For the first time ever, the European Commission is planning a mobility scheme that will help individual artists and culture professionals take advantage of short-term (15–85 days) and flexible cross-border opportunities: to move between European countries, develop audiences and collaborations, find new inspiration, and fully benefit from – and contribute to – Europe’s diverse cultural ecosystems.

How should such a scheme work, in practice? How much support should be given? How should recipients be chosen? How can the scheme be flexible and reactive – yet fair and transparent? These are some of the questions that i-Portunus aims to answer, by testing a small-scale mobility scheme with 500 persons. The results of this pilot project will be key in shaping a new action in the Creative Europe programme, 2021–2027.

Between April and September 2019, the Goethe-Institut* will issue three calls to fund the mobility of individual artists and culture professionals of all ages, nationalities, educational qualifications and levels of experience from countries participating in the Creative Europe programme. In order to achieve a critical mass, this pilot project will focus on two sectors: the Performing Arts and the Visual Arts.

For full details on this pilot mobility scheme visit www.i-portunus.eu as of 15 April 2019.
Contact: Eva Blaute, Project Manager i-Portunes, eva.blaute.extern(at)goethe.de.

*i-Portunus is implemented on behalf of the European Commission by Goethe-Institut, in consortium with the Institut français, Izolyatsia and Nida Art Colony of Vilnius Academy of Arts. On April 2, 2019, the consortium changed the name of the pilot project from i-Portunes to i-Portunus. 

Eva Blaute from the Goethe-Institut is a guest speaker at the Mobility for Creativity conference in Ljubljana, 4–5 April 2019.

This article was first published on March 19, 2019.