Funding for artist residencies paved way for socially engaged arts

People pointing flashlights against a white sheet in order to create light effects.

The Latvian residency center Sansusī was granted funding for artist residencies to invite Nordic and Baltic artists to their Wellbeing Residency Program. The residency programme is aimed at socially engaged contemporary performing art groups who value exchange between artists and different groups of society both for their artistic development and for encouraging social change through art.

The artists who participated the programme were working with specific social groups during their creation period in residency. Those target groups were children from isolated, rural areas with as well as patients and staff of Psychoneurological clinic of Aknīste in Latvia. The project resulted in new Nordic-Baltic connections on several levels.