Published in our annual magazine Common Ground, here's an interview with Dutch musician, composer and senior consultant at the Royal Concert Hall Orville Breeveld. He is a man with many missions. Most of them centre around sharing his love for music, classical and popular, old and new. But as life goes, one thing leads to another.

Interview with Petro Ryaska, from our Culture of Solidarity Fund grantee 'Sorry No Rooms Available' about their residency programme. The residency seeks to integrate participants into the vibrant local art scene while also positioning itself as a cultural international platform, actively engaging with European and global art processes.

As you flip through the pages of our annaul magazine, you will be greeted with remarkable content that celebrates the beauty, resilience, creativity, and unity of our European cultural community.

As in previous years IDFA participates in Europe Day with a selection of films that highlight different aspects of Life in Europe. This year the IDFA team selected: Mr. Landsbergis (2021), #387 (2019) and Chelas Nha Kau (2020). These will be available for free from May 9 – May 14 on our Europe Day website. Two of the three films will have some geographical limits.

In their latest episode The Europeans Podcast interview Bojana Grujic of the Novi Sad City Library in Serbia and Myrto Tsilimpounidi from the Feminist Library at the Feminist Autonomous Centre in Athens, both participating in The Europe Challenge that offered them support, resources and funding.

Talking through challenges, team efforts, outcomes, support and future steps of the festival, the two directors shared how this year's edition held the title “state of emergency” and how this shifted the form of the online and offline screenings.

Following the publication of the book ‘Philanthropy Back to the Drawing Board' by former ECF president of the board Rien van Gendt, the author and our director André Wilkens sat down for an exchange of thoughts on the challenges and outlooks for philanthropy, the need for self-reflection and, ultimately, the relation between philanthropy and democracy.

In a series of interviews with the grantees of the Culture of Solidarity Fund Eunic Ukraine edition we look back on how their projects helped embedding Ukrainian culture in wider European spheres. The project “Chemins d’Ukraine – les constructions solidaires” offers a series of roundtables on the topic of systemic change through civic and cultural actors and projects. These will take place iat “Week-end à l’Est” in Paris dedicated to Ukraine this year.

In a series of interviews with the grantees of the Culture of Solidarity Fund Eunic Ukraine edition we look back on how their projects helped embedding Ukrainian culture in wider European spheres. The Vytautas Magnus University Centre of Ukraine and partners organise a series of events to acquaint Ukrainian and Lithuanian communities and to popularise Ukrainian culture in Lithuania, a country which has welcomed many Ukrainian refugees.

In a series of interviews with the grantees of the Culture of Solidarity Fund Eunic Ukraine edition we look back on how their projects helped embedding Ukrainian culture in wider European spheres. "The main ambition of the EUNIC cluster while applying for funds from the Culture of Solidarity Fund, was the continuation of fulfilling the objective of the “One Day More” artwork, which, as a sign of solidarity, was meant to become a place of gathering and sharing."

The project "Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Under Threat" received a grant of €23980 from the Culture of Solidarity Fund to draw public attention to the cultural heritage of the Black Sea region while also demonstrating specific tangible and intangible Ukrainian cultural elements.

The Czech Centre of Bratislava together with Goethe Institut Bratislava, Institut français de Slovaquie and local partner Aparát O.Z. received a grant of 14 990 € from the 'COS round 7 (2022)' for their project “Freedom through the eyes of women artists“.

Since the start of their new project 'The Europeans' we have been supporting photographer Rob Hornstra and writer and filmmaker Arnold van Bruggen. With ‘The Europeans’ they want to portray modern Europe. Traveling from region to region and from theme to theme in this multi-year project, Hornstra and van Bruggen want to create a 21st century time piece on the European Heartland. We had a chat.

Our Culture of Solidarity infodemic grantee European Digital Rights has published four science fiction stories that illustrate some of the obstacles people face when engaging with technology, how people can be part of the solution; and what our collective futures could look like.

Our project Re:framing Migrants in the European Media wants to help change current media narratives about migrant and refugee communities across Europe. No longer should they be subjects of narratives, but the owners. In this post we republish two articles from our 2022 annual magazine, one by Hans Kundnani and one by Black Coffee.

A study by the Allianz Foundation shows that NGOs and social movements are providing important crisis aid, but they are also coming under increasing pressure themselves. The study provides European civil society and its funders with valuable insights and suggestions, including in response to the question of how risktakers’ transnational networks can be used more effectively going forward. 

Our programme, The Europe Challenge kicked off the first physical Europe Challenge live session in Florence, followed by Milan and Sant Boi (Barcelona). During these live sessions, they brought the challenge teams physically together for the first time to work together on finding solutions to the challenges of Europe.

Our Culture of Solidarity Fund Eunic Ukraine grantee Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden hosts the online panel discussion 'Decoloniality in Ukraine: Is there still a place for a ‘soviet soldier’ in historic memory?' The discussion addresses the possibilities of building a conversation about the uncomfortable past notwithstanding the resistance to the oppressor. It questions what artists, researchers, and cultural practitioners can do in terms of building complex, multi-layered and non-linear narratives?

After a succesful application fourteen cultural organisations in thirteen European countries organise exhibitions, assemblies, film screenings and public lectures, funded by the Culture of Solidarity Fund Eunic Ukraine edition. All together these events will help embedding Ukrainian culture in wider European spheres.

The “In the Eye of the Storm: Modernism in Ukraine, 1900 – 1930s” exhibition on 28 November at Madrid's TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary opens with two panel discussions.

In this contribution Esra Kücük, Chief Executive Officer of the newly merged Allianz Foundation, touches on why they made 'sustainably improving living conditions for present and future generations' their guiding mission. And how their Climate Cultures Call fits this mission.

Philea launches the campaign “For a Climate of Change” inviting philanthropy to come together.

Since 2019 the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) and the European Cultural Foundation present a selection of documentary films that encourages the public debate on Europe, in the pathway Life in Europe. Read about the 2022 selection.

An EU-funded coordination and support action for New European Bauhaus transformations towards climate-neutral, beautiful and inclusive cities.

The European Institute of Innovation and Technology selected the winning partnership to lead Europe’s biggest innovation community for the cultural and creative sectors and industries: EIT Culture & Creativity. We are delighted to be part of the carefully crafted pan-European partnership bringing together 50 partners from 20 countries across Europe that won the bid. EIT Culture & Creativity is a game-changer for Europe’s green, digital and social transformation, which will boost culture and creative industries and strengthen their role in and for Europe.

Our friend, human rights activist, and cultural patron Osman Kavala, who has been sentenced to life imprisonment in Turkey, will be presented with this year's ifa Award for the Dialogue of Cultures.

Climate Caravans develops creative tools on how to reflect with cultural means upon specific local transformations caused, directly or indirectly, by climate change.

Varna Summer Festival is a long-standing international forum of music art. Building on years of experience and using its strong position and wide influence in media, within the frames of the festival, two concerts aiming to promote solidarity with the people of Ukraine and the powerful voice of music for peace will be organised. Leading musicians from 16 countries in collaboration with Varna State Opera Symphony Orchestra will present a variety of musical masterpieces. The mission of these concerts will be to speak for peace and understanding between different nations and religions. Besides the wide reach of the audience, the aim is also to achieve a strong artistic collaboration among musicians from different countries and express their support to Ukraine's music society, ensuring a strong sense of togetherness, mutual understanding and acquaintance.

