With PUZLP, our aim is to enhance the capacities of higher education institutions in art and design to welcome and support exiled artists, thereby promoting their social integration and reprofessionalization. This directly aligns with our priority of fostering inclusion, diversity, and institutional engagement. Our concrete objectives include documenting practices and formulating operational recommendations. These outcomes should serve as a reference for art schools worldwide, bolstering the quality of their practices and altering societal perceptions of exiled artists. Collaborating with transnational partners affords us diverse experiences and perspectives, enriching our approach and strengthening our ability to work at the European level. We are establishing a network of stakeholders with shared objectives, facilitating knowledge transfer and resource pooling. This cooperation also enables us to model a model transferrable to all European contexts, thus enhancing our impact and efficiency.
The initiative arose from a shared concern among a group of European higher art schools: considering the current state of the world, how best to embrace artists compelled into exile in our schools? We applied for this project because we identified a crucial need in our institutions: to improve our ability to host and support exiled artists effectively. Identifying deficiencies in our practices and resources to adequately cater to their unique needs, both administratively and pedagogically, we deemed it essential to engage in collective and innovative reflection on the specific modalities of such welcome and, at our level, to design an ethical framework to facilitate their professional reintegration into our plural worlds of art and culture. Because the network of French and Belgian art schools has been working together for several years, we decided to mobilize together. Despite the proximity of our two countries, the educational, political, and legal contexts are very different, enriching our efforts through the analysis of diverse scenarios.