When an artist is displaced — by conflict, by crisis, by the slow erosion of the conditions that made their work possible — the practical questions arrive quickly. Where can I go? What funding exists? Which organisations will take me seriously? Who has done this before?

On the Move exists to answer those questions.

Who They Are

On the Move (OTM) is an international non-profit network based in Brussels, founded in 2002 and now counting over 80 member organisations across Europe and beyond. Their work is focused entirely on one thing: making cross-border cultural mobility more possible, more equitable, and better understood.

They maintain one of the most comprehensive resources in the European cultural field — more than 60 country-specific funding guides, a constantly updated database of open calls, residencies, and grants, and a programme of research and professional development that helps artists and organisations navigate the complex landscape of international work. They do not fund artists directly. Instead, they map the terrain so that artists and the organisations that support them can find their way.

Since 2010, On the Move has received ongoing support from the French Ministry of Culture. They are currently co-funded by the European Union under Creative Europe’s Network Strand for the period 2025–2028, through a project called New Solidarities.

New Solidarities — A Timely Framework

The title of OTM’s current programme is not incidental. New Solidarities is grounded in a clear statement: solidarity is not charity. It is a recognition of shared destinies.

The project addresses some of the most pressing questions in European cultural life today: how to make cross-border opportunities more fairly accessible, how to support at-risk and displaced artists, how to connect artistic freedom with democratic resilience, and how to think about the ecological dimensions of cultural mobility — the carbon cost of a residency, the sustainability of a model that depends on international travel.

These are precisely the questions that ASSEMBLE is working with. The overlap is not coincidental.

Why On the Move Is Part of ASSEMBLE

OTM brings something to ASSEMBLE that no other partner could replicate: a living map of where displaced artists are, what support exists for them, and how to reach the communities that most need to know about the fellowship.

Their network of over 90+  member organisations spans the full breadth of European cultural life — residency programmes, funding bodies, arts centres, professional associations. When the ASSEMBLE open call is published, OTM ensures it travels through that network to the people who need it most.

They also bring expertise that goes beyond distribution. OTM has tracked forced and voluntary displacement in the cultural sector for years, publishing resources specifically for artists who have been displaced by conflict or instability. They understand the barriers — visa complications, interrupted career trajectories, the difficulty of maintaining a practice across borders — and they understand the European funding landscape well enough to help navigate it.

In New Solidarities, OTM speaks about the need for “more equitable access to cross-border opportunities and fairer working conditions for mobile artists and culture professionals.” ASSEMBLE is, in practice, an attempt to build exactly that — not as policy, but as lived programme.

The Bigger Picture

There is something important in the fact that ASSEMBLE includes an organisation whose entire purpose is to think about how artists move across borders. It signals that the fellowship is not designed in isolation from the wider field. It is designed in conversation with it.

OTM knows where the gaps are. They know which displaced artists are falling through the cracks of existing support structures, which countries have strong mobility infrastructure and which do not, and what conditions make a residency genuinely useful rather than merely symbolic.

That knowledge shapes ASSEMBLE — not just in how the open call is distributed, but in how the programme itself is designed. A fellowship that does not understand the real obstacles facing displaced artists is not a fellowship. With On the Move at the table, ASSEMBLE has the knowledge it needs to be the real thing.