The Theater of Warfare project consists of the production and distribution of a short documentary. The film will immerse the audience into a new world, where the main characters that used to be actors, theatre directors, and art managers volunteer to help Ukrainians to settle in the shelter (theatre), organize transfers abroad, collect humanitarian help and medication and reach out to volunteers delivering help around the country.

The pilot Re:framing Migrants in the European Media supports the development of a European public sphere, inclusive inclusive to the perspectives of refugees and migrants. The project run by a consortium of Gazeta Wyborcza (Warsaw), Here to Support (Amsterdam), Eticas (Barcelona), Beyond the Now (Berlin/Dublin/London), ZEMOS98 (Sevilla) and the European Cultural Foundation (Amsterdam). The coalition will research the ways refugees and migrants are currently represented in (social) media, map media and artistic practices inclusive to marganinalised groups, build a community of practice by connecting practices from mainstream and community media, facilitate joint media productions by "tandems" drawn from and draft recommendations to make the public sphere more inclusive to refugees and migrants. The pilot is co-funded by DG Connect of the European Commission. 

Our COS grantee East Left Media Outlet published their thematic series about housing movements in Central-Eastern Europe, besides having translated and exchanged articles between member platforms.

Transbordering Laboratory aims to address the idea of forming new realities in European cities that are divided by borders.

As part of i-Portunus Houses, participants were asked to share their stories and experiences. Below is a story from Joel Eger and Camila Telez from Chile who are behind the project DAS.

Crossing borders for the future is living the European idea on the pathway where local friendships and relationships unite.

OASIS-2027 is a platform designed by onEarth Foundation to raise awareness about environmental protection and seek sustainable solutions to systemic challenges related to climate change.

SPACE aims to activate local communities and inspire local actors to develop future-oriented cultural solutions to systemic challenges.

In the article "Welcome to the club!" featured in KULTURAUSTAUSCH, Gijs de Vries touches on how in light of the Ukraine war, Europe needs to allow new countries to join and also strengthen its cultural policy. After all, the European Union is, first and foremost, an artistic project.

"Europe needs a Space Programme. But instead of racing to outer space, as seems fashionable among global powers and private zillionaires, Europe’s Space Programme should be earth bound and race to reach the people of Europe. Creating a functioning European public space will not only fire up all sorts of technological innovation but most importantly strengthen a European sense of belonging, a European society of sharing and enable a 21 Century Renaissance," writes our director André Wilkens in his contribution to The Next Renaissance.

In a series of stories we portray our Culture of Solidarity Fund grantees. The grantee featured here successfully applied to round 5: Cultural grant for regional transformation, which we jointly ran with the Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung.

"Putin’s war on Ukraine has reminded us that Europe’s founding narrative of peace, security, solidarity and prosperity is as relevant and essential as ever. Instead of looking for the future of Europe at conferences and roundtable discussions, we should return to our original narrative and adapt it to today’s challenges," argues our director in a contribution to the Italian magazine 'La Nuova Atlantide'.

«14-8-22» is an online magazine by Galereya Neotodryosh the purpose of which is to tell the personal stories of young artists from Luhansk and Donetsk regions about the beginning of the war in Donbass 8 years ago and their life until the full-scale invasion.The online magazine will take the form of a website with stories of artists living through the war for the second time, depicting artworks that visualize their experiences. These materials will also be distributed through social media channels. Bringing to light stories of about 100 young artists, the project also aims to support them financially. An offline presentation of the project will take place in Lviv, as well as a number of online presentations in collaboration with various art institutions will be launched across Europe.

The project will collect an online library of essays by Ukrainians in the fight for freedom, illustrate and share them with English-speaking audiences. Stories about strength, dignity, support, and humane values. Dialogues with intellectuals and cultural actors worldwide will give analysis to the stories in anthropological, sociological, cultural, and philosophical terms. The project gives voice to the deep transformation process for Western Culture taking place in Ukraine now, prevents disinformation, develops narratives for updated democracy and contributes to integral thinking.

Ukraine meets Calabria is a film training programme conceived, planned and executed by La Guarimba in Southern Italy, and is part of the Kino Guarimba Film Residency V edition. Within this program, 10 young emerging directors from Ukraine will be given the opportunity to participate in the film residency free of cost. Within the frames of the programme, Ukrainian participants will shoot their short films while engaging with the other participants and the locals, sharing their stories and offering a first-hand perspectives of the situation in their home country.

The initiative aims to document how Russia’s war-affected villages: occupied, liberated or located in the areas where fighting is ongoing. While the media maintains an active focus on the effects of war on more populated urban areas in Ukraine, life in smaller communities is not properly covered, even though the urgency is higher than before. Active since 2021, the “Old khata project” was capturing rural lifestyle, a unique Europe combination of traditional culture and modernity, and architecture across more than 30 Ukrainian villages. In response to the current events, the team will refocus and start documenting how these communities have changed or had to adapt to the current circumstances and are living through the war, resisting and reviving. Telling the true stories of those places behind the headlines, with a particular focus on cultural change and personal experience of people who live in villages affected by the war. The project will reflect the true faces of the people who live there, and true stories of what they have experienced and living through now.

“SOFA - School of Film Advancement” is a training programme that supports the development of national film industries in Eastern Europe. In response to the war in Ukraine, SOFA will host a five-day-long digital workshop for Ukrainian film professionals in exile, allowing them to network with professional networks across Europe. The workshop will offer an overview of possibilities for cultural managers to establish themselves in a new context and will provide methods and strategies for continuing their work. The programme is specifically designed for cultural operators in film communication, promotion or in the field of conception of specific film-related projects, i.e., cultural managers working in the film sector as film curators, festival organizers, etc.

To make contemporary Ukrainian art, particularly drama, visible in its global context, a team of professionals from the performing art sector will gather near 24 drama texts in “Anthology24”. A digital book of texts for the Ukrainian theatre sector will be created and translated into English, French, German, Polish and Czech languages in order to engage European partners. Such a project will help to open the European art market for Ukrainian playwrights. "Antology24" also will help artists to get royalties from theatres that will want to make contracts with artists. Stage readings of the texts will be open to everyone.

The project aims at supporting the cultural expression of Ukrainians, by providing conditions for them to work and build on past achievements as well as to bring more Ukrainian contemporary art to the international community, to make the voice of Ukraine lasting, strong and diverse. In the framework of the project, the team of Chornobyldorf Archeological opera (20 independent artists who are currently spread in different cities in Ukraine and Europe due to the war), will be able to reunite for rehearsals and prepare for the international presentation of a piece. Additionally, all instruments and scenography will be evacuated from Kyiv. Opera will be presented in the following countries: Netherlands (May), Austria (September), and Great Britain (November). Currently, negotiations are held to find additional partners interested in the presentation.

The Ukrainian Film Academy stands for the openness and globalisation of Ukrainian culture. Together with the Ukrainian State Film Agency and the Watch Ukrainian! Association, the Academy organized a series of charitable screenings of Ukrainian films abroad called The CinemAid Ukraine Charity Film Marathon. Screenings are currently taking place in Poland and are planned in France, UK, Germany and all over the world. All funds received from ticket sales will be used to cover the humanitarian needs of Ukrainian filmmakers.

Ukrainian curator, Lesia Kulchynska in collaboration with Galeria Catinca Tabacaru in Bucharest (Romania) will organize an exhibition of 13 Ukrainian artists, 8 of whom are currently working inside Ukraine. By providing platforms for creative work, disseminating financial support, and organizing multiple residencies in Romania, the exhibition will secure safe space and production possibilities in a time when physical and psychological support is critical to the well being of individual artists and the fabric of the Ukrainian artistic community.

