UN/MUTE-10002, an online residency, will conclude on May 9th with the unveiling of ten collaborative projects created by twenty international artists remotely via Zoom sessions. Celebrating Europe Day, the Unveiling will be live streamed via Facebook. 

UN/MUTE was launched in February by the European Union National Institutes for Culture’s New York Cluster and Undercurrent to provide artists an opportunity for critical exchange and collaboration while simultaneously connecting resources from the global cultural epicenter of New York City.

The twelve-week program followed the narratives of ten European artists who have never visited New York City and ten NYC-based artists, randomly paired into teams of two: one European and the other, a New Yorker. Additionally, one artist in each team was a digital immigrant, born before 1986, and the other a digital native, born into the world of web browsers and email, after 1986. Over a series of Zoom sessions, each team’s collective creative process unfolded in a series of video recordings. Nearly forty hours of artist conversations, available to view on unmute.nyc, created a unique record of collaborations between two strangers from different geographic and cultural backgrounds, age and racial groups, gender identities and digital proficiencies in time of the pandemic. 

Participating artists include: Eren Aksu (Germany), Aaron Bezzina (Malta), Will Calhoun (NYC), Sanne De Wilde (Flanders, Belgium), FOQL (Poland), Gabrielė Gervickaitė (Lithuania), Kris Grey (NYC), Sophie Guisset (Wallonia-Brussels, Belgium), Kyle Hittmeier (NYC), Mo Kong (NYC), Yi Hsuan Lai (NYC), H. Lan Thao Lam (NYC), Marie Lukáčová (Czech Republic), Olesja Katšanovskaja–Münd (Estonia), Sheila Maldonado (NYC), Barbara Maria Neu (Austria), Emmanuel Massillon (NYC), Alex Mirutziu (Romania), Emily Shanahan (NYC), and Sydney Shavers (NYC).

UN/MUTE-10002 is a project by EUNIC NY and Undercurrent, realized with financial support from EUNIC — European Union National Institutes for Culture — Europe’s network of national cultural institutes and organizations, with 36 members from all EU member states. This project was initiated by the Lithuanian Culture Institute and the Consulate General of Estonia in New York and is co-organized by Austrian Cultural Forum New York, Wallonia-Brussels International in New York, Czech Center New York, Delegation of Flanders to the USA, Goethe-Institut New York, Arts Council Malta in New York, Polish Cultural Institute New York, Romanian Cultural Institute, the Hope Recycling Station, the Jindrich Chalupecký Society, and supported by the European Union Delegation to the United Nations.