How a New Partnership Led to Beautiful Insights

Salzburg Global Fellow Helen Yung collaborates with fellow YCI alumnus Nic Aziz after receiving a travel scholarship

From one YCI Hub to another. Helen Yung is an interdisciplinary artist, researcher and cultural consultant working in Toronto, Canada. Using a travel scholarship, she was able to travel to New Orleans to collaborate with another YCI Fellow.

She added, “The fact that there a travel grant was offered by Salzburg Global soon after the Summit made it immediately possible for me to follow up with Nic to ask if he wanted to think about working together. He replied saying he had thought the same thing, and so, again, the rest developed organically out of our practices, networks, and interests.”

Commenting on the Nuestra Voz workshop, Yung said, “They had never offered any artistic workshops before, so this was both a bold move on their part. After the workshop, which was very successful, the staff were delighted with the impact and invited us to come back any time.

“After this positive first experience, I think they will be very receptive to future opportunities to work with artists.”

Commenting further, Yung said, “Workshop participants had a beautifully positive experience. Very quickly, everyone was laughing and inside of a special experience. I think it surprised some people how engaged everyone was… They genuinely seemed to melt and glow a bit more each time we went around the circle, and no one felt shy about visualizing their thoughts on paper when we went to table work.”

Discussing her and Aziz’s talks at Emergence, Yung said, “Both our talks were enthusiastically received. Many people came up to both of us afterward, wanting to connect and offer words of appreciation. We also shared it more informally in our internal YCI Canada Hub meetings.”

Reflecting on her travel scholarship experience, Yung added, “There is no question that being able to travel and meet others in person, and particularly in their home communities, is important. I appreciated the opportunity to develop more insights into creative, international, multidisciplinary collaboration and community-based work. In many ways, this is a practice of care. Collaborating through artistic practice, through the embodied enactment of one’s beliefs and perspectives — as opposed to administratively or financially — allows us to better see and understand the socio-political dimensions that shape and inform each other’s work. Being more aware of the invisible enables us to activate, transform or augment what is latent, stuck or underpowered. There is so much more that can be done.”

The Salzburg Global Forum for Young Cultural Innovators empowers rising talents in the creative sector to drive social, economic and urban change. Launched in 2014, it is building a global network of 500 competitively-selected change-makers in “Hub” communities who design collaborative projects, build skills, gain mentors, and connect to upcoming innovators in their cities and countries.

Related posts:

aku dan suroto sahabat ku sudah bersahabat dari sekolah dasar (SD), rumah ku dan suroto sangat dekat, kami tinggal di bamban kabupaten serdang bedagai sumatra utara, jadi tak asing lagi dengan nya…