At the Salzburg Global Seminar session ‘On the Front Lines: Artists at Risk, Artists who Risk’, in March 2023, fifty artists, activists and representatives from supporting organisations hailing from forty countries created the Salzburg Statement on Supporting Artists on the Front Line.
On the Move supports this Statement and among the professionals and organisations behind this Statement are some On the Move’s members actively involved in the (en)forced mobility working group including its coordinator Mary Ann DeVlieg, Matthew Covey (Tamizdat), Ashley Tucker (Artistic Freedom Initiative) and Julie Trébault (PEN / Artists at Risk Connection). (Check the Perspective Reports 2022 and 2023 for the working group’s latest updates.)
The Statement is a concise document including definitions of artists at risk, artists who are persecuted due to their artwork, artists as activists or human rights defenders. It includes considerations and reflections for and on those who support art and artists at risk such as policymakers, funders, institutions, organisations in both arts and human rights sectors. The Statement clearly outlines demands and recommendations as well as a three-point call for action by the end of 2025 on the part of policymakers, funders, stakeholders and networks. As the Statement says:
’Wherever they are, artists at risk deserve support: to continue their work, to study, develop, create, produce and distribute their work, and for their work to be documented.’
We ask you to support this initiative, take it to your policymakers, funders, stakeholder organisations, associations and networks, discuss it, distribute it and most of all, to demand discussions of it at conferences and meetings through 2024 with the aim to realise its vision.
For more information about the Statement, please email mobility@on-the-move.org and we will convey the request. Thank you!
