Mrs Odile Chenal is the Director of Programmes and Grants of the European Cultural Foundation in Amsterdam

How long has the ECF been involved in supporting the mobility of artists and cultural operators?

What many people may not know is that, from 1987 to 1995, the European Cultural Foundation managed for the European Commission the ERASMUS programme that supports the mobility of students and teachers throughout Europe. But, where mobility for students and teachers was substantially developing in Europe, nothing was being done for the mobility of artists. This is why we began to focus on structurally supporting the mobility of artists and art organisers from the beginning of the 90’s. Our thinking led to the first coherent ECF support fund for artists – APEXchanges.

What was the rationale behind APEXchanges?

The aim of APEXchanges, which ran from 1994 to 2001, was to further East-West cooperation in the art sector. The mobility grants it offered allowed a new generation of artists and arts organisers to meet across borders, exchange experiences and build long-term partnerships. Grants were given to non-established young professionals living in Central or Eastern Europe who worked in the performing arts, visual arts, new media and art management.
After the fall of the Berlin wall, the desire to travel from East to West and vice-versa was explosive. Artists from Eastern Europe, however, could only travel if invited by a partner in the West, and if they had the required financial means. Often it was the same group of fortunate artists who travelled through the European space. With APEXchanges, we wanted to contribute to the independence of primarily young unknown artists from the East, offering them a possibility to travel on their own initiative, to make new contacts with their peers in other countries, to initiate joint projects across borders. During the first years of APEXchanges, 90% of the artists we supported travelled from Eastern Europe to the West. Towards the end of the programme, 35% were travelling East-East. Later, a new funding partner joined the project, namely KPN, a Dutch telecommunications company. KPN supported solely West-East travel, by aiding Eastern organisations to invite Western artists to their countries.
APEXchanges supported the travel of almost a thousand individuals during its existence.

APEXchanges was a very successful and much-needed mobility programme, one of the only independent programmes for artists from Central and Eastern Europe beside those of the Open Society Institute. Why did the ECF close the programme in 2001 when it was so successful?

The context changed. In the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, cultural organisations and artists have for some years now been the initiators of successful cross-border cooperation projects. When one considers that the European Cultural Foundation’s programmes are geared towards supporting and stimulating “new” processes, one can argue that APEXchanges had passed its due date. Although many artists were still applying to the fund for travel grants (and in fact we still receive applications to this day), we felt in 2001, that the “urgency” to travel solely to make new contacts, had been replaced by another more pressing need – namely the need to “travel and stay”, to travel and investigate or to travel and work on cooperation projects. Therefore we decided to start concentrating on funding more than mere travel alone. You could say that the context of a trip was now considered to be more important than the trip per se.

What has replaced APEX then?

For one year (2002) the ECF did not have a specific mobility programme. This was unfortunate, because the demand was great, and we received numerous requests for funding from the region of South-eastern Europe in particular. Now APEXchanges has been replaced by a new scheme called “S.T.E.P. Beyond”. Besides S.T.E.P. Beyond, there are, as there always have been, possibilities for artists, cultural operators and experts to receive travel support through our framework programmes, e.g. Art for Social Change, or Policies for Culture, but this support is subject to very strict criteria.

What is STEP Beyond?

S.T.E.P. Beyond (Supporting Travel for European Projects) aims to encourage cross-border cultural exploration, cooperation and exchange in and between the current European Union, the countries joining the EU in 2004, and the future EU's eastern neighbours. “Exploration” is the operative word here. This new mobility scheme was launched in February 2003 and it offers grants to individuals to contribute to this goal. On the first of May 2004, the European Union will gain ten new members. In its eastward enlargement, the EU will acquire new borders and therefore new neighbouring states. Countries and cultures that were previously felt to be “remote” will loom larger in the lives of current and future EU citizens, as well as in the lives of the “new neighbours”. We would like to see cultural ties between EU-Europe, the ten countries joining the EU in 2004, and the other European countries strengthened. Supporting individual mobility in the developmental phase of cultural and artistic initiatives is one means of strengthening these ties. So S.T.E.P. Beyond will support individuals (professional artists, cultural operators, cultural journalists, cultural translators, cultural researchers) in the setting up of new initiatives: initiatives that help to stimulate innovative cross-border projects and further cooperation in the field of culture and the arts. It allows the individuals/cultural partners involved to establish real cooperation and possibly enter a long-term partnership.

Where else can artists go for mobility support?

Obviously many European countries have their own bilateral, government funded travel schemes for artists and art companies. Usually these are for residencies and often only established artists and performers can make use of them. Sometimes governments support visitors’ programmes. The European Commission is now discussing increasing its support for the mobility of artists in the next generation of EC funded programmes (post 2004). And the Council of Europe had a small programme for networks and cultural administrators. We all know that the Open Society Institute’s Arts and Culture Network Programme is winding down. Whether and how Soros will continue to support artists’ mobility is yet unclear.

What will happen to the ECF’s strategy for mobility in the future? Will the ECF keep supporting mobility as one of the major instruments for facilitating cultural cooperation in Europe?

Since it is part of our mission to promote cultural participation and cooperation in Europe and beyond, I do believe that mobility support is here to stay. Naturally the geographical direction and the structure of future mobility schemes will change according to the changing context and new priorities, but the European Cultural Foundation does consider mobility to be an essential tool in stimulating and facilitating cross border exchange.