A public session about (En)forced Mobility moderated by Mary Ann DeVlieg with colleagues and artists from Tamizdat, Touring Artists, ICORN and Cité Internationale des Arts.
“We are all going through an experience which is humbling to all of us (or should be), whether it is about international mobility, hospitality in a time of lock-down, or limited future access to different territories and shrinking resources…” — Bénédicte Alliot, Director, Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris.
Artists are mobile for many professional reasons, but what if an artist is constrained to leave their home due to conflict or persecution and is invited to an artists’ residency abroad to do so? What happens when such an artist gets locked down in that country due to COVID-19? What happens when temporary support for them mutates into longer-term need? Though some countries are responding to the needs of independent artists’ loss of earnings caused by the virus, what about artists without legal status who, nevertheless, have to survive, not to mention keep making art, for an audience… where?
A one-hour informal discussion of key players including artists, artist residencies, legal and political advocates and national resources that welcome foreign artists, aims to probe our current struggles with these and related questions.