Music for Future is an intercultural project for Polish youngsters and Ukrainian teenage refugees based in Poland. Aiming to create a youth orchestra that will take place in Krzyżowa Foundation on 04-11.06.2022. Youngsters will engage in week-long orchestral workshops that will give them an opportunity to integrate and connect through music.

The project envisages the creation of an exhibition ‘Old New Gaze’ aimed at representing the consequences of appropriation of Ukrainian cultural heritage as a result of Russian expansion. The purpose is to expand the study of the Ukrainian and Eastern European cultural heritage through decolonial optics.

The Sunflower Times initiative aims at debunking fake news, disinformation and misconceptions that pervade in the mainstream debate around the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Combining fact-checking work with analytical pieces to counter misinformation, negative stereotypes and propaganda that relativizes and undermines the efforts of Ukrainians to defend themselves against the Russian invasion.

Artistic Resilience in Times Of... is a two-step programme aiming to connect Ukrainian and German artists and create opportunities for exchange, new networks and collaborative artistic work. The first step of the project entails a launch of an international digital Art Lab platform for German and Ukrainian artists who deal with art in times of war. The Art Lab will create opportunities for exchange via digital online residencies and offers possibilities for joint artistic work. Additionally, keynote artists from different war zones or with working experiences in repressive systems will be invited to join the Art Lab and contribute to various sessions. The Art Lab is intended to be a model for future-oriented, solidarity-based ways of collaborative working and the practice of collective authorship. Within the second step of the programme, two guest curators from Ukraine will be invited to Schaubühne Lindenfels, to develop the programming for spring season 2023.

Samizdat Eastern European Film Festival is a medium-scale audience-focused film festival. It's the first Scotland-based film event entirely dedicated to the screening of cinema from Eastern Europe with film strands focusing specifically on human rights, progressive politics, and Ukraine.

Voxeurope aims to support local independent news media and extend the coverage of the war providing readers and partners with sources and perspectives from Eastern Europe. Voxeurope will select, translate and publish valuable articles from independent local sources from Ukraine and the countries more concerned – Russia, Belarus, Poland, Czech Republic, Romania, Moldova, Finland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia. Relying on an established network of correspondents in those countries for curating and selecting the articles

Katowice – the City of Gardens is the main cultural institution and artists residence in Katowice responsible for cultural, publishing and educational activity as well as artistic events. In response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the institution became a reception point for the refugees, but also an active player in securing opportunities for work and artistic expression of cultural professionals fleeing from the war.

Jewish-Ukrainian Social Initiative strives to reduce vulnerability and build a safer future to improve the quality of life of the most vulnerable and the least protected - both within and beyond the Jewish community in Ukraine. Through ‘Ukrainian Outsider Art Initiative: Art for Life’ they aim to foster and enhance collaboration between inclusive art groups and professional art therapists, and promote cultural inclusion and inclusive artistic practices.

Based on the premise that practising human rights protection equals to democratic rule of law, Symbiosis works on education, freedom of expression, documentation and analysis, public debate and active civic participation. Their new project, launched in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, focuses on the ongoing war ‘infodemic’ and on countering multiple threads of disinformation, misinformation, propaganda filter bubbles and fake news in Greece promoted through media.

In this year’s Common Ground you will read about European solidarity, then and now, in and with Ukraine. You will find reflections on Europe’s histories and European futures. In this magazine you will find stories of an imperfect Europe, a Europe in development, a Europe driven by arts and culture in more ways than we often appreciate.

Listen to clips of a conversation with our director André Wilkens and the new Chair of our Supervisory Board, Gerry Salole, as they touch on questions regarding what foundations, Culture and the European Cultural Foundation can do to address the challenges that Europe faces today. These clips touch on being courageous as a foundation and the very important role cultural actors and artists can play in imagining a better future and tackling the challenges Europe faces.

Cultural workers continue to be productive despite the war. An alliance of European foundations supports them in this. This is where our Culture of Solidarity Fund comes in. In a conversation with our Head of Programmes Philipp Dietachmair featured in Hamburger Abendblatt, Philipp Dietachmair discusses what is special about the Ukrainian art scene, the founding of museums in times of war and the protection of cultural assets.

In a series of stories we portray our Culture of Solidarity Fund grantees. The grantee featured here successfully applied to round 4: Culture of Solidarity in times of an infodemic.

CASES is a social media platform for creative industries and Creative Practice, as a part of CASES, is an educational programme created by the joint efforts of the creative community in Ukraine. While offering quality content focusing on art and culture as well as qualitative creative educational processes during peaceful times, the start-up team had to re-group in response to the Russian invasion. The CASES platform was turned into a creative front that informs people about opportunities for volunteering, employment and mutual support programs while Creative Practice opened access to its online courses on graphic design, web design, UX/UI and made them available to Ukrainians free of charge. Aiming to spread awareness but also to create opportunities for Ukrainians who stayed in the country and moved abroad to quickly find work in such a trending and attractive branch of the IT industry. More than 2,000 students have registered for the courses in the last week already. Read an interview on their project.

During the first wave of the pandemic, one of Shareradio journalists and educators, together with his 10-year-old daughter created a programme for children aiming to help keep their relationships with schoolmates and teachers alive. The broadcast started to collect greetings, wishes, songs, poems sent by children, teachers, and parents. The broadcast, which originated from the class group, involved hundreds of children from different schools, helping them to overcome a difficult and unprecedented moment, also by processing and sharing their own experience on the radio together. In a similar way a group of journalists and children intends to support Ukrainian refugees arriving in Milan. It offers a programme that will build together a weekly transmission allowing children distributed in different territories to share the experiences and together elaborate on their own strategies of mutual support. Read an interview on their project.

Ahead of the meeting of the Culture Ministers of the EU Member States on 4 April 2022 in Luxembourg, the initiators of the Cultural Deal for Europe campaign addressed EU institutions, the current French presidency of the EU and the EU Ministers of Culture with an urgent plea to demonstrate a Culture of Solidarity with cultural actors in Ukraine: Culture is what brings us together. It is at the basis of the European project and it is a pillar for a peaceful and inclusive future. We all need to act now and we need to be creative and swift in our solidarity with Ukraine and reaffirming its European perspective.

Created by Ariam Tekle and Emmanuelle Maréchal, #Blackcoffee_pdc is an Italian podcast on racial issues in Italy launched in April 2020. The podcast is a platform for Afro-Italian voices and narratives. In the context of the social and racial unrest that the pandemic has enhanced, #Blackcoffee_pdc aims to enrich the conversations around black identities, highlighting their work and initiatives. To this end, #Blackcoffee_pdc conducts interviews and facilitates collaborations. The topics discussed range from media language to music, from art to mental health, particularly in the context of racism, starting from the way it is embedded in Italy on a cultural and institutional level by challenging the white gaze and Eurocentric perspectives.   

With pooled resources from a group of European co-funders, the Culture of Solidarity Fund has bundled different pan-European efforts right at the beginning of the war to respond to local cultural emergency needs. As a result of their widespread network in Ukraine and Eastern Europe, the team of the Culture of Solidarity Fund and its partners have promptly identified and supported emergency relief initiatives and on-the ground actions with larger donations. These included long standing partners (such as Mitost and Gazeta Wyborcza) as well as the European Cultural Foundation Princess Margriet Award for Culture laureates (such as VCRC and Borderland Foundation).In addition, the fund has sought to support various initiatives that fight disinformation and propaganda filter bubbles, provide safe cultural spaces and counter forces of fragmentation. Be it a group of fact-checkers, residencies, a poetry platform, film screening or artistic research, these initiatives all offer meaningful solutions and stand as stellar examples of the strength of solidarity across societies. Their solutions work towards future healing and rebuilding and maintain hope in a peaceful European future based on mutual support and understanding.

