Opening Adress by Anh-Linh Ngo, Vice-President of the Akademie der Künste

With the Croatian Association of Fine Artists (HDLU) among its partners, the European Alliance of Academies held an online kick-off meeting bringing together over 100 participants, marking the start of the four-year project The Art of Resilience and Resistance: Empowering artists and cultural professionals tackling new challenges in Europe.

The project is supported by a large-scale grant under the Creative Europe programme of the European Union and will run from 2026 to 2029.

The meeting marked the official beginning of the project. The partner consortium introduced their perspectives and outlined their visions for the upcoming four years. Under the 2026 annual theme “Transformation of Cultural Policies”, the consortium presented the conceptual framework for the first project year and introduced the planned activities within the different work packages.

In a meaningful opening address, Anh-Linh Ngo, Vice-President of the Akademie der Künste, Berlin, stated: “Artistic freedom is inseparable from democratic freedom.” (Full speech here)

Catherine Magnant, Head of Unit, Directorate General for Education, Youth, Sport, and Culture (European Commission) earned a big round of digital applause when she said: “We cannot speak of resilience without speaking of financially funding the cultural sector.”

Re:Create Europe is not only a support programme, but a clear institutional response to the growing pressures on artistic freedom and cultural autonomy across Europe. Artists and cultural professionals are increasingly working under conditions shaped by war and aggression, political instrumentalisation, economic precarity, ecological collapse, and shrinking civic space. In this context, resilience cannot be understood as adaptation alone, but as a cultural, ethical, and civic responsibility.

Through a combination of mobility programmes, blended learning formats, onsite residencies, digital mapping, and international conferences, Re:Create Europe aims to empower artists and cultural professionals across disciplines and regions. The project strengthens transnational solidarity, supports artistic practice under conditions of crisis, and fosters exchange between institutions, practitioners, and policy-oriented cultural actors.

Programme link: here

Photo: Juraj Blasko

 

Within the project:

Partners:

Co-funded by:

Co-funded by the European Union – CREA-CULT-2025-COOP. The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor the European Commission can be held responsible for them.

[Project number: 101255481]