The Lebanon Solidarity Fund, jointly launched by Culture Resource the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture – AFAC, has announced the opening of the call for submissions in support of arts and culture institutions and spaces.
Following the support of 208 arts and culture practitioners affected by the August 4 Beirut port blast in September 2020, the Lebanon Solidarity Fund aims, with this call, to assist arts and culture institutions and spaces – such as galleries, bookstores, libraries, and others – across Lebanon. It will respond to their urgent needs as well as their mid-to-long-term requirements for viability.
The Lebanon Solidarity Fund will not be restricted to emergency relief but will also allow spaces and institutions the possibility to use this moment to think about their relation to the past and lived heritage and imagine different futures and meanings of contemporary cultural work and production. As such, the Fund will support at the programmatic level by answering to a variety of sector issues old and new. In this sense, the exploration of collaborative options when it comes to the use of space, the sharing of expertise and costs, as well as combining or diversifying audiences and cross-disciplinary programming is highly encouraged. Additionally, the Fund values those projects/programs that are aware of the need to engage communities and of their ability to create a trickle-down effect with respect to the economy of cultural production. Furthermore, institutional support will be provided, sustaining team members and spaces (salaries and rent), purchasing essential equipment, and covering basic expenses. Support will be extended at a maximum of USD 70,000 per grant.
The call for submissions will be open until February 12, 2021 at 17:00 Beirut time. Full details, including areas of support, eligibility criteria, guidelines, and the online application form, can be found on the program page.
For your inquiries please contact the program team: [email protected] & [email protected].
The Lebanon Solidarity Fund is made possible through the generous contributions of: Unis pour le Liban, the Open Society Foundations, German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, DOEN Foundation, Drosos Foundation, Ford Foundation, the Swiss Cooperation Office (Lebanon), The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the British Council’s Cultural Protection Fund, the European Cultural Foundation, the Prince Claus Fund, and Sfeir-Semler gallery.
Additionally, the Fund received support from more than 150 individual givers through either direct contributions or organizing fundraisers.
