CEC ArtsLink

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.

03/10/2026

Meet Kseniia Opria, the first Razom ArtsLink Fellow, through a new partnership between CEC ArtsLink and Razom for Ukraine

Kseniia is a filmmaker, editor, and curator based in Zaporizhzhia. She documents the daily lives of local residents through independent media, co-curates PKHE! — an experimental film workshop — and leads the editorial work of NGO Docudays, Ukraine's leading institution for human rights documentary cinema. She is currently completing her debut short documentary, The Right to Expression.

Razom for Ukraine is a US-based nonprofit working at the intersection of civic engagement, humanitarian support, and cultural diplomacy. Their cinema program has built a real bridge between Ukrainian filmmakers and the wider world, and this fellowship deepens that work.

Together, we share a belief that culture remains one of the most vital forms of resistance, documentation, and connection. Kseniia's work is a clear expression of that.

03/03/2026

This Thursday in New York, Ukrainian curator and ArtsLink Fellowship alumna Kateryna Radchenko ( ) will be hosted by in collaboration with and for a lecture examining how wartime photography is evolving in the face of technological change.⁠

Beyond Violence: The Impact of Evolving Technologies in Wartime Photography looks at photography’s long history as both a tool of authoritarian control and a means of bearing witness to violence.

Kateryna, a 2012 ArtsLink Fellow and speaker at ArtsLink Assembly 2025, is the director of Odesa Photo Days Festival, and works directly with photographers at the frontlines in order to produce international publications, exhibitions, events and creates opportunities for people around the world to experience these visual stories and narratives first hand.

📅 March 5, 2026⁠ | 6:30–8pm
More details and tickets via
⁠
Image by Ivan Samoilov.

03/03/2026

Save the date: Live at National Sawdust in NYC on March 21.

A few months ago in New York, the singer, composer, and activist Mai Khôi took the stage at La MaMa forArtsLink Assembly 2025: Defending Each Other, sharing her journey of exile from her native Vietnam and her work at the intersection of art and activism. She returns to NYC this March with one of her current projects, Mai Khôi & the Dissidents, which is off to a strong start with the release of a new album and a double-bill concert performance at National Sawdust.

On March 21, Mai Khôi & the Dissidents present a 2-in-1 concert performance: first, they will present “Bad Activist,” where Mai Khôi recounts her journey from pop stardom to activism through a spellbinding mixture of original music, projections, archival footage, and theatrical performance. Then the band will perform music from their upcoming album “Five Years in Exile,” which will be available for the first time following the show. Featuring, Mai Khôi (voice), Mark Micchelli (keyboards), Jeff Siegfried (saxophones), Eli Namay (bass) and PJ Roduta (drums).

Tickets available now through National Sawdust.

02/06/2026

As a summary and collective call to action Defending Each Other in the USA is a ‘whitepaper’ distillation of the ideas that were shared during the ArtsLink Assembly 2025 at La MaMa in New York.

Mary Ann DeVlieg draws on her immense experience in fostering culture networks and actively supporting artists impacted by forced displacement, making a compelling and urgent case for artists, culture organizations, arts funders and civil society to work together.

This is not a ‘blueprint’ to follow, but rather a clear exposition of the current challenges to the cultural field, and the critical questions we must ask ourselves, while finding the answers together.

Co-commissioned by On the Move and CEC ArtsLink, get the whitepaper at the link in our bio.

01/27/2026

P A R T N E R - P E R S P E C T I V E S

Our colleague and artist Noura Murad who leads the Leish Troupe performance company in Damascus, remained in Syria throughout the long civil war with the Assad regime, committed to the idea she expressed in 2016 of ‘planting hope, even in the darkest times’.

Now at the beginning of a new year in Syria, with the chaotic emergence of a new leadership, she reflects in her ‘Manifesto 2026’ on the role artists, and indeed all of us, must play in building the society we wish to live in.

Read the manifesto here:
https://www.cecartslink.org/partner-perspectives-leish-troupe-manifesto-2026/

01/23/2026

After the recent opening of Surviving Shadows at apexart in New York, we talked with ArtsLink Fellow Yama Rahimi the curator of the exhibition, formerly in Afghanistan and currently located in Frankfurt, Germany.

Yama was scheduled to be in New York for last week’s opening on Church Street, but the recent travel bans imposed by the US administration resulted in the denial of his entry to the US—a disturbing situation where we can now see the work but not meet the artist or curator.

On our website read our conversation with Yama about the issues that define both the exhibition and the lived realities of displaced communities.
https://www.cecartslink.org/a-conversation-with-yama-rahimi/

01/15/2026

Opening on January 16th at apexart in NYC, 'Surviving Shadows - Afghan Art in the Face of Suppression, curated by Yama Rahimi, presents images of pieces that were destroyed, artworks that remain in Afghanistan, art smuggled out of the country, and creations of Afghan artists in exile.

A 2024 ArtsLink Fellows who did his residenciy in the US with Magnum Foundation, Yama is a contemporary artist and activist from Afghanistan. His work is informed by a deep involvement in migrant and women’s rights issues and encompasses video, conceptual photography, and experimental short film.

“If an entire nation’s artistic voice is compelled to keep silent, what will happen? A voice doesn’t just vanish away though, it changes and sings below the surface and finds new kinds of codes.” shares Yama.

"Surviving Shadows - Afghan Art in the Face of Suppression"
Opening Friday, January 16, 6pm - 8pm
apexart: 291 Church St. New York, NY 10013
Live online curatorial tour on Jan 16, 3pm (https://www.eventbrite.com/e/surviving-shadows-online-curatorial-tour-tickets-1980108071545)
On view until March 14, 2026

With:
Angela Gulistani
Ayatollah Ahmadi
Jahan Ara Rafi
Jeanno Gaussi
Maryam Gholam Ali
Fatimah Hossaini
Farshad Akbari
Waisuddin Mohammadi
10 Anonymous Afghanistan based artists