portal. Likewise, Artists at Risk (AR) centrally collects applications from Ukrainian artists at risk from across Europe. This partnership employs a team of curators which matches suitable profiles of creative artists and cultural professionals applying from Ukraine with German institutions joining the initiative. Cultural institutions from Germany who would like to offer employment opportunities, studios or residences can now register at www.goethe.de/ukraine-hilfe. If funds are lacking, institutions can also apply to the Goethe-Institut for financial grants towards accommodation or production costs.
Many German cultural institutions have set up aid programmes for cultural professionals from Ukraine. These programmes include residencies lasting several months, scholarships, or even job opportunities that can facilitate their stay in host countries. The Goethe-Institut is now acting as a mediator for these offers, in partnership with Artists at Risk (AR), an organisation which has been supporting artists in danger at international level for over ten years.
German cultural institutions will now be able to register their offers and also apply for financial support at the same time. These new support funds have been established by the Goethe-Institut and are intended to cover accommodation or production costs. German artistic and cultural institutions with a registered legal structure are entitled to apply for a grant of 2,000 EUR per month and a period of between two and six months. The website with further information on conditions of the grants, how to apply, and contact persons is available below: www.goethe.de/ukraine-hilfe.
On the side, creative artists and cultural professionals who have fled Ukraine, are asked to register directly with Artists at Risk (AR). Please forward all inquiries to the application form found on the homepage of Artists at Risk (AR): www.artistsatrisk.org.
The applications and the offers will then be brought together by a team of six experienced curators from Ukraine, Germany and other European regions. The team will evaluate the profiles of the artists as well as the registrations from cultural institutions through the portal, after which applicants will be matched with the respective institutions.
Special funds for Ukraine
Several German cultural organisations have already agreed to joint coordination during several Goethe Network meetings, including institutions as diverse as the transmediale, the city of Augsburg, Literarische Colloquium Berlin, Künstlerhaus Lauenburg, Hans und Charlotte Krull Stiftung, Schauspiel Köln and others.
Prior to this, Artists at Risk (AR) has already placed dozens of Ukrainian and other artists at risk in German institutions such as the KW Institute for Contemporary Art (Kunst-Werke) in Berlin, Haus der Kunst in Munich, Harun Farocki Institut in Berlin, Kunstverein Stuttgart, Munich Kunstverein, Pilotenküche in Leibzig and many smaller institutions.
The matching portal is a partnership between the Goethe-Institut and the international NGO Artists at Risk (AR).
For press enquiries, please contact
Artists at Risk (AR)
Press Desk
[email protected]
Goethe-Institut:
Viola Noll, Deputy press spokesperson
[email protected]
+49 30 25906 471
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ARTISTS at RISK (AR) is a non-profit organisation active at the intersection of human rights and the arts. Since 2013, AR has built a mondial network of arts and non-profits, municipalities, states and international organizations to assist, relocate and fund artists who are at risk of persecution, oppression or fleeing war or terror. AR hosted artists in 26 locations in 19 countries globally, prior to the Ukraine war. Since the beginning of the Russian invasion, currently over 500 hosting institutions have joined the platform across Europe in order relocate and support the over 800 art practitioner at risk from Ukraine, and 250 dissident artists at risk of persecution, imprisonment, torture or worse from Russia and Belarus. These institutions have largely signed up via our forms (www.artistsatrisk.org) although AR has also launched cooperation with the Swedish SWAN network, UNESCO and other national and regional residency networks, such as the breakthrough partnership with the German national network of the Goethe Institute.
The Goethe-Institut is the cultural institute of the Federal Republic of Germany with a global reach. With 158 institutes in 98 countries, it promotes knowledge of German abroad, encourages international cultural exchange and conveys an image of contemporary Germany. The Goethe-Institut’s ties with partner institutions in many other places give it about 1,000 points of contact around the world. www.goethe.de
