All Good Things Must Begin: Roots and Routes
In response to the pandemic, the heightened precarity of artists, and a series of catalytic scandals that recently shook the art world in the Netherlands the past year, we would like to direct our attention in 2022 to gathering practises. The SALWA Gatherings is a 3 day event that brings together artists that through their work and lived experience relate to collective care practises and community-building. The overarching theme of the SALWA Gatherings will centre around care, and the program is itself also an act of care for our community. Considering that SALWA prioritises artists that have a refugee or migrant background and are part of larger diasporic communities, we understand care here as ways of gathering, listening, sharing, and reflecting, so one has a sense of togetherness and community.
The Gathering takes place 11-12-13 March and is hosted at the Goethe-Institut Niederlande (Goethe-Institut Amsterdam).
The first gathering centres themes such as belonging, identity, and diasporic practices of remembrance, and will hold space for conversations across time. What can we learn from sharing our memories and how can we honor those that have weaved pathways before us? What can we learn from tracing back our roots and routes that shape our present-day realities? The artists that will join this first gathering create work around themes such as relationality, intergenerational wisdom, heritage, and memories. As this gathering will be the kick-off of the three SALWA Gatherings, it will facilitate (intimate) conversations that centre solidarity and support within the arts and cultural scene.
The SALWA Gatherings are in partnership with Goethe Institute and the Finnish Cultural Institute for the Benelux and funded by Mondriaanfonds.
Check out the full programme on the SALWA website.
Get your tickets for the first Gathering via eventbrite.
Learn more about the SALWA Foundation: