In June, Fellows gathered for the second in-person residential of the Fellowship programme, spending four days together in Bulgaria’s Vitosha Mountains. Surrounded by lush forests and open mountain landscapes, the setting offered a rare opportunity to step away from the pace of daily work and reconnect with one another one year into the Fellowship.
The residential was designed and facilitated by our Fellowship partners, The Audience Agency, Fondazione Fitzcarraldo and Culture Action Europe, who held the space with great care and intention. It provided an opportunity for Fellows to reflect on the work they have been developing since the beginning of the year, while also looking ahead to what might emerge in the months to come. Just as importantly, it created time to explore the connections between their individual journeys and to begin imagining what collective questions, insights and actions might arise from them.
At the centre of the residential were the “leading questions” that Fellows have been developing with their organisations throughout the year. These questions sit at the heart of their organisations’ missions, reflecting the most pressing challenges and promising opportunities they encounter in their work. By tackling them, they have the potential to strengthen impact not only within their organisations, but also for the communities they serve or the broader field of socially engaged arts. For some, these enquiries build on existing initiatives they wish to deepen, scale or consolidate. For others, they open the door to experimentation and new directions. Over recent months, Fellows have translated these questions into pilot actions, through which they are testing ideas, experimenting with new approaches and unearthing important learnings and insights for their future work.
The range of leading questions shared during the first days of the residential brought into focus the breadth of imagination, ambition and commitment driving socially engaged arts practice today, and its potential to open up new possibilities for the future. Fellows’ enquiries are opening up lines of exploration around how organisations can remain purposeful, resilient and sustainable in increasingly uncertain times, from alternative business models to approaches for working in fragile contexts. Others are considering how breaking down silos and building partnerships beyond the cultural sector might help address complex societal challenges, alongside questions about shared leadership and how power can be more collectively held within organisations. Fellows are also exploring community-rooted approaches to co-creation and collective decision-making, strengthening advocacy for the issues closest to their work and for the wider field, and creating the conditions in which socially engaged arts can thrive.
As these discussions unfolded, it became increasingly clear that many of the questions Fellows are grappling with extend well beyond their own organisations. While each enquiry emerged from a specific context, common themes surfaced repeatedly, revealing the interconnected challenges and opportunities shaping the field today.
In the final days of the residential, the focus gradually shifted from individual reflection towards a more collective conversation about what might contribute to field-level change. Fellows exchanged perspectives on solidarity and collaboration across different contexts, reflected on how socially engaged arts can contribute to imagining alternative futures, and discussed the risks of instrumentalisation in a time when culture is increasingly expected to respond to complex social and political challenges. Conversations returned repeatedly to a central question: what conditions are needed for socially engaged arts practitioners and organisations to do their best work, and for that work to contribute meaningfully to wider processes of social change?
As the Fellowship enters its final phase, the residential marked an important moment of pause and transition. It offered a chance to reflect on how far Fellows have come and to learn from one another’s experiences, while also creating momentum for the work ahead. With pilot actions now well underway, it will be exciting to see how these enquiries continue to evolve and what new insights, approaches and learning emerge from them in the months ahead.
Video credits: Vasko Boianov