The European Cultural Foundation stands with Ukraine through our Culture of Solidarity Fund, programme actions and supported grantees. On this page, you will find an overview of the ways we stand with Ukraine.

On this page you will find a non-exhaustive overview of links to pages explaining what you can do to support cultural networks.

We support the Asortymentna kimnata evacuation initiative through our Culture of Solidarity Fund, Ukraine edition. In an interview, the team behind Asortymentna kimnata answer questions on their program to evacuate and preserve works of art - primarily from the grassroots self-organized spaces and workshops of artists who are forced to leave their cities.

How can we develop inclusive democratic library activities and empower people from the communities to use library services they would be unlikely to access before? The Europe Challenge recognises that libraries have a unique role in helping communities meet the challenges of where we live, such as democratising our public space.With Aarhus Dokk1 Public library, their overall Europe Challenge topic focuses on using design thinking methods to engage with people who do not use the libraries and develop inclusive democratic library activities. Together with the community of Værestedet, Aarhus Public Library identified its local Europe Challenges: how to empower the citizens from Værestedet to use the facilities and possibilities provided by the library. The community at Værestedet is a drop-in centre and safe space for people with severe substance abuse problems and those who have either mental illness or other social challenges.

Within the scope of the Culture of Solidarity Fund, Project for Democratic Union [PDU] is leading the proposal titled ‘European exit strategy from private platforms to common digital space’ with the help of partners Public Spaces, Netwerk Democratie and the Citizen Toolbox for Digital Empowerment. The project consists of four digital sessions building up to a physical hackathon in Brussels.

On February 15, Martijn van Schieveen will be starting as Head of Communications at the European Cultural Foundation (ECF). In the last nine years, Van Schieveen (1967) coordinated Communications at two main arts venues in the heart of Amsterdam: De Nieuwe Kerk and Hermitage Amsterdam.

The third edition of the Annual Policy Conversation “A Cultural Deal for Europe” brought the European cultural ecosystem in a dialogue with EU policy-makers, advocating for culture to be central in the EU’s green and sustainable future. In three sessions 'Culture for Recovery and Sustainability in Europe': 'Culture and cultural heritage in the European Green Deal'; and 'Culture for the Future of Europe' speakers brought to the spotlight once again the huge value of culture for our society, its vital contribution to our well-being and the need for artists and cultural workers to participate in the change management processes. Download the report.

“When the night of the pandemic took over our private lives, we just sang from the balconies. Culture is decisive for the quality of life. And it’s culture that can bring people back together again after the trauma of the pandemic.” These words of David Sassoli, the late President of the European Parliament, came true on February 1st, when more than 300 European artists, politicians, policy makers and cultural entrepreneurs joined the annual policy conversation on the #CulturalDealEU, organised by Culture Action Europe (CAE), the European Cultural Foundation (ECF) and Europa Nostra, also acting as coordinator of the European Heritage Alliance.

In pursuit of an intersectional, feminist, and ecological impetus, ‘A Transversal Network of Feminist Servers’ (ATNOFS) is a collaborative project that aims to explore alternative engagements with digital tools and platforms. A travelling ‘feminist server’ will equip 2-day live events that will be taking place at each respective node, and will function as a tool and a witness to the activities. The events will culminate in a printed publication.

ECB2.0 will start a federated network of European civil society media platforms including leading players. They'll create a set of tools and practices to exchange metadata and content between existing platforms and linking to open speech recognition and search pipelines. Launching for an European digital public and democratic infrastructure, empowering civil society media to share audiences and promote a culture of solidarity across Europe.

IrpiMedia is an independent, non-profit online publication of investigative journalism based in Italy. Beyond national and continental borders, they report on issues including corruption, environmental issues, surveillance, migration and the judicial system. IrpiMedia’s mission to lead a more informed public debate for a fairer society motivates them to prioritise long-term investigations and thorough fact-checking.

Eurozine is a network of cultural journals based in Vienna, bringing together over 90 partner journals, associations, and institutions from across Europe. Additionally, Eurozine is also an online magazine, translating and publishing selected articles from its partner journals. ‘Eurozine is dedicated to covering issues of culture and society on a wider scale, going beyond usual headline and with a special focus on marginalised social groups and up-and-coming genres.'

More than ever, it is vital that European citizens have access to media that is independent, reliable, and capable of decoding the larger, shared challenges. The dissemination of debates, ideas, information and knowledge in a healthy environment is essential. To this end, COS grantee Voxeurop offers its audience analyses, feature and photo stories, and investigations, by giving the floor to writers, thinkers and civil society actors.

‘Technologically,’ Autonomic Cooperative elucidates, ‘Co-op Cloud is 3 things: abra, a command-line tool to manage local and remote deployments of applications; a catalogue of “recipes”, shared configurations for (currently over 80) libre applications; and a set of best practises and helper utilities, including a backup system, deployment tools, and automatic update management infrastructure.’ In other words, Co-op Cloud is a packaging format, i.e. an archive of programmes that catalogues apps, vouches for their credibility, and gives easy access to them.'

"The digital rights field is dominated by complex language, jargon and policy-focused dialogue, which makes it more difficult for individuals from non-digital or policy backgrounds to understand and relate to these everyday threats to our digital rights. That is why we would like to use stories and a hope-based approach to reinforce a narrative with inspiring ideas to regain control against power imbalances and promote healthy alternatives to toxic technology uses."

The last two years has seen many people across Europe being awarded honours and medals for their courage, selflessness and determination in fighting the Coronavirus crisis. But all these honours and medals have been national. Does this mean that there are only national heroes? Where is the honour and recognition for European acts of solidarity, for the everyday Stars of Europe? There isn’t any. Together with public and civil society partners, we explore a contemporary system of honouring the everyday Stars of Europe.

In 2022, the Erasmus programme is celebrating its 35th anniversary, opening the European Year of Youth. This anniversary event is organised under the French Presidency of the Council of the European Union on January 20 2022. Since 1987, the Erasmus programme has benefited 10 million EU citizens. No longer exclusively focused on higher education, the programme is geared towards a wide group of people.

"Capturing the European sentiment is as essential as difficult and contentious. Dwelling into the archives of the European Cultural Foundation, which has centred its work around it has illustrated how the best way to tackle its workings and dynamics is to constantly reflect on current circumstances and create opportunities that remain relevant with the Europe of today." concludes Hugo Scheubel after an internship at the European Cultural Foundation.Hugo Scheubel studied Politics and International Relations at Kings College London and is currently pursuing a Masters of Science in Diplomacy, European Politics, LGBTQ+ issues at Sciences Po Paris.  His internship evolved around the questions of what is the European Sentiment and could be, and what the European Cultural Foundation (ECF) has done around it. The views presented in the text are his personal.

Among the seven libraries selected to be part of The Europe Challenge, each library identified seven challenges, with one of them focusing on equal opportunities for all with the inclusion of women in the STEM field. With the general public being influenced by the prejudice that areas of STEM are not for women and women face prejudices concerning their technical abilities. Kranj City Library (SL) chose their local Europe Challenge: women's participation in STEM environments and titled their project Technophobia is not for women.

