From: Create Syria: A Space to Explore Arts and Social Change. Questions Around Social Arts Practices in a (Dis)Connected World (2026)

The Politics of International Solidarity
We speak a lot about international ‘solidarity’ and ‘collaboration’ between artists, arts organisations and communities of place and interest. Important words and declarations, feeding urgent local and global aspirations in what is an increasingly uncertain, unequal and frightening world order.

Yet it’s one thing to demonstrate the language of international solidarity and collaboration and another to meaningfully practice it over time. Since practicing solidarity and collaboration involves stepping into the complex spaces of mutual support –  of knowing where the visible and not so invisible power lines lie. It demands an understanding of locally embedded knowledge and the often contradictory methods of both learning and unlearning;  who is learning from whom and to what end?

The Role of Artists in a (Dis)Connected World

Beyond the Now: Socially Engaged Art in a (Dis)Connected World (2022-2023) was launched at the tail-end of Create Syria (2015-2023), comprising a partnership between Ettijahat in Beirut and Counterpoints Arts in London with the University of the Arts Plymouth, and the Mozilla Festival (alongside other Beyond the Now partners*). Supported by a British Council International Collaboration Grant, this project built upon the learning and unlearning that had already been explored in Create Syria – inviting us all to think differently about the position of the socially engaged artist in relation to how communities are re-imagined in times of crisis or are traumatically transformed by processes of displacement.

The aim for this international partnership was to create a horizontal architecture, realigning  the axis of learning from south to north, picking up on what Create Syria had achieved across its five years or more of programming. In particular, the toolkit Arts and Uncertainty developed by Ettijahat researcher, Rana Yazaji, encouraged us to re-think the more sober reality of a disconnected world despite the mantra that we are all somehow – digitally and miraculously – connected. In this re-framing, Syrian artists in exile reinvent their practice internationally and not through the narrow symbolism of national borders. This is an important distinction, since it (arguably) liberates many other artists from the persistent stereotype of regional ‘crisis’ thinking or that their practice is always a de facto response to ‘emergency’.

Create Syria in its pedagogy and philosophy chose to position socially engaged practice from the lived experience of individual artists, literally from the ground-up and without preconceptions of what an artist should do or what a community is or might need. Create Syria created its own parallel infrastructure of capacity-building, research, training, mentoring and commissioning – resulting in a uniquely ambitious programme that has left a significant international legacy.

Horizontal Partnerships  – Across Borders

Beyond the Now: Socially Engaged Art in a (Dis)Connected World built upon this legacy at a time marked by a decade or more of Syrian displacement and the more recent impact of the global pandemic. The ‘pilot’ nature of the programme and the funding from the British Council allowed us to ‘test the waters’ for a set of cross-border exchanges and collaborative actions. The programme enabled commissioned artists to connect and grow peer-to-peer networks and to pilot ideas from a range of locations. It’s important to note that the potential for such international co-production drew upon a previous relationship between the 2 key partners, Ettijahat and Counterpoints Arts. This was then enhanced by the digital training element delivered by Mozilla Festival and the mentoring/residency alliance between Arts University Plymouth and Grow Plymouth.

It is not surprising that many of the artists chose to explore projects connected with the environment and sustainability, moving across the spheres of (in)tangible heritage and craft, memory and oral history and future-oriented blueprints for cultural and material rehabilitation and reparation.  The more over-arching narratives overlaying this international programme pivoted around what it means to do socially engaged work today: when facing the possibilities and limitations of emerging technologies; the social and economic disparities in the wake of the global pandemic; the impact of war and increasing totalitarianism; and the inequalities surrounding freedom of expression and the continuing erosion of the rights to mobility for artists and communities of place.

Mobility/Immobility – Equity

International solidarity and collaboration in practice is dependent on the relative security of having medium-to-long term support and recognition, of being able (as an organisation/independent artist/collective/community) to co-produce programmes that are sustainable and enduring. Programmes that are not merely one-off but robust enough to run for several years (ideally longer), building trust between participants where the shared focus is about a cultural politics of process rather than the production of the inevitable end-product.

Yet one of the major obstacles in the doing of international partnership work is the lack of mobility for participating artists. While comparative projects of this type and scale fundamentally rely on artists being able to cross borders, we continue to run up against the very real obstacles of restrictive border regimes. The failure to secure travel visas for several of the artists in Beyond the Now: Socially Engaged Work in a (Dis)Connected World was/is worryingly predictable, despite letters of support from established funders and institutional partners.

We resolved this by pivoting and being agile (much used words these days) and by reverting to the digital as a fallback position and solution.

Sharing Intangible Heritage

But we can never substitute for the experience of literally ‘being in place’ for artists, given the comparative learning that this brings to host organisations and communities that they work with and alongside.

This pilot project has the potential to become more sustainable. To do so we need more equitable frameworks that ensure mobility to be able to co-design mutual infrastructures that are global and local in scope – the likes of which Create Syria initiated in 2015; and which international projects like Beyond the Now: Socially Engaged Practice in a (Dis)Connected World can further build upon and thrive.

Our thanks to the British Council International Collaboration Grant for funding this pilot initiative.

Beyond the Now is a syndicated online platform, founded by partners working in locations across Europe and SWANA. It aims to open new creative, cultural and political affinities for a post-pandemic world; and to amplify the necessity for and experience of solidarity in a time of crisis. Beyond the Now: Socially Engaged Practice in a (Dis) Connected World Programme, funded by the British Council International Collaboration Fund. Key partners include Ettijahat Independent Culture, Counterpoints Arts, Arts University Plymouth and Mozilla Festival.

Beyond the Now Collective: https://beyond-the-now.com/