The prime-time cultural programme “La Brama” on Barcelona’s betevé shone a spotlight on Artists at Risk (AR) last month. You can find the full original article at this link and the English translation below:
https://beteve.cat/cultura/artists-at-risk-artistes-exili/
In Barcelona, Palestinian writer Marwa Radi Abu Raida and Sudanese painter Osama Khalid are working on a six-month artistic residency.
The global platform Artists at Risk was founded in 2013 and, since then, has hosted more than 1,000 artists who have had to go into exile from their home countries. It provides artistic residencies in around 20 countries worldwide, offering accommodation and the means necessary to continue developing their artistic practice — all to give them a safe space to keep creating.
The organization has hosted renowned and remarkable artists such as Vietnamese singer Mai Khoi in Helsinki, Iranian fashion designer Farnaz Abdoli in Munich, and the Russian feminist collective Pussy Riot in Barcelona. Over the past year, the punk group prepared the show Riot Days at Casal de Barri Trinitat Nova, which premiered in a concert at La Mercè festival in Plaça de Catalunya.
Hundreds of applications every month
Currently, Artists at Risk receives hundreds of applications each month from artists who can no longer work in their own countries. The reasons are many and complex: persecution based on gender — for being a woman or a trans person — belonging to the LGTBIQA+ community, or ethnic origin.
“Being very religious, or not religious enough — being an atheist — can also be grounds for persecution in some countries,” notes Ivor Stodolsky, co-founder and co-director of Artists at Risk.
The platform receives requests from artists in conflict regions such as Sudan, Ukraine, and Palestine, but also from democratic countries such as Spain, the United States, Slovakia, and Mexico. The organization emphasizes the complexity of these reasons:
“There are artists from war-torn countries exiled in Hungary, and Hungarian artists who have to flee their country, for example, for being part of the LGTBIQA+ community,” explains Stodolsky.
Outbreaks of conflict, peaks in applications
The organization receives the most applications at the start of conflicts:
“When the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, we had about 2,000 applications in just a few months. Another such moment was when Ukraine was invaded by Russia,” recalls Stodolsky.
The main selection criterion for the organization is humanitarian urgency:
“If artists live in conditions of extreme war, have been imprisoned, or persecuted for their artistic practice, they need to leave their country quickly — and we try to make that possible,” says Marita Muukkonen, co-founder and co-director of Artists at Risk.
Muukkonen laments all the applications they cannot address and stresses that “applications don’t expire”: some artists who requested help years ago are only now being assisted, having survived in precarious conditions while they waited.
An international network of 300 partner institutions
The international platform Artists at Risk doesn’t work alone — it operates thanks to a vast network of over 300 partner institutions that support it worldwide.
In Barcelona, since 2019, the platform No Callarem has made it possible to host six-month residencies that include accommodation and a work contract. The organization manages the complex bureaucracy to help artists leave their countries — sometimes where embassies are nonfunctional due to war — and relocate safely to Barcelona.
Sergio Escalona, project coordinator at Panorama180 (the organization behind No Callarem), highlights the importance of networked work. He explains how essential it is to provide both artistic and psychological support once the artists arrive and find a safe place to live and create.
“We introduce them to Barcelona’s cultural and artistic ecosystem so they can meet local artists and understand how work is done here, but also so they can contribute their own expertise and perspectives,” says Escalona.
He reminds us that “it’s essential to care for artists” because “without people, there is no culture.”
Marwa Radi Abu Raida, persecuted by Hamas
Palestinian writer and poet Marwa Radi Abu Raida is one of the artists hosted by Artists at Risk, in collaboration with No Callarem in Barcelona.
Abu Raida, 40, had to flee her native Gaza after publishing her novel Friends of Fearness – Galil and Ozile, which promotes peace between Palestinians and Israelis. The book was rejected by her community and led to persecution by Hamas sympathizers.
“The book invites readers to ask why we should hate another person for their religion or beliefs. It also explores how fear can change people’s lives,” she says.
Abu Raida reflects on the power of words:
“With care, we can inspire people — but with bad intentions, we can destroy them.”
The power of imagination
Marwa Radi is currently doing an artistic residency at ESPRONCEDA Institute of Art & Culture, where she is developing a philosophical essay and a collection of poems.
“I’m focusing on fragility, because all Gazans are suffering — as a citizen of Gaza, I have suffered a lot. My goal is for people to create beauty in everything they do and always act with humanity.”
She has developed her own creative process in poetry:
“I write poems starting from three words and can sometimes finish a text in just a few minutes,” she says.
For Abu Raida, imagination is a source of power and energy, something she has used since childhood, from the moment she wakes up to when she goes to sleep.
“If you use imagination carefully, you can create a beautiful life and inspire hope.”
Osama Khalid, exiled painter from Sudan
Sudanese painter Osama Khalid had to flee to Egypt due to the insecurity in his country, which has been in civil war since 2023, and entangled in various conflicts for decades.
A graduate of the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Sudan, he works mainly in watercolour and acrylic.
“Art isn’t a material — it’s magic,” he says, adding that “painting is a space where you create with your feelings.”
In Barcelona, Khalid has begun a six-month residency supported by No Callarem. He has already met some local artists who work on large-scale paintings and wants to learn from them.
“I’ve always drawn in small format because that’s all I could afford in my country — often, in Sudan, large-format materials aren’t even available,” he laments.
Painting misery
The civil war in Sudan has caused tens of thousands of deaths and displaced 11 million people, according to Amnesty International. Through his works, Khalid seeks to highlight the misery and suffering that decades of conflict have inflicted on society.
“I like to talk about the everyday lives of Sudanese people — especially the many who are homeless,” he says.
Khalid explains that Sudanese artists face many challenges — economic, political, and logistical.
“You don’t have many options; you only have one: to leave,” he says.
He stresses that Sudan’s conflict is one of the deadliest in the world right now, yet rarely covered by the media.
“My project in Barcelona, apart from painting freely, is to be a voice for the Sudanese people,” he concludes.
