A Fair New Idea?! #2: Sustainability and international collaboration in the arts

In 2020, Flanders Arts Institute launched A Fair New World?!: a trajectory in search of a more fair, sustainable, solidary and inclusive arts sector. Four open calls were organised under the title A Fair New Idea?! to develop concrete tools and proposals, each with a specific theme.

For the second call ‘working sustainably internationally’, ten arts professionals were selected for a one-year group reflection on that theme. The jury did not aim for candidates with the ‘best’ ideas, but assembled a team of people they felt were very complementary in terms of interests and expertise. After a number of exploratory meetings, the participants decided to form three groups, each focused on a specific sub-theme.

Results & Outcomes of the process

The participants formed three groups, each working on one aspect of sustainability in the form of good practices, a call to action or a collective writing and sharing process: sustainability within international collaboration, inequalities in working internationally and long-term international communities.

Sustainability in art practices: texts and reflections by artist Benjamin Verdonck, Kris Nelson of LIFT (London International Festival of Theatre), various participants from ART HAPPENS, and curator Castillo
Two Collectives In Conversation: Cross Commons Curatorial Collective and Beyond the Now.
A Letter For Transnational Fair Practice by Pieternel Vermoortel, Anna Manubens and Yasen Vasilev

1. Sustainability in art practices

What do we understand sustainability in the arts to be, how do we work towards achieving it, and how do we incorporate privileges, or the lack thereof? Read the texts and reflections Benjamin Verdonck, Kris Nelson, ART HAPPENS and Castillo.

2. Two collectives in conversation

An online conversation and collaborative writing project between two collectives active in all parts of the world: watch the video and read the conversation.

3. A Letter for Transnational Fair Practice

An appeal to the international art community to vigorously combat inequalities of cultural, political or financial nature in international collaborations.

More context and conversations

Cultural expert Rana Yaziji was invited to facilitate this development process. Read the essay Rana wrote about this experience below.

We also asked independent arts manager and writer Jumana Al-Yasiri to conduct conversations with five arts leaders and artists. This resulted in a podcast series you can also find below.

Podcast & essay: Sustainability and International Collaboration in the Arts

Listen to a series of conversations between Jumana Al-Yasiri and artists and art leaders from different contexts and continents. They talked about the question of sustainable international work in the arts from various perspectives and contexts.

Listen to the podcast and read Jumana's essay

Essay: Towards fairer and more sustainable international collaboration, an acknowledgement of complexity

Cultural expert Rana Yaziji facilitated the working sustainably internationally process.

In this article, she looks back on building a common ground between participants that were carefully selected by the jury and never met before, the need to decompose abstract notions as ‘sustainability’ and ‘working internationally’ with participants coming from different countries and contexts, and about working in a trajectory that was conceived as open ended.

Read the full essay here