CEC ArtsLink

06/04/2026

Meet the 2026 ArtsLink International Fellows and their host organizations as they begin their online residencies leading up to in-person collaborations this fall.

Today Areej Ashhab from Palestine.

To ensure that current US Government travel restrictions do not prevent us from supporting key International artists, we have developed a new Fellowship format for those who are currently barred from travel to the US: Fellows who are unable to travel to the US are now paired with both a US host and an international host. The residency in the fall will take place in international locations with the US host joining in-person as well — creating an enriched, tripartite collaboration that benefits everyone involved.

Areej's US host is our network partner Mariela Acuña, Director of Exhibitions and Residency at Hyde Park Art Center.
A hub for contemporary art in Chicago is a gathering and production space for artists and the broader community to cultivate ideas, impact social change, and connect with new networks. An amplifier for today and tomorrow’s creative voices, it offers a comprehensive program of exhibitions, artist talks, studio art classes, international and local residency program, and free public events. Hyde Park Art Center has been hosting ArtsLink International Fellows since 2019.

Areej's Fellowship will be co-hosted by Framer Framed, an Amsterdam-based platform for contemporary art, visual culture, and critical theory. The organization presents exhibitions and cultural programs at its main space in Amsterdam Oost and project space Framer Framed Noord in Amsterdam Noord.
Co-founded / co-directed by Josien Pieterse, Framer Framed is a new CEC ArtsLink host partner this year with Jiyoung Kim overseeing the hosting activities.
Since joining Framer Framed in 2020, Jiyoung has developed and produced a wide range of programs and research projects centered on artistic activism, as well as the ongoing legacies of the Cold War and military imperialism in East Asia.

We are looking forward to the new ideas and collaborations to be forged by Areej, Mariela and Jiyoung during this Fellowship.

05/29/2026

To close our cohort introduction, a third and final question for the 2026 ArtsLink Fellows.
Six voices from Palestine, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, Hungary and Uzbekistan.

Today: the relationship between their work and the people they work with.

The 2026 ArtsLink Fellows are:
♦️ Areej Ashhab, Palestine, artist, architect, and researcher engaging in community land practices and material ecologies
♦️ Nabila Horakhsh, Afghanistan/Germany, artist and curator working with the topics of oppression, religious extremism and gender discrimination
♦️ Zumrad Mirzalieva, Uzbekistan, photographer and filmmaker focusing on the issues of agency, migration and identity
♦️ Kseniia Opria, Ukraine, curator, editor, and filmmaker specializing in documentary and experimental cinema. She explores the intersection of civilian and military realities during wartime.
♦️ Altynai Osmo, Kyrgyzstan, artist with a practice rooted in Central Asian nomadic heritage and politically driven by social awareness and women's empowerment
♦️ Mátyás Tóth, Hungary, a puppet and theater artist working with issues of social impact and responsibility

05/26/2026

A second question for the 2026 ArtsLink Fellows — six voices from Palestine, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, Hungary and Uzbekistan.

What's been motivating them lately.

The 2026 ArtsLink Fellows are:
♦️ Areej Ashhab, Palestine, artist, architect, and researcher engaging in community land practices and material ecologies
♦️ Nabila Horakhsh, Afghanistan/Germany, artist and curator working with the topics of oppression, religious extremism and gender discrimination
♦️ Zumrad Mirzalieva, Uzbekistan, photographer and filmmaker focusing on the issues of agency, migration and identity
♦️ Kseniia Opria, Ukraine, curator, editor, and filmmaker specializing in documentary and experimental cinema. She explores the intersection of civilian and military realities during wartime.
♦️ Altynai Osmo, Kyrgyzstan, artist with a practice rooted in Central Asian nomadic heritage and politically driven by social awareness and women's empowerment
♦️ Mátyás Tóth, Hungary, a puppet and theater artist working with issues of social impact and responsibility

05/23/2026

We asked the 2026 ArtsLink Fellows three questions as they are about to start their fellowships.
Six voices from Palestine, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, Hungary and Uzbekistan.

