Most cultural organisations work with artists who have already found some degree of safety. ARC — Artists at Risk Connection — works at the moment before that. They work with artists who are still in danger.

That distinction matters. And it is precisely why ARC is part of the ASSEMBLE network.

Who They Are

Artists at Risk Connection (ARC) is an independent international organisation whose entire focus is the defence of artistic freedom of expression. Founded in 2017 and initially incubated under PEN America, ARC is now fully independent — registered in France under French law (Loi 1901) since October 2024, and as a non-profit in the United States since early 2025. Their operational home is Paris.

ARC connects artists and cultural workers facing persecution, censorship, harassment, threats, and violence — from both state and non-state actors — with the resources and organisations that can help them. At the heart of their work is a global directory of more than 500 partner organisations: residency programmes, emergency funds, legal aid services, and advocacy bodies spanning the world. When an artist is in danger, ARC maps the fastest route to safety.

Their director, Julie Trébault, has spent years building this infrastructure at the intersection of human rights and the arts. ARC does not simply respond to individual cases — they document patterns, advocate publicly, and work to make the international cultural system more responsive to artists whose lives are threatened because of what they make or who they are.

What They Actually Do

ARC operates on several levels simultaneously.

At the most immediate level, they provide emergency grants for artists facing acute threats — covering legal aid, relocation costs, housing, and urgent practical needs. These are not programme grants or development funds. They are lifelines.

At a systemic level, ARC monitors and documents cases of artists targeted for their creative expression, their social justice work, or their human rights advocacy. That documentation matters: it creates a record, builds accountability, and helps organisations across the world understand the scale and shape of the problem.

And through their network of 500+ partner organisations, ARC provides connections — to residency programmes willing to host at-risk artists, to legal specialists who understand the particular vulnerabilities of cultural workers, and to a global community of organisations committed to the principle that art must be free.

Why They Are Part of ASSEMBLE

Displacement exists on a spectrum. At one end are artists who have moved — with difficulty, with loss, but with some degree of agency and safety. At the other end are artists who have fled under direct threat, who cannot safely return, who may still be at risk even in their country of refuge.

ASSEMBLE’s fellowship is designed for displaced artists and curators across that full spectrum. ARC’s presence in the network means that ASSEMBLE is connected to the expertise and infrastructure that serves artists at the most acute end of that spectrum — those for whom displacement is not just a career disruption but a condition of survival.

ARC also brings something less tangible but equally important: moral clarity. Their work is grounded in the principle that artistic freedom is a fundamental right, not a cultural luxury. That principle is implicit in ASSEMBLE’s design — in the decision to create a fellowship that takes displaced practitioners seriously as artists, not just as people in need of support. ARC makes that principle explicit, and holds the wider network accountable to it.

Their Paris base, and their formal registration under French law, also strengthens ASSEMBLE’s European dimension — connecting the project to a city that has long been a refuge for artists from across the world, and to the French tradition of cultural diplomacy and artistic sanctuary.

The Bigger Commitment

There is something important in the fact that ASSEMBLE includes an organisation that exists specifically to defend artistic freedom under threat. It signals that this fellowship is not neutral. It takes a position: that artists have the right to make work, that displacement does not forfeit that right, and that the international cultural community has a responsibility to act on that belief.

ARC’s presence in the network is a reminder of what is at stake — not just for individual fellows, but for the broader principle that culture must remain possible even when the conditions for it are most precarious.