PEN America Announces Launch of Artists at Risk Connection (ARC), an Online Collaboration of More than 500 Global Organizations

From PEN America:

PEN America announced today the launch of the Artists at Risk Connection (ARC), an online collaboration of more than 500 global organizations that provide life-saving resources to artists worldwide who face oppression, persecution, arrest, and violence for their creative work.
Recent reported threats against New York’s Guggenheim Museum, the cancellation of a major planned work from the Louvre in Paris, and the withdrawal of a major film from Russian theatres offer stark reminders of the hotly contested terrain that artists occupy. There were more than a thousand attacks on artists in 2016, according to the Copenhagen-based Freemuse—more than double the prior year. While hundreds of organizations offer assistance to imperil led artists, ARC is a first-of-its-kind platform bringing all of these resources together in a single online hub, accessible in 104 languages.
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ARC collates resources—including emergency funding, housing opportunities, residencies, fellowships and grants, and legal, immigration, and resettlement services—in an interactive online catalogue to help threatened artists quickly identify programs for which they’re eligible. This exhaustive database is the first of its kind for artists-at-risk, who have typically had to piece together assistance through a combination of personal contacts, referrals, and web searches, often under dire circumstances.
ARC also provides training and facilitates collaboration within a network of artist assistance organizations, including Index on Censorship (United Kingdom), ICORN (Norway), Al Mawred (Lebanon), and the Sundance Institute (United States), to strengthen each organization’s ability to provide comprehensive support to artists in dire need. Over time, ARC will work to elevate the visibility of artists at risk, seeking to mobilize an even greater breadth global arts institutions to play a more prominent role in assisting their field’s most vulnerable.

Funding

ARC is a three-year pilot program at PEN America, sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. ARC is a first-of-its kind global hub aimed to assist imperiled artists and fortify the field of organizations that support them.

Direct to Complete Launch Announcement
Direct to Artists at Risk Connection Website
Direct to Complete Database of 581 Organizations
Note: ALA, ALA’s OIF, and IFLA are Three Library Organizations Currently Listed in the Directory. Others included are the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF) and Knight Foundation.

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