George Soros’s Open Society Foundations announced the 18 recipients of the 2023 Soros Arts Fellowship, an award recognising and supporting artists whose work is socially engaged. The theme of this year’s award was ‘Art, Land and Public Memory’ and the 18 mid-career recipients are supported with $100,000 for impact-driven art projects focused on the climate crisis and its destructive impact on the environment and vulnerable communities.
‘Art and culture are essential drivers for social change,’ said Tatiana Mouarbes, Open Society’s Team Manager for Culture and Art, Expression. ‘One of the greatest challenges of the twenty-first century is the health of our planet. Through their art and culture work, the 2023 Soros Arts Fellows are taking action to help heal a planet in crisis through community-led solutions for local environmental challenges.’
The 2023 cohort is the largest cohort the foundation has ever supported. It includes Bilia Bah, who will produce a collaborative and participatory theater production to launch public dialogue around climate change, urbanization, and the impacts of unregulated water drilling across Conakry, Guinea; Yto Barradam who will expand botanical literacy to disseminate radical ways of making and thinking with The Mothership Manifesto, a collaborative, multidisciplinary, transgenerational and educational textile project at The Mothership, an eco-feminist residency, garden, and studio in Tangier, Morocco; and Mónica de Miranda, who will be working with African migrant communities in Lisbon to document stories of migration and land ecologies for Where cities are invisible, gardens grow, bringing together artists, activists, and ecologists to reimagine more inclusive, equitable, and sustainable public space.
The award is unrestricted, and comes with services and resources meant to help the fellows build sustainable artistic careers, including leadership development, mentorship, peer-to-peer exchanges, and networking opportunities. The full list of fellows is here.