In a small interview with Lise Witteman of The Schuman Show she explains they just want the people to become a little more aware of and have a laugh about the Brussels Bubble. For "Where most of the people don't really know what is going, the diplomats, politicians and lobbyists certainly do!"

The publication 'Culture in the EU’s National Recovery and Resilience Plans' - developed by Culture Action Europe and its membership - offers an overview of the place of culture in the National Recovery and Resilience Plans (NRRPs) of the Member States of the European Union. In a Dutch language opinion piece the Europa Platform asks the Dutch government to specifically earmark at the very least 2% of their NRRP for culture.

We won the 'European Cultural Investor of the Year 2021' award. Our Culture of Solidarity Fund, established during the Corona crisis, was the impetus for the decision of the 40-member expert jury. The ceremony takes place on November 30, #GivingTuesday, in Tresor in Berlin.

The Europe Challenge recognises that our libraries have a unique role in helping communities to meet the challenges of where we live, challenges that are common across our continent. From time to time we update with stories from the ground.Here’s one from Ghent, Belgium, originally published on the site of Comon – a collective of academics, scientists and creatives from the city of Ghent, imec, University Ghent en De Krook Library.

The Europe Challenge recognises that our libraries have a unique role in helping communities to meet the challenges of where we live, challenges that are common across our continent. Valmiera's local Europe Challenge highlights that public space goes beyond specific local areas. Libraries can bring together communities from the new region and encourage people to share opinions and stories by building relationships and conversations that can help find solutions and define the community's needs.

More than 110 European cultural actors competed for nomination for a European Cultural Brand Award in eight categories. We are excited our Culture of Solidarity Fund is nominated in the category "European Cultural Investor of the Year 2021".

As part of the Europe Challenge activities in Valmiera the library collaborates with a newly founded neighbourhood association. One of their first public events was a gathering in Jāņparks, in the midst of summer.

In an opinion piece in Dutch daily Trouw ECF director André Wilkens claims there can be no recovery after the pandemic without respect for culture and the role of the artist. That 2% of the European Recovery Fund should be allocated to culture - as intended by the European Parliament - could be the start of a creative healing process, at the heart of Europe's transformation. The Netherlands must not be left out.

Together with Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung we present a new round of #CultureofSolidarity Fund grantees: In their Summer Camp the European School Templin send adolescents from France, Poland, and Germany in small mixed-national teams on a 14-day expedition from West Pomerania (Poland) through unique natural landscapes to Templin (Germany), giving them a great adventure and a great European experience.

“Some people call the naval base the end of the world. They’re wrong. This is where Europe starts. This is where the railway track and roads begin. We never want to leave,” said the chair of Carnival Association "Krabbetukkers". In their third chapter of 'The Europeans' photography project photographer Rob Hornstra and writer and filmmaker Arnold van Bruggen visited 'The Naval Base'.

The climate crisis is here and real. It’s not a distant theoretical concept. Everyone has to act, now, and in the best and most effective way possible. For us this means two things: First we will to get our own operations in order to limit our climate impact as much as possible. Secondly, culture is a key to finding sustainable solutions to the climate crisis. Technology will not be enough. It will need culture change!

Rehearsing The Revolution is a hybrid collaborative storytelling project which develops alternative future scenarios for Europe combining research, artivism, theatre and a digital platform. The storytelling creates room for all kinds of emotions, expectations, disappointments and reflections on being European. “When we think of the future, it can only be based on memories. So we need to clarify misunderstandings of the past.”

Rien van Gendt, vice-chair of our supervisory board, recently published a call for foundations to take both risks and controversial positions. Because it is better to bravely tell the actual truth, rather than the 'calculated opinion'.

"How can we make Ghent a healthier city, with technology as part of the solution?" This question was asked to the residents and community of Ghent (BE) in spring 2021, in the framework of the Europe Challenge by Comon - a collective of scientists, technologists and creatives from the City of Ghent, imec, Ghent University and De Krook Library.

A new round of Europe Talks are starting next week. We support Europe Talks for the third consecutive year as we believe that a European public space is important for the future of our continent. We believe conversations between Europeans from all across our continent help shaping this public space and contribute to sharing European views, rather than looking at Europe via national lenses.

October 1st marks the European Day of Foundations and Donors - #October1Europe. This year’s theme, “Stepping into tomorrow,” shines a light on how philanthropy invests in the societies of tomorrow and what it needs to ensure it is fit for purpose in helping solve long-term global challenges. We seize the occasion to highlight our study 'Imagine Philanthropy for Europe', our Culture of Solidarity Fund, and the campaign for an overarching framework to put culture at the heart of the European project, the Cultural Deal for Europe.

Dutch thought leaders and prominent representatives of the cultural and creative sectors endorse the Cultural Deal campaign which made the case for reserving at least 2% of the European Recovery and Resilience Facility budget for investments in the cultural sector. This open letter is published in Dutch.

ECF directeur André Wilkens beantwoordt de noodkreet van Jett Rebel en doet tegelijkertijd een oproep aan Nederlandse beleidsmakers om zich te houden aan een Europese motie om minimaal twee procent van de Europese herstelfondsen aan cultuur te besteden.

The arts in Poland has become increasingly fraught over the past few years, with the government stepping on several occasions to handpick directors for many of the country’s top-level institutions. Just weeks after an event at Kraków's Cricoteka gallery close amid accusations of censorship, Joanna Kozlowska talks to two of Poland’s leading liberal curators about how they balance their relationship with power and the difficulties of facing constant low-level harassment.

What is it like to be young, creative, and non-conformist in a country where nationalism and ultra-conservative values are on the rise? 'This is our Poland: stories of resilience, creativity and change from the heart of Europe' is a new special report by the Calvert Journal. Elevating the voices of young creatives, it paints a portrait of Poland often overlooked by the mainstream, joining a generation of young artists, cultural figures, and activists as they ask: "Can we shape a better future for our country?"Across 23 stories, the Calvert Journal explores the complexity of contemporary Polish culture: from digital media, film, and feminist history, to radical literature and futuristic queer art. 'This is our Poland' is a multidimensional snapshot of a society where cultural beliefs are in flux and where the stakes for those who fight for freedom are higher than ever.

This reflection piece by Sabrina Stallone positions the European Pavilion in the flourishing landscape of debates on the future of Europe, currently emerging in Brussels and beyond. As a PhD researcher interested in (urban) future-making as a cultural practice, as well as a freelance collaborator of the European Pavilion team, Sabrina Stallone contemplates how the decentralised arts initiative launched by the European Cultural Foundation can contribute to a multitude of imaginative visions for Europe’s today and tomorrow.

Since the publication of the study Imagine Philanthropy for Europe the future of European philanthropy has been the topic of various discussions with many different stakeholders. The study - a free download - was written by Wider Sense upon commission by European Cultural Foundation and Allianz Foundation for Europe. The three directors published an article in the German magazine Stiftung und Sponsoring: Stell Dir vor, Philanthropie denkt Europa.

Partners in the i-Portunus Houses project have just launched the survey on mobility for the cultural sector.

The Europe Challenge is a collaborative process with libraries across Europe which together with their communities will identify and address a concrete challenge that is relevant for their local context. In the dedicated chapter in our annual magazine Common Ground you will get to know the multifaceted world of libraries.From a conversation our project managers Nicola Mullenger and Olga Alexeeva had with Pauline De Wolf of De Krook in Ghent (Belgium) and Maria Montia Enrich and Andreu Orte del Molino of Jordi Rubió i Balaguer Public Library in Sant Boi de Llobergat (Spain), via an exchange of thoughts between PL2030 Director, Ilona Kish, with Anthony Zacharzewski, Director-General and President of Democratic Society (Demsoc) and an essay by Oskar Hernández-Pérez on public libraries as public labs to a thought piece connecting libraries and the sustainable development goals. The last contribution is an interview of one of our grantees by Ashley Thompson.