We start today with some of their answers to what feelings show up in their work.

The 2026 ArtsLink Fellows are:
♦️ Areej Ashhab, Palestine, artist, architect, and researcher engaging in community land practices and material ecologies
♦️ Nabila Horakhsh, Afghanistan/Germany, artist and curator working with the topics of oppression, religious extremism and gender discrimination
♦️ Zumrad Mirzalieva, Uzbekistan, photographer and filmmaker focusing on the issues of agency, migration and identity .mir
♦️ Kseniia Opria, Ukraine, curator, editor, and filmmaker specializing in documentary and experimental cinema. She explores the intersection of civilian and military realities during wartime. .film.workshop/
♦️ Altynai Osmo, Kyrgyzstan, artist with a practice rooted in Central Asian nomadic heritage and politically driven by social awareness and women's empowerment
♦️ Mátyás Tóth, Hungary, a puppet and theater artist working with issues of social impact and responsibility

05/21/2026

Six voices, before their ArtsLink Fellowships begin.

"I think it is often this blurred line between hope and uncertainty. A lot of my work sits with things that are unresolved, like transformed landscapes, gender roles and spaces, histories that were distorted, speculative/ or imagined futures. I am interested in that fragile liminal space of "in-betweenness."

Palestine, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, Hungary, Uzbekistan.
Meet the 2026 ArtsLink Fellows - coming soon.

04/20/2026

2026 ArtsLink Fellow Areej Ashhab is part of "flour, water, soil" opening this week in Amsterdam at W139.

Areej is a Palestinian artist, architect and researcher engaging in community land practices and material ecologies.

"flour, water, soil" initiated by maria khatchadourian is bringing new and adapted site-specific works by Areej Ashhab, the duo Anna Celda and Saja Amro, Ola Hassanain, maria khatchadourian, Ai Ozaki and belit sağ.

The exhibition reflects on food, land, and agricultural practice as the infrastructures through which geographies of displacement, colonial rupture, and kinship are carried and contested—fragile geographies that resist erasure through dialect, embodied knowledge, and ancestral recipes.

"flour, water, soil"
🗓️Fri, April 24 (Opening night) to July 22, 2026
📍 Warmoesstraat 139, Amsteram, Netherlands

03/31/2026

03/31/2026

Artists in the US are navigating an increasingly hostile landscape.

Last November, ArtsLink Assembly Defending Each Other, co-organised with Artistic Freedom Initiative, brought together artists, resettlement organizations, funders, and researchers to collectively work on the questions of solidarity and support for artists in the US.

On March 18th, a smaller group came back together in New York to push this further.

Swipe to see the shape this movement is taking, and get in touch if you want to be part of it.

03/24/2026

Join us this Wednesday in New York for a lecture and the premiere screening of a new film by Zumrad Mirzalieva, 2026 ArtsLink International Fellow from Uzbekistan.

Building on Zumrad’s research into the Tashkent Film Festival of Asian, African and Latin American Cinema, this lecture examines a space imagined as a South–South collaboration yet shaped by Soviet geopolitical agendas. Drawing from Zumrad’s short film, "Tashkent 58-88" (2026), and archival fragments—including footage, newsreels, letters and the festival’s programming logic—she explores how anti-imperial images circulated through an imperial system and what these tensions reveal about broader solidarity movements.

The evening unfolds in the context of Amanat, the exhibition by Saodat Ismailova, herself a 2018 ArtsLink Fellow and a frequent collaborator of Zumrad's. This is a rare opportunity to encounter two voices from the same artistic lineage in the same moment and the same city.

///Wednesday Mar 25 2026, 7:00pm
///Swiss Institute, New York
///More info and RSVP: swissinstitute.net

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Photo: Indian actress Deepti Naval and VGIK students Kaadi Salah Sherif (Sudan) and Kaadu Said (Lebanon) — participants of the 6th Tashkent International Film Festival of Asian, African and Latin American Countries. Credits: Central State Archive of the Documentary Films of the Republic of Uzbekistan.