These past few days have been busy at the ELIA Office - with several ongoing funding applications, registrations opening for our first ever Equity, Diversity and Inclusivity (EDI) Platform in-presence event and the Biennial 2024 preparations in full swing. I am just returning with the team from Milan, Italy, where we made the selection of the submissions from the call for contributions for our November 2024 Biennial at NABA. Having received a record number of submissions, this was no easy task. I am deeply grateful to all the reviewers, our host team at NABA and the entire steering group for diving deep into their reflections of the wonderful proposals our members sent.  

 

There was big news at the ELIA Office last week: ELIA is now proudly eco-certified, a recipient of the SHIFT Eco-Certification for Cultural Networks, as part of a cohort of 16 cultural networks that took the plunge together to be the first group of networks to attempt this step. The ELIA Green Team worked hard to make this happen, as did our hosts in Évora, Timișoara, Vienna and Manchester. Congratulations to all! You can read more about this in our February newsletter. 

 

I am also just back from an extensive trip to visit members in the United States and Canada. I don’t make this trip often because as a member of the now certified ELIA Team, I am careful about my carbon footprint. However, visiting ELIA’s members is an important part of the job as it keeps the ELIA team connected with what the priorities and challenges are for higher arts education institutions on the ground. I try to combine as many visits as possible in one trip for maximum productivity and a lower relative footprint. That opportunity presented itself because of a speaking engagement I had at ELIA Member the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in Canada, where I spoke about purposeful travel in the arts at a summit that explored integrating sustainability, education and intentionality into travel that contributes to a better world. It was a wonderful experience that gave me the opportunity to connect with people from completely different fields who share the same passion for the topic.

My trip became much more purposeful by checking in with members in Boston, Providence, Baltimore, Vancouver, Calgary, Banff and Montreal. These were amazing encounters and in the next newsletter, I will tell you much more about them. I am grateful for the warm welcome I received, and I hope that we can realise many of the plans we made together for an even stronger connection between our North American members and the ELIA community.