We published some photos from the project 'The Inner Circle' by photographer Gert Verbelen in our annual magazine, Common Ground.

We published an interview with Tess Seddon, one of our Democracy Needs Imagination grantees, in our annual magazine Common Ground.

Belarus is in a new global spotlight, following the forced landing of a commercial flight to arrest and detain an opposition blogger from a commercial Ryanair flight. This incident comes less than a year after a violent crackdown on the post-election protests movement of 2020. In our annual magazine, Common Ground, we highlighted the role of protest art in the Belarusian revolution. From a choir staging performances, singing in a shopping mall in front of a three-storey-long national flag, to the creation of online protest art galleries in reaction to censorship and escalating repressions. 

We opened the MediActivism European Hackcamp from a studio in East London. We used the methodology of Talkaoke – something in between Karaoke and a Talkshow – to present five cases in which activists and/or citizens claim their right to the city.

We could publish a few pages from The Crack, the project by photographer Carlos Spottorno and journalist Guillermo Abril, in our annual magazine Common Ground.

Journalist Hanna Valynets reports on the Free Choir, Volny Khor, in Belarus. You can read the complete piece in our annual magazine Common Ground.

These are excerpts from photographer Quintin Lake's photo-project The Perimeter as published in our annual magazine Common Ground.

We included a short story by Czech author Kateřina Tučkova in our annual magazine. We publish an excerpt here, and you can read the complete story in Common Ground, our annual magazine.

In an opinion piece – originally published in 2017 – our director André Wilkens wonders whether pop could be the secret glue that holds Europe together? As the song contest’s millions of fans celebrate the European ideal, their excitement is partly political. Europe needs more Eurovisions.  

We asked Chantal James of la Rampa to write a piece on what the Black Lives Matter protests in Europe, or more particular; in Portugal have meant for the Black Atlantic. The piece is published in Common Ground, our annual magazine.

Collective beliefs it is time for a new kind of media within the European media landscape. Collective curates the best under reported stories from around Europe, adding a personal touch.

Amsterdam based institution de Waag published their report European Digital Public Spaces in August 2020.

These are excerpts from photographer Michal Iwanowski photo-project Go Home Polish as published in our annual magazine Common Ground. A book is forthcoming.

The second edition of our annual magazine Common Ground is out! We believe it is a way to share common European ground, and celebrate Europe Day.We are more than happy to present you many different contributions on Europe - ranging from views on a how to organise post-covid, photo essays by four acclaimed European photographers, two portfolios on new European Cultural Foundation programmes, fiction by Czech award winning novelist Katerina Tuckova, reflections on Black Lives Matter, reports on Belarus and much much more.#CommonGround21

Recognising the value of culture and the interconnectedness of culture with politics, systemic change and radical innovation is essential to the success of the New European Bauhaus, write European Cultural Foundation Director André Wilkens and Isabelle Schwarz, Head of Public Policy. They argue historical experiences can help in realising the New European Bauhaus vision and make a plea for placing culture at the very heart of the green transition.

Donations are widely regarded as the core product of charitable foundations. This is how they see themselves, and how the outside world sees them. Most laws and regulations about philanthropy relate to donations, and media coverage of institutional philanthropy almost invariably assumes that they are the norm. Even highly progressive foundations that regard cheque writing not as an end in itself, but as a means to achieve a strategy, often have financial donations as the only string to their bow.

In our series of interviews with Culture of Solidarity Fund grantees, Mophradat - an international multi-disciplinary arts organisation, that creates opportunities and invents possibilities for artists from the Arab world - extend on their collective retreats.

After focusing on migrants’ deaths at sea Forensic Oceanography launches Border Forensics (BF) a new investigative project that directs novel arts-based strategies for visual and spatial analysis to lesser documented areas of mobility conflict in and at the borders of Europe.

In our series of interviews with Culture of Solidarity Fund grantees, meet the organisations behind CareStoriesWalks: Teatro Popolare Europeo, Teatr Brama and Omma Studio who collaboratively work on overcoming the isolation and fear of social relations after lockdowns amongst Europe's elderly.

Clubture, one of our Culture of Solidarity grantees, explain how their project - an exchange of practices and experiences with various European experts that work in the fields of democratization of public and common goods on the topic of cultural and spatial policies - will contribute to more shared practises in their hometown, and beyond.

In our series of interviews with Culture of Solidarity Fund grantees, meet CEPS! They and their partners Trànsit Projectes develop a tool to draw maps and cartographies of values. Users of the tool will gain a better understanding of their own role in building our futures.

In our series of interviews with our Culture of Solidarity Fund grantees Serena Anastasi introduces us to the work of the Nuto Revelli Onlus Foundation. The key goal of their project W-Echo is to stimulate a new digital community of care by activating international networks of women living in rural areas to co-create a new aesthetic of change.

In our series of interviews with our Culture of Solidarity Fund grantees Gabriele Pappalardo of Ratatoj shares their plans of giving young people experiences of artistic and cultural production, organisation and promotion, from a theater in a small town in northern Italy. They hope the project gives young participants cultural tools, and to activate them as European citizens.

In our series of interviews with our Culture of Solidarity Fund grantees, welcome to our conversation with Sol Trumbo Vila of Transnational Institute, an international research and advocacy institute committed to building a just, democratic and sustainable planet. Sol tells us more about the Municipal to Municipal (M2M) proces, which will advance the creation of a much needed shared notion of European solidarity.

"The New European Bauhaus challenges us to now come up with the ideas that will be deemed self-evident in 50 years because they “just make sense” for a better living together," concludes Max Möglich after an internship at the European Cultural Foundation. After first having been educated as an architectural draftsman Max Möglich went on to study European- and Cultural Studies in Amsterdam, Miami, and Bologna. His internship evolved around the question how our various European programmes could relate to the call for a New European Bauhaus. The views presented in the text are his personal.

This week we learned that our 2016 Princess Margriet Award laureate MediaLab Prado is facing severe challenges. The premises they are based in are destined – by the current local government – for use by another cultural institution. These changes come atop the news that the current director Marcos Garcia would need to depart. The various communities that are active in the “public centre for cultural, social and civic innovation” launched a petition to collect support. We don't want to mingle in any local political processes, but we like publicly sharing our admiration for the great work of MediaLab Prado.

In our series of interviews with Culture of Solidarity Fund grantees, Turismo in Langa explain how their local heritage and European cultural management ideas connect. 

There is a complex debate on what private foundations should exclude from or implicitly accept in an index tracker. In this blogpost, our Supervisory Board Chair (Ad interim), Rien van Gendt touches on whether Big Tech companies should also be excluded as new polluters in the figurative sense.

Common Waves is an international collective that produced a series of radio programmes to critically examine the role of shared spaces and solidarity in our society. The collective did evolve during the Tbilisi Architecture Biennial (October-November 2020), which focused on the question "What Do We Have in Common?". The collective is formed by community and artist radios as well as podcasters from various areas like architecture, urbanism, politics and humanities to represent diverse voices.

In our interview series with Culture of Solidarity Fund grantees FNAS explain their project Arts are a restart area: "Mobility today is the engine most questioned by the pandemic crisis. Knowledge, exchange of good practices, sharing of ideas, the creation of partnerships develop above all within that environment, both formal and informal, that is called networking. We all try to fill this void through digital tools."

