Fanak Fund: The in­de­pen­dent civ­il so­ci­ety ini­tia­tive

Fanak Fund was launched as an in­de­pen­dent civ­il so­ci­ety ini­tia­tive, in June 2019 by a group of pro­fes­sion­als work­ing to pro­mote art and cul­ture in Eu­rope, the Arab-speak­ing world, and the wider Mid­dle East.

The Fund fa­cil­i­tates the mo­bil­i­ty and cre­ativ­i­ty of artists and cul­tur­al op­er­a­tors liv­ing and work­ing in this ge­o­graph­i­cal zone, to en­hance cul­tur­al and artis­tic de­vel­op­ment at the lo­cal lev­el and to favour mul­ti­lat­er­al con­nec­tions and net­work­ing.

Our ini­tia­tive aims for equal­i­ty, trans­paren­cy and sus­tain­abil­i­ty and pro­motes the re­spect of hu­man rights and cul­tur­al rights in par­tic­u­lar.

Based on their ex­pe­ri­ence, the found­ing mem­bers of Fanak Fund, con­sid­er that:

– The first ar­ti­cle of the De­c­la­ra­tion of Hu­man Rights de­mands “equal­i­ty in dig­ni­ty and in rights”. Sit­u­a­tions in which cul­tures dom­i­nate over oth­ers are there­fore un­ac­cept­able.

– Our com­mon fu­ture will be struc­tured around peer to peer, in­stan­ta­neous and mul­ti­lat­er­al net­works and will no longer ac­com­mo­date for top>down or ex­clu­sive re­la­tions.

– It is more and more ev­i­dent, that the iso­la­tion (whether vol­un­tary or not) of a cul­tur­al ac­tor or artist di­min­ish­es his or her chances of sus­tain­abil­i­ty and lessens the im­pact of their mes­sage. Mu­tu­al­i­sa­tion is a must.

– Sus­tain­abil­i­ty of lo­cal cul­tur­al ini­tia­tives can only be achieved if an ap­pro­pri­ate re­sponse is giv­en to im­me­di­ate lo­cal needs, whilst at the same time pro­ject­ing strate­gies into the fu­ture which link up with oth­er lo­cal­i­ties else­where.

The cul­tur­al and artis­tic ini­tia­tives of civ­il so­ci­ety in the Arab-speak­ing world and the Mid­dle-East (and to a large ex­tent, in Eu­rope and Africa) must ap­pre­hend and adapt to these evo­lu­tions by build­ing up spe­cif­ic eco-sys­tems for each lo­cal con­text if they want to sur­vive and al­low lo­cal artists to ben­e­fit in a sus­tain­able way from their own work.

­Most cul­tur­al ac­tors and artists do not make these strate­gic choic­es be­cause they are dri­ven by ur­gency, they have dif­fi­cul­ties to in­vest in their fu­ture and do not suf­fi­cient­ly sub­scribe to col­lec­tive or mu­tu­al ac­tions.

­Many are aware that cur­rent cul­tur­al and artis­tic mo­bil­i­ty and ex­changes are in­suf­fi­cient com­pared to the needs and po­ten­tial ben­e­fits of such mo­bil­i­ty. This is by and large due to habits from the past which gave pref­er­ence to top-down, sec­tor spe­cif­ic treat­ments, hard­ly ever peer to peer ex­change.

How­ev­er, the par­a­digm shift we need, can only take place through peer to peer meet­ings, dis­cov­er­ing new re­al­i­ties else­where, through phys­i­cal mo­bil­i­ty from place to place, planned with in­tel­li­gence, aim­ing to be pro­duc­tive and play­ing a role in the lo­cal and glob­al economies.

Eth­i­cal Char­ter of Fanak Fund

This char­ter as­serts the val­ues pro­mot­ed by Fanak Fund as ap­proved by the found­ing mem­bers.

Ap­pli­cants to the fund­ing pro­vid­ed by Fanak Fund are in­vit­ed to read the char­ter be­fore sub­mit­ting their ap­pli­ca­tion. If they are se­lect­ed they must agree with the val­ues pro­mot­ed in this char­ter.

­Fanak Fund de­fends free­dom of ex­pres­sion and free­dom of cre­ation.

We as­sert that Arts and Cul­ture should be at the very heart of lo­cal de­vel­op­ment and the eman­ci­pa­tion of pop­u­la­tions. We as­sert that bio-di­ver­si­ty, cul­tur­al di­ver­si­ty and de­mo­c­ra­t­ic plu­ral­ism are key to hu­man­i­ty’s shared glob­al agen­da.

We con­sid­er that build­ing in­ter­na­tion­al part­ner­ships is es­sen­tial to re­alise such de­vel­op­ment, and there­fore Fanak Fund pro­vides for cir­cu­la­tion and face-to-face meet­ings be­tween in­di­vid­u­als, be­yond phys­i­cal, cul­tur­al and so­cial bound­aries.

In a glob­al con­text where many con­flicts are pro­voked by cul­tur­al di­vides, Fanak Fund con­sid­ers that en­hanc­ing in­ter­cul­tur­al di­a­logue is key to the res­o­lu­tion of these con­flicts.

­Fanak sup­ports rea­soned and mean­ing­ful ini­tia­tives lead by civ­il so­ci­ety that are non-po­lit­i­cal and non-de­nom­i­na­tion­al.

­Fanak con­sid­ers that lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al mo­bil­i­ty of artists and cul­tur­al op­er­a­tors is a col­lec­tive process of learn­ing, a shared in­vest­ment and that it con­tributes to sta­bil­i­ty.

­Fanak Fund’s ac­tion is in line with the prin­ci­ples of cul­tur­al pol­i­cy agen­das and texts of ref­er­ences of which the most im­por­tant are:  The Uni­ver­sal De­c­la­ra­tion of Hu­man Right­s, Fri­bourg De­c­la­ra­tion of Cul­tur­al Right­s, UNESCO Con­ven­tion for the Pro­tec­tion and Pro­mo­tion of the Di­ver­si­ty of cul­tur­al ex­pres­sion­s, A­gen­da 21 for Cul­ture, Eu­ro­pean Agen­da for Cul­ture.

­Part­ner­s

The Min­istry of Cul­­ture, France, The Metis Fund – French Agency for De­vel­op­ment, The City of Paris, The Town of Mar­­tigues, France, The British Coun­cil, Drosos Foun­da­tion, Safe Havens – Free­dom Talks and Safe­Muse, BJCEM (Bi­en­ni­al for Young Cre­atives of Eu­rope and the Mediter­ranean), doc­u­men­ta fif­teen

Source: Fanak Fund