Learning from the Pandemic: Artistic Freedom & Mobility Beyond the Covid-19 Crisis

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has hit the creative and cultural sectors hard; it has led to further risks and restrictions for artists, particularly for those who were already vulnerable, marginalized, or persecuted. It also hindered opportunities for cross border mobility and collaboration, thereby creating major obstacles for mobility and temporary relocation programs which aim to enable artists from restrictive political contexts to continue their practice. By learning from the experience of the Covid crisis, and particularly from restrictive contexts such as Turkey, this report explores how to support artists and maintain spaces of artistic freedom despite these circumstances. The report provides artists' perspectives and experiences related to the challenges of the pandemic, and presents the strategies they used to cope with them. As Covid exposed the interlinkage between economic, political, and psychosocial risks, the report provides a critical perspective on the concept of "risk" and of being "at-risk." It also examines the challenges and opportunities that affected the work of organizations supporting artistic freedom and mobility, and how those organizations were able to respond to the needs of artists in this period. Drawing on practices that emerged in response to the pandemic, the report develops recommendations to guide future attempts to expand transnational solidarity for artistic freedom in the face of the pandemic’s long-term impacts, as well as any future threats or obstacles of similar nature.