We are sad to learn about the sudden passing away of Nevenka Koprivšek, one of the most remarkable and active international figures of Slovenian performing arts and director of Bunker (Ljubljana). Nevenka was not only a wonderful, generous and inspiring person but also a leading cultural figure.

Music may be a relief, a cure and an escape, but words are necessary as well to process this period. Hence, Culture of Solidarity grantee Futur Festival envisioned a webseries where artists from the electronic music industry discuss a topic with prominent figures of the cultural, scientific community and the civil society.

In our series of interviews with Culture of Solidarity Fund grantees, meet Ilaria Gadenz of Radio Papesse who gives us an insight on their project "You are so sound!" 

Giulia Avataneo of Hypercritic - a third round Culture of Solidarity Fund grantee - presents an overview of Hypercritic dreams and plans. 

Elisa Peirone of Slow Food Italy answered some of our questions in our series of interviews with Culture of Solidarity Fund grantees. "Food is a universal need and key pathway to connectedness. Cooks, producers and artisans, including many migrants and youths, in Europe have launched new initiatives related to food production, distribution and consumption to tackle the pandemic. The project aims to encourage and celebrate the virtuous initiatives in the food world that are reacting to the emergency with ideas that may inspire others."

In our series of interviews with Culture of Solidarity Fund grantees, here is EUPavilion, a laboratory of research on the relationship between architecture and the EU. It is a collaborative effort that brings tighter architects, scholars, photographers, designers.

In an interview with George Blaustein, one of the initiators of the forthcoming European Review of Books, we touch on the art of translation, hyperlocalism and supra-nationalism and why European intellectual life needs more writers, why it needs more critique, more intelligent dissent, disharmony, even cacophony. The European Review of Books is a Culture of Solidarity Fund grantee.

Each edition of ‘Disruptive Fridays’ - the event series Disruption Network Lab applied with to our Culture of Solidarity Fund - covers a topic like grassroots data analysis, leaking and whistleblowing, legal and human rights mobilisation, anticorruption, health promotion interventions, or the effects of information technology on civil society, politics, culture and the arts. Their goal is to continue the dialogue among curators, programme participants, researchers, experts and practitioners interested in media culture and social justice, as well as to foster the understanding of the impact of technology and politics on society.

Read an interview with Culture of Solidarity grantee Mobile Open Culture and Innovation Hub. "The idea of the MOCI initiative emerged in late 2019 after reflecting on our journey in Albania so far with the numerous community meetings we had in different regions as well as our pilot project with three villages in central Albania and its very productive ideation phase."

Fine Acts Foundation launches their project to foster a creative space to produce emotional, compelling visuals that bring to life a common vision for a better future.They have already commissioned 27 artists (one representing each EU member state) to create new works on European Solidarity. In January 2021 they are opening a call to the European creative community, for previously created works that reinforce solidarity and deal with the aftermath of the pandemic in European societies.

Tereza Swadoschová, Head of the Inspiration Forum at Ji-Hlava explains us why an Inspiration Forum is needed: "Is it the lack of imagination that seems to be the reason why we are only filling in the urgent gaps that open up in the public sphere? What if artists were also involved in searching for possible solutions?"

European Cultural Foundation, Fondazione CRC and Fondazione CRT invited organisations from the Piedmont (Cuneo province in particular) and the Aosta Valley to apply for the third round of the European Culture of Solidarity Fund. This special round of the Fund sought to support imaginative cultural initiatives that reinforce pan-European solidarity and the idea of Europe as a shared public space from a regional and cross-border perspective. We were looking for project ideas and proposals that connect local work with a real pan-European dimension.Set up at the beginning of the pandemic crisis, the fund continues to support imaginative cultural initiatives that reinforce European solidarity and the idea of Europe as a shared public space.

Osman Kavala has been held in pre-trial detention for over three years. Despite his acquittal by an Istanbul court in February of this year, a new charge was brought against him on 8 October 2020. We see no evidence for the allegations that have now been raised, which link him to the failed coup d’état attempt of 15 July 2016. According to the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), his continued imprisonment is a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights, of which Turkey is a signatory. The new bill of indictment accuses European and American organizations that operate in Turkey of engaging in intelligence activities. As organizations that are committed to building relations with Turkey and its people, irrespective of their religion, ethnicity or political opinions, we - Goethe-Institut, Heinrich Böll Stiftung, Robert Bosch Stiftung, Stiftung Mercator and European Cultural Foundation - categorically reject this accusation.

As in 2019 we partner with the International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam [IDFA] to bring you a series of recent documentaries capturing ‘Life in Europe’. This year the festival takes place from November 18 to December 6.The thirty documentaries selected for this pathway, invite you to think about our continent which faces so many questions today - maybe even too many. While it may not be the worst of times, it is certainly not the easiest. How we deal with the questions of our economy, the refugee crisis, education, the rise of the far-right and more will define tomorrow’s reality

As in 2019, we partner with the International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam [IDFA] to bring you a series of recent documentaries capturing ‘Life in Europe’. This year the festival takes place from November 18 to December 6. The thirty documentaries selected for this pathway, invite you to think about our continent which faces so many questions today - maybe even too many. While it may not be the worst of times, it is certainly not the easiest. How we deal with the questions of our economy, the refugee crisis, education, the rise of the far-right and more will define tomorrow’s reality.

The European Green Deal is Europe’s roadmap for making the EU’s economy sustainable. By 2050, the EU wants to be climate neutral. For this to happen, societies have to believe in the power of green initiatives. Our Culture of Solidarity grantee NOOR images aims to create iconic work documenting the recovery of Europe from one of the biggest economic crisis of our times.

Today is a special day in Hungary. The 23rd of October marks the anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. No wonder the students of the University of Theatre and Film Arts in Budapest (SZFE), who have been occupying their university since 1 September chose this day for a protest march to stand up for academic freedom and independence. The occupation and the #freeSZFE campaign, has gained large international support from leading public intellectuals, artists and citizens.

In the social environment diminished by the pandemic and economic crises, the new project “Communities of Learning, Bridging the Gap of Isolation” by What, How and for Whom/WHW reclaims the inclusive role of education and art while rethinking the future of cross-border European collaborations. Through exhibitions, educational and discursive programs in online formats and in physical spaces, the project initiates recurring encounters between the international partners, their local communities and a high number of pan-European cultural workers.

In the current situation, femProcomuns believes it is vital for communities and grassroots groups to share experiences, practices and thoughts across Europe. Knowledge should not remain enclosed in linguistic, cultural and communicative echo-chambers created by individualising and centralising data tracking technologies and algorithms of discourse and control, threatening technological sovereignty. Their project ‘Weaving deabtes’ aims to find better technical solutions (semantic wiki, templates, bots, machine learning, etc.) for multilingual exchanges and to continue testing them in events and meetings that take place in the coming months. Users will be able to browse, view and add content in a chosen language and connect it with content in other languages.

The project by the Disability Arts Cymru titled NI Chawn Ein Dileu/We Shall Not Be Erased, wishes to come together in solidarity to dialogue and learn from each other’s contexts, to share lived experience and identify opportunities and conceive our futures.

'Drawn to solidarity' is a joint project of the Border Violence Monitoring Network (BVMN), an alliance of grassroots organisations working along the Greek-Balkan route, filmmakers, journalists and artists from Broga Doite Film and Brush&Bow. Through a campaign of 12 short films with animation clips, the above organisations will campaign to showcase solidarity initiatives at Europe's borders, building civic consciousness around migration and a tangible space of exchange for refugees, activists and the broader public.We interviewed Simon Campbell, field coordinator in the border violence monitoring network.

