To commemorate the establishment of EUNIC Kansai in 2022, EUNIC Kansai and Kyoto Art Centre organized a hybrid symposium “AIR on air 2.0”. This symposium took over the discussions from the online symposium “AIR on air” held in December 2020 under Corona, confirm the current position of artist-in-residence (AIR) under the rapidly shifting social conditions and discuss what kind of changes are required.
Ishii Jun’ichiro, who is the ICA Kyoto’s residencies coordinator, has reported about the symposium on “AIR_J Online Database of Artist in Residence Programs in Japan“.

>> Read on AIR_J

---

to “AIR on air 2.0: Part 1“

Session 2: Solidarity and Care

In the second part of the symposium, four more presenters spoke on the subject of “Solidarity and Care.”

Mykhailo Glubokyi, development director at IZOLYATSIA – platform for cultural initiatives in Ukraine, reported on the current state of the space.

IZOLYATSIA was founded in 2010 on the site of a former insulation factory in the city of Donetsk in the east of Ukraine. Once open to the public as a cultural complex incorporating educational, art, and artist-in-residence programs, the center was unable to continue functioning as a cultural facility following the occupation of Donetsk by Russian-backed military forces in the wake of Russia’s 2014 invasion of Crimea. Today, the center has been turned into a military installation and is used as a detention center where even torture is conducted.

In 2014, IZOLYATSIA opened a similar facility in an old shipyard in Kyiv. However, they were forced to close again after a part of this facility was destroyed during the 2022 Russian invasion. With no space of their own, IZOLYATSIA is now devoting itself to online-based activities.

Most of these online activities involve supporting artists and institutions that are continuing cultural activities in Ukraine with financial assistance from the EU. This support is wide-ranging. AIR programs can help artists who have lost places to live due to bombing and also be safe destinations for people fleeing dangerous regions. Artists who have evacuated to relatively safe regions within Ukraine need support that enables them to engage openly with cultural organizations in these regions, while information concerning residencies and cultural support programs operated by other countries often does not reach individual artists. Providing and sharing such information is an important way of supporting artists.

After introducing exhibitions by Ukrainian artists held in Berlin and Paris, Glubokyi concluded his presentation with the following remarks.

“It’s really important to say that all the work of artists is important because it always gives a voice Ukraine to abroad, so this comes in the frames of cultural diplomacy. A lot of our artists are not just coming to work for themselves or their projects, unfortunately at this kind of time, but they also represent the country; they talk about what’s going on in Ukraine; they talk about experience of people of Ukraine.”

◉

Heidi Vogels, an artist and coordinator of DutchCulture|TransArtists, which boasts the world’s largest database of artist-in-residence programs, shared her own views based on her wealth of experience.

Immediately after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, TransArtists invited artists who had fled Ukraine to residencies in Spain. This was such a success that in cooperation with its partner organization in Kyiv, House of Europe, TransArtists began connecting Ukrainian artists and AIR programs in the Netherlands.

“It was a quite spontaneous action, so in the beginning we just saw that many people responded. But it also made us think: What does it actually mean? What can it mean for an artist residencies – to look again at residency as a model, and the idea of hospitality – and how can we work with this to develop new ways of thinking concerning residencies in the future in response to crisis situations?” [*1]

Vogels was surprised at how promptly such support networks were able to act. Cultural cooperative structures and networks that had been established and maintained over long periods of time supported those facing crises. Vogels added that we need to open our doors and create places that feel safe to people fleeing the horrors of war.

[*1] TransArtists has been developing, together with Kunstenpunt in Brussels, the peer-to-peer meeting Future Hospitalities to bring professionals from the cultural and humanitarian field together to explore this topic.

◉

“I will first give you maybe a few words about, an indication of, the history of Cité internationale des arts, the history of the place. I will just explain that since 1965, since opening of Cité, Cité has been always a safe place for the artist, with very very long history of welcoming and supporting artists in exile from post-war until today.”

Vincent Gonzalvez, head of the residencies at Cité internationale des arts in Paris, also gave a presentation.

Designed by architect Félix Brunau in the 1950s and opened in 1965, Cité internationale des arts was (as one can imagine given the period in question) heavily influenced by World War II. The plan itself was based on a strong desire for peace.

According to Gonzalvez, Cité, which is equipped with 325 studios and hosts more than 1000 artists from 90 countries each year, is not so much a collection of studios for artists in residence but a community resembling a city enabling artists from all fields, all generations and all nationalities to come to Paris and work while leading dignified lives. In 1965, on the basis of an agreement with the UN, Cité, which has been involved in international activities from quite an early stage even in global terms, hosted as an artist a pianist who had entered France from Poland as a refugee. Since then, Cité has accepted numerous exile and refugee artists. Since 2011, in partnership with the Municipality of Paris, it has provided two-year-long extended residencies to artists from Afghanistan, Yemen and Bangladesh as an official ICORN (International Cities of Refuge Network) organization.

At present, a large number of artists from Ukraine and Myanmar are staying at Cité. Since its opening in 1965, Cité has always been an extension of disputed territories and states of emergency, and for this reason it has continued to provide a “place that feels safe” to artists while assuming aspects of a microcosm of the situation in the world today.

◉

The final presenter in the second part of the symposium was Juliet Knapp, co-director of the International Performing Arts Festival Kyoto Experiment, which is held in Kyoto and showcases the work of avant-garde, experimental artists from Japan and overseas.

