artlink invites women arts practitioners from South- and Southeast Asia
artlink connects culture, art and people – in Switzerland and across continents. It promotes artists from Africa, Latin America, Southeast and Southwest Asia, and Eastern Europe in Switzerland. On behalf of the Swiss Development Agency, artlink manages the South Cultural Fonds, a grant programme that includes the Travel Network Grant. Travel Network invites arts practitioners from above mentioned regions on a guided group visit of several days to Switzerland. The visit is tailored to promote an exchange between the visitors and Switzerland’s cultural scene. The objectives are to expand intercontinental networks relevant to the professional development of the participants and to provide an opportunity to develop future collaborations across disciplines, countries and continents. This year’s Travel Network Grant goes to early career women curators from South- and Southeast:
Elise Luong is French-Vietnamese-Australian. Raised in Melbourne, she holds a BFA in Photography & Video Arts from Belgium. Based in Hanoi since late 2016, she works as an art manager, writer, event manager & communication designer.
Kamya Ramachandran is the Founder Director of BeFantastic, a TechArt platform that has been convening transdisciplinary and international communities of creatives and technologists since 2017.
Noor Ahmed is an Independent Curator from Karachi, Pakistan working in the public sphere. Her recent projects include the Pakistan Pavilion at Dubai Expo and Karachi Biennale 2019.
Ruxmini Choudhury is a curator and researcher in Bangladesh, both independently and as part of a core team of the Samdani Art Foundation that organizes the Dhaka Art Summit biannually.
Sadya Mizan is an independent curator and researcher from Bangladesh. Founding member of the Uronto Artist Community and the Art Initiative Bangladesh. Her curatorial expertise spread around the community based off-center activity, museum narratives, alternative archive and artivism. Have been curating residencies in unconventional Diane’s to explore a different layer of audience out of the gallery structures.
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Trisha Talera is founder director of TIFA Working Studios, creating a multi-disciplinary centre for creativity and culture in Pune, India. Since 2014, she has curated the programming of exhibitions, festivals, workshops, events and residencies to build an engaged community in the city and internationally.
The Travel Network Grant pursues the following goals:
1) Swiss organizers learn more about local cultural scenes and networks from the Global South and East.
2) When selecting artists from the South/East for performances in Switzerland, local expertise is increasingly included.
3) Peer-to-peer encounters between organizers from the South/East and Switzerland will result in a lively and sustainable exchange, which in turn will help artists from the South/East to get performance opportunities in Switzerland and generate income for them.
Through networking trips for organizers from the South/East, a greater diversity of artists from the South/East will be present in the Swiss cultural landscape.
