Twice a year the ATI announces and welcomes applications to its programme of support for international ties in the professional arts, having been delegated with the responsibility for this work by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic. The aim of the programme is to support international cooperation and the professionalisation of the arts in the Czech Republic and specifically the fields of theatre, dance, music, literature, and the visual arts.
The programme exists because there is no similar type of support at the state level or at any other level of public administration. The purpose of the programme is to help professionals to travel abroad to participate in professional conferences, seminars, workshops, meetings of international networks, and to observe festivals, showcases, exhibitions, fairs and other professional events.
This programme helps fills a gap caused by a lack of this kind of support in the field of the professional arts in the Czech Republic. Short-term mobility is also a priority area at the EU level and two expert working groups attached to the European Commission have been engaged in mapping mobility and issuing recommendations.
Conditions
- The proposed travel abroad must be for the purpose of participating in a prestigious event abroad.
- The travel must be for non-commercial purposes.
- The travel must involve a branch of the arts that the ATI is involved in (or a combination thereof): theatre, dance and new circus, music, literature, visual arts (including architecture and design).
- A person wishing to participate in an event organised abroad by an international NGO must submit a recommendation from the relevant Czech branch or office of this organisation.
- The travel cannot relate to a study stay, residence programme, or internship.
- Every aspect of the trip (including the expenditures involved and the financial accounting of these expenses) must be completed and concluded within the frame of one calendar year.
Owing to growing interest within the cultural community in applying to the programme of support for the development of international ties in the professional arts, in 2018 further criteria were specified for applicants:
- It is not possible to apply twice for the same event within one calendar year; if the first application was not supported, the second application will not be supported either;
- The programme is not intended to fund groups or ensembles to make guest performances at events abroad; support for performance trips abroad is provided under a different grant programme of the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic;
- The programme is not intended to directly fund the creation of a work of art (e.g. the transport and purchase of materials in the case of an exhibition, funding for testing on an already agreed project);
- Given the limited amount of funding available the committee does not usually recommend travel by multiple members of one organisation to an event abroad;
- The mobility of employees of state contributory organisations will be supported only in exceptional cases; the applicant must demonstrate that the proposed trip is outside the frame of his or her work in the organisation;
- If the application is to attend a workshop, that workshop should be part of a larger festival programme (support will not be provided, for example, for a trip to attend a one-month workshop or a residence programme).
