The East Satellite BEYOND event titled ‘Between Neighbours: Crossing Voices, Crossing Borders’ organised by Culture Unleashed and Space-time Works in partnership with Anadolu Kültür, İKSV, Postane, and Roof, in collaboration with Culture Action Europe, powered by Alliance for Socially Engaged Arts, and co-funded by the European Union, will take place in Istanbul, Türkiye between 4 - 6 May 2026.
The event focuses on four countries in the East region: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Türkiye. The event is driven by the need to address the cultural and political realities of our region: fragile peace, unresolved conflicts, cultural silences, and a shrinking space for artistic freedom.
These countries are bound together by centuries-old cultural ties—shared traditions, culture, cuisine—but these shared ties are intertwined with histories of conflict, silence, and division. Today, cultural actors in the four countries face common challenges: censorship and self-censorship, fragile infrastructures, dependence on limited funding, limited understanding of how to use digital technologies, and unequal access to resources. And most importantly, direct contact between cultural communities in these countries is still very limited.
The event aims to engage radical imagination regarding these problems and create a space for concrete proposals, exploring how culture contributes to peace, conflict resolution, resilience, and social and cultural change. Sessions will address topics such as cultural democracy and ethical leadership, freedom of artistic expression and sector autonomy, access to and participation in culture, and cultural financing.
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