Summer of Solidarity, the first pop-up continent-wide, European, collaborative, storytelling media initiative has officially launched. This summertime, collaborative, journalism and creativity initiative that collects human stories from across wider Europe in the summer of 2020. Visit their website for more info.

Just as our foundation’s five-year strategy, this magazine Common Ground sits awkwardly but intentionally, between a seemingly distant past and a rather uncertain future.

Instead of uniformity, commoning urban spaces offers an inclusive life, open to differences. Through self-managed initiatives, the ‘right to the city’ becomes the right to collectively produce it through creative cooperation, argues Stavros Stavrides.

We may need to stay inside and limit our live social contacts, but we can still expand our world and use our imagination in other ways. To get you through quarantine we curated European cultural picks by our staff.

We transformed our festive physical celebration of Europe day 2020 into a digital celebration, where we offer a series of windows that allowed you to imagine, experience and share our Europe through the projects of contributors and ourselves. If you still want to enjoy our festival, you can view content from the europeday website in the links in the article.

Supported by ECF, The Europeans is a multiyear documentary project by photographer Rob Hornstra and writer/filmmaker Arnold van Bruggen on Europe in the 2020s. The publication and exhibition of the first chapter, ‘the former capital’, were due to be presented and opened on April 2nd, but then Corona struck. Therefore, they recreated it into a unique online and virtual experience.

Following the cancellation of their festival because of the Corona crisis, Movies that Matter Festival decided to virtually offer a stage for their most revealing films and documentaries of 2020, stirring debates about human rights, sustainability and the fight against injustice. Unfortunately, the media lab bringing asylum seekers and status holders in the Netherlands together during the festival to make a film on their stories, has been cancelled as well.

Now that the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union has become a reality, we, foundations & cultural institutions working in Europe respond by strengthening our ties.

In the interview series with Courageous Citizen grantees here’s Clara Nchama who established the ‘Connecting Africa’ project in Spain, going beyond stereotypes, but presenting contemporary African arts and culture.

We have all been exposed to development, living at the heart of emerging power disbalance, unfavourable environmental impact, as well as social, political and cultural state of shock for the local community.

At the November 2019 International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam we were proud supporters of the pathway Life in Europe. One of the films in that pathway was Colectiv, by director Alexander Nanau.

Within the Culture for Solidarity programme some of the research teams produced films. We highlight a few.

With only a few more days remaining until Brexit we are happy to share some quotes from the book by our #DemocracyNeedsImagination grantee Madeleina Kay, aka #EUsupergirl.

We support the international condemnation of President Trump’s threat to deliberately destroy cultural heritage sites in Iran. Targeting art, culture and cultural heritage as weapons of war is not only unacceptable but unlawful.

In 2019, the European Cultural Foundation celebrated its 65th anniversary. To that occassion we published a bookazine on how events in Europe shaped us and how we helped shape events in Europe. We present you a few excerpts from this publication - which is available as a free download. Read a lecture by Raghavan N. Iyer.

In 2019, the European Cultural Foundation celebrated its 65th anniversary. To that occasion we published a bookazine on how events in Europe shaped us and how we helped shape events in Europe. We present you a few excerpts from this publication - which is available as a free download. Read our interview with Tegiye Birey.

In 2019, the European Cultural Foundation celebrated its 65th anniversary. To that occassion we published a bookazine on how events in Europe shaped us and how we helped shape events in Europe. We present you a few excerpts from this publication - which is available as a free download. Read an essay by Eleanor Penny.

In 2019, the European Cultural Foundation celebrated its 65th anniversary. To that occassion we published a bookazine on how events in Europe shaped us and how we helped shape events in Europe. We present you a few excerpts from this publication - which is available as a free download. Read a lecture from 1991 and a 2019 response to himself by Timothy Garton Ash.

In 2019, the European Cultural Foundation celebrated its 65th anniversary. To that occasion, we published a bookazine on how events in Europe shaped us and how we helped shape events in Europe. We present you with a few excerpts from this publication - which is available as a free download. Read a story by Giuseppe Porcaro.

Following earlier international presentations we launched 'Lost in Media’ in Tate Modern on July 19th 2019 with a panel discussion chaired by Chrystal Genesis of Stance Podcast, with contributions from Tania Bruguera, Nesrine Malik, Daniel Trilling, and Andre Wilkens. photo by Dan Weill Photography.

Our director, Andre Wilkens reflects on when artists, writers, and rock bands defied the status quo and energised the people. We need to recapture that spirit.

Our friend and colleague Osman Kavala published an open letter on his 710 days in prison.

Our policy officer Violante Torre reports from the Urban Lab - a meeting within the Creative Cities and Cultural Spaces policy project.

“Europatralala: A European week for lovers, haters and dummies” comes to Amsterdam. Five European theatre companies research what lies underneath the European political surface.

Meet some of the CIVITATES grantees: Oana Preda of CeRe [Romania], Milan Sagat of VIA IURIS [Slovakia] and Veronika Móra of the Hungarian Civilization Coalition. CIVITATES is a philanthropic initiative for democracy and solidarity in Europe.

During the last weeks and months, we have witnessed one of the biggest transnational debates in Europe ever. The debate was about jobs, migration, inequality, tax evasion, crime rates, the climate and about the explosive content of a videotape from Ibiza. Europe has become the subject of primetime TV shows, coffee talks, summer festivals and dinners among friends. Culture can imagine a better Europe beyond pie charts and growth rates. But instead with stories, images, ideas.

At the request of Europe’s World European Cultural Foundation’s director André Wilkens put his thought on the battle for Europe into an opinion piece.

Some of the participants to the 2017 Idea Camp in Madrid found their ideas so similar, they embarked on a common project. Beatriz Barreiro Carril and Mondher Tounsi were two of them. We spoke with Beatriz on their project.

Our head of advocacy spoke at the book launch of photographer Nico Bick’s book “Parliaments of the European Union”.

We spoke with Amber Arcades on “European Heartbreak”, the upcoming #EP2019 elections and why Europe might benefit from some relation therapy.

Civitates is a philanthropic initiative for democracy and solidarity in Europe. It provides funding for civil society actors to come together, revitalize public discourse, and ensure that all voices are heard. After all, we need a strong civil society to shape vibrant and open European democracies that work for all.

An - limited - overview of political campaigns in the run up to the #EP2019 elections

After fifteen months in prison without indictment we share Osman Kavala’s statement on his imprisonment.

Nico Bick has been travelling to all European parliaments to photograph them. In our #democracyneedsimagination series we ask him why?

Meet the fifty Idea Makers who have been selected to participate in the Idea Camp: read their short biographies and have a glance at the ideas they will be working on during the Idea Camp.

In this final instalment of a five-part interview with Ivan Krastev, we look closely at civil society initiatives across the continent, the danger some cultural actors face in their local environments, and we conclude by evaluating the role of cultural institutions in realising the critical role attributed to culture in the current political context of Europe and its neighbourhood.

We continue our conversation with Ivan Krastev in this fourth instalment of a five-part interview. After we looked back at what the past 15 years have meant for the building of democratic European communities in part 1, we dove into the issues around the real division between people within our societies across the continent in part 2 and looked at concrete examples of this division across different countries in Europe in part 3. We now explore the possibilities of finding a new language.