Every year, Kyoto Experiment invites avant-garde artists or groups from Japan and overseas to stage experimental performances that span multiple disciplines including not only theater and dance but also art, design and architecture. In conjunction with this initiative, between three and five new works are created annually, and in the sense that it provides opportunities for artists to create new work on-site, Kyoto Experiment serves a function very similar to that of a residency.

For its tenth anniversary in 2020, Kyoto Experiment shifted to a new format. In addition to the regular Shows, Kansai Studies, a program in which artists take the lead in researching the regional culture of Kansai, including Kyoto, and Super Knowledge for the Future (SKF), a program of talks and workshops designed to deepen people’s knowledge of the various problems and issues that form the backdrop to the festival, were newly established. As Juliet Knapp explains:

“Shows is a lineup of artists that we think are producing radical and experimental work that we believe is important to be seen in Japan, in the Japanese context, right now. This year we introduced an artist from Thailand and an artist from Iran, two countries that have recently seen protests and political upheaval. It was very important for the festival to introduce these artists who we felt were making very radical work for their context; not only to introduce their work, but to introduce their context properly to our audiences. We also did a series of talks on art and politics this year as part of our Super Knowledge for the Future program: one about politics in Okinawa, one about what kind of work artists are doing in Thailand, and one about what kind of work artists are doing in Russia.”

◉

At the end of the second round of presentations, the moderator, Kyoto Art Center artistic adviser and Kyoto city cultural policy coordinator Mayumi Yamamoto, stressed the importance of “urgency” in cases such as Ukraine that require support right now. She then asked what can be done about “after residencies” for artists who have finished the terms of their residencies, and what kind of support is available for artists who have actually fled dangerous situations such as wars as international support networks expand.

With respect to situations such as war, Heidi Vogels of TransArtists expressed the view that residencies are one of a range of initial responses to fellow artists who have crossed national borders, and that they have huge potential in that they can enable people active in cultural spheres to expand their mutual connections and extend their support circles. But she added that AIR programs cannot be the ultimate solution in terms of ongoing support.

I would like to conclude this article with the following summary of Vogels’ remarks.

“I think AIRs are a very good first solution until the governmental structures of these countries are in place and can help artists to find their – maybe – temporary place in society and the support that they need. However, I do think that we can do more than we are currently doing. Looking at Brussels, for example, there is one organization supported by the municipality that is offering newcomers – they call them “newcomers,” not refugees, but newcomers. Here we see that language is also a very important aspect in how to educate ourselves to work and think differently concerning situations and find other solutions.

We have to keep educating ourselves in how we address each other too. For example, in politics they like to say, “flow of refugees,” and things like “streams of people” “flooding the country” and so on. We should also be critical about this kind of language, and how we address problems. You can say it’s “failing policy,” but it’s “failing politics,” and that completely turns the situation around. It also turns around how we relate to each other.

I also very much liked what Juliet was saying. When you have these presentations about artists you also educate your audiences. I think that may be another task ahead of us as cultural spaces, as residencies, and so on: how to create more understanding for each other’s contexts, and in that sense also, how to understand what is meaningful, and how we can invest in that, how we can work with that.”

---

Hybrid Symposium “AIR on air 2.0”
Date: 16 December 2022
Goethe-Institut Villa Kamogawa and online (Zoom)

Session 1: Art Production and the Climate crisis – Perspectives from Europe and Japan
Soichiro Mihara, Artist, Japan
Giulia Bellinetti, Jan van Eyck Academie, the Netherlands
Martin Germann, Adjunct Curator, Mori Art Museum, Germany/Japan
Felix Große-Lohmann, Director, Material für Alle & Husslehof, Germany

Moderator: Roger McDonald, Program Director, Arts Initiative Tokyo [AIT], Japan

Session 2: Solidarity and Care
Heidi Vogels, DutchCulture I TransArtists, Artist, The Netherlands
Juliet Knapp, Co-director, International Performing Arts Festival KYOTO EXPERIMENT, Japan
Mykhailo Glubokyi, Development director, IZOLYATSIA, Ukraine
Vincent Gonzalvez, Head of the Residencies, Cité internationale des arts, France

Moderator: Mayumi Yamamoto, Kyoto Art Center artistic adviser, Kyoto city cultural policy coordinator, Japan

Organizers: EUNIC Kansai (Goethe-Institut Villa Kamogawa, Villa Kujoyama, Institut français du Japon – Kansai, Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands), Kyoto Art Centre (Kyoto Arts and Culture Foundation)
Cooperation: AIR_J, The German Consulate General Osaka-Kobe, The Netherlands Consulate-General in Osaka

Thanks to Mami Odai (Sapporo Tenjinyama Art Studio), Shintaro Tokairin (Arts Initiative Tokyo [AIR])

EUNIC Kansai
EUNIC – European Union National Institutes for Culture – is the European network of organizations engaging in cultural relations. The EUNIC Kansai cluster was officially established in June 2022 on initiative of Goethe-Institut Villa Kamogawa, Villa Kujoyama, Institut français du Japon – Kansai, and the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Japan. EUNIC Kansai aims to be a cultural bridge between the European Union and the Kansai area of Japan. It contributes to the connectivity of the cultural sectors in Europe and Kansai and the mobility of European and Japanese artists.