Featured Organization
Safe Havens Freedom Talks
Global
Safe Havens Freedom Talks (SH|FT) is a non-profit organization working at the intersection of culture and human rights. A trailblazer in this field, SH|FT seeks to bring together different stakeholders —including artists, activists, NGOs, lawyers, and intergovernmental organizations— from across the arts and human rights fields through activities such as the Safe Havens Conference and the Freedom Talks series.
The Safe Havens Conference is an international, inclusive gathering taking place annually since 2013. It creates an opportunity for artists and cultural actors to gather for workshops in the company of diverse stakeholders who collaborate to portray a fuller image of the arts and human rights scene. Initiated by the Swedish Arts Council and then hosted by Malmö, Sweden, Safe Havens began with a Scandinavian focus which soon shifted towards a global-scale approach. The beauty of inviting a multidisciplinary group of participants, lies in the unique opportunity to collaborate, identify gaps in the system, as well as propose solutions to address them. A central pillar of the Safe Havens philosophy is to ensure that every participant can show up, fully and equally contribute, and at the same time benefit from the topics discussed during theconference. Any individual or organization in the network may suggest potential topics and participants for discussions and events at the conference and/or talks. As Fredrik Elg, initiator of the conference, shared, “so many partnerships and artistic projects have developed out of the Safe Havens meetings, because people and organizations are visible, there is no audience, only participants.”
Embracing an unwavering commitment to progress, Safe Havens prioritizes the collaborative spirit over prestige. In line with this principle, the Keynote Speech at the Conference in 2017 was replaced by a Keynote Dance. With the vision to further develop and the aim to become a truly global platform, the conference moved away from its first base in Malmö and was hosted in Cape Town, South Africa 2019. This was the first stop of what was intended to become a global Safe Havens Conference tour.
In 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the global Conference tour had to be put on hold. As a result, Safe Havens adapted, and developed a digital presence by hosting the Safe Havens Global Stream in November 2020 that brought together in the virtual space more than 150 international participants. Even though the participants met each other on screen, they and the organising team were able to foster the spirit of networking and connecting across disciplines. Post-covid the conference aims to continue its tour and be hosted by different partners within the network.
Since its inception eight years ago, Safe Havens has provided a unique occasion for speeding along the otherwise lengthy process of mobilizing new initiatives. With access to a wide network, deep knowledge, and the experience of different cultural actors, the Safe Havens Conference streamlines the process to find and tap into support systems that are necessary to move an idea forward to fruition. For instance, the need to secure funding in the Arts Rights Justice sector can be more efficiently addressed in the context of the annual conference.
Embracing an unwavering commitment to progress, Safe Havens prioritizes the collaborative spirit over prestige. In line with this principle, the Keynote Speech at the Conference in 2017 was replaced by a Keynote Dance. With the vision to further develop and the aim to become a truly global platform, the conference moved away from its first base in Malmö and was hosted in Cape Town, South Africa 2019. This was the first stop of what was intended to become a global Safe Havens Conference tour.
In 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the global Conference tour had to be put on hold. As a result, Safe Havens adapted, and developed a digital presence by hosting the Safe Havens Global Stream in November 2020 that brought together in the virtual space more than 150 international participants. Even though the participants met each other on screen, they and the organising team were able to foster the spirit of networking and connecting across disciplines. Post-covid the conference aims to continue its tour and be hosted by different partners within the network.
Since its inception eight years ago, Safe Havens has provided a unique occasion for speeding along the otherwise lengthy process of mobilizing new initiatives. With access to a wide network, deep knowledge, and the experience of different cultural actors, the Safe Havens Conference streamlines the process to find and tap into support systems that are necessary to move an idea forward to fruition. For instance, the need to secure funding in the Arts Rights Justice sector can be more efficiently addressed in the context of the annual conference.
Born from a visionary concept to disseminate information and knowledge on artistic freedom and free thought, both within the network and on a broader scale, the streamed Safe Havens Freedom Talks initiative was introduced in 2020. Among the organizations that have co-hosted Freedom Talks in the past are Artsequator, Shuddhashar and Index on Censorship. The Freedom Talks have covered a wide array of topics since the launch of the initiative, including the Uyghur situation in China, conditions for artistic freedom in Southeast Asia, and violations of the cultural rights of indigenous groups. The episodes are streamed on SH|FT social media channels and are featured in an open archive on Howlround Theatre Commons.
While SH|FT provides the scaffolding for the event —format, concept, channels, technical staff, and budget— the hosting organization has the creative rein to designate the topic, subject, and speakers of each event. Elg emphasized that the Freedom Talks initiative lends itself to foster a global network with a non-Western focus: “This is an effort towards becoming global for real, that the talk is not ‘filtered’ through a moderator in, for example, a Scandinavian or other European area, but can be streamed from different regions in the world. I think the sum of our knowledge will be much deeper if shared this way.” By attenuating a Eurocentric stronghold in the organization and global network, SH|FT seeks to work towards a future in which their annual Conference is hosted in different regions globally, with a keen focus on disseminating a wider range of knowledge.
The Safe Havens Conference and global network address the pressing necessity to implement protective measures to ensure the freedom of expression for cultural actors everywhere. With the aim to strengthen the global network of advocates, artists, lawyers, NGOs, and the like, Safe Havens continues to adapt to the current moment to most thoughtfully address the breaches of freedom of expression and speech that hinder the livelihoods and creativity of artists globally.
As Elg said, “The first-hand experiences shared by the artists at risk are very important to disseminate in the meetings to remind us all that many cultural practitioners are victims of brutal violations of international agreements, and that breaches of the fundamental right to freedom of expression happen every day all over the world.”
An international development team from the network was brought together to form a new NGO under the name of Safe Havens Freedom Talks (SH|FT), to carry out the activities of the Safe Havens Conference and the Freedom Talks series, and to develop these initiatives further. The Norwegian organization Safemuse has generously taken the role of a fiscal sponsor for the early development of SH|FT.
With funding from The Swedish Arts Council’s Programme for Artistic Freedom, SH|FT has secured the continuity of its actions for the years 2021 - 2023. The Programme for Artistic Freedom is realized through financial support by Sida, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, and aims to improve conditions for artists to create, display and distribute their work without being exposed to threats or harassment. The Swedish Institute is the main funder of the Freedom Talks series.
Safe Havens Freedom Talks remains a leading facilitator in the Arts Rights Justice sector and a defender of the freedom to express, think, and create.
To find out more about Safe Havens Conference, follow them on social media:
By Defne Ego, October 2021. Defne is a junior at Barnard College majoring in Education Studies and minoring in French & Francophone Studies.