Artists, Europe can help you!

Life of artists can often be not that easy.  But – did you know? – in the EU there arenearly 2 million artists, about 4 each thousand inhabitants. Are you or do you think or would you like to be one of them? Or, are you a cultural professional or are you involved in cultural initiative?
Good, this article could make you know about some opportunities the EU gives you and that could be helpful to build your artistic career.

What does the EU do for you?

So, let’s start from the first point, the one that almost for sure you already know. As an artist, travelling can become necessary, since you often need to change your audience, find new inspiration or maybe to search for a place where your art could be better understood and appreciated. Free movement in the European Union is for sure a big advantage, since you don’t need to consider costs and time for visas.

But, we know, if you don’t have enough money to travel, the lack of boarders is a quite useless thing. So, how could the EU help you to broaden your talent?

What’s Creative Europe?

If you are a visual artist, a musician, a dancer, an actor or a film director, you will probably find Creative Europe 2014-2020 a very interesting programme. It is the European Commission’s framework program for support to the culture and audiovisual sectors, aimed at:

• Help the cultural and creative sectors seize the opportunities of the digital age and globalization;
• Enable the sectors to reach their economic potential, contributing to sustainable growth, jobs, and social cohesion;
• Give Europe’s culture and media sectors access to new international opportunities, markets, and audiences.  
  

With its €1.46 billion, Creative Europe provides funds to artists and cultural professionals, cinemas, films, book translations and offers a financial guarantee facility for small businesses active in the sector.

3 sub-programmes: choose yours!

It is divided in 3 sub-programmes:

• CULTURE:  that promotes cross-border cooperation, platforms, networking, and literary translation. 
• MEDIA: that promotes audiovisual sector initiatives, such as those promoting the development, distribution, or access to audiovisual works.
• CROSS-SECTOR: a cross-sectoral strand, including a Guarantee Facility and transnational policy cooperation.

So, are you an artist? Are you a cultural professional? Do you work or want to work in the cultural industry?
What are you waiting for?

Well, all what you have to do is to visit Creative Europe’s website, to discover all the open opportunities. Good luck and write us back, if your story will have a happy ending.