OBJECTIVES

Through a multi-tiered program of grant-giving and project initiation, the foundation will create and support durable and sustainable networks, structures and platforms for contemporary cultural action and reflection, creative and communicative practices, as well as theoretical investigations, research and critical dialogue that can speak with a sense of urgency as well as vision to the global realities of the twenty-first century. In doing all this, the foundation will act to nurture and foster the necessarily critical intelligence of a changing world.

GOALS

Transformative Action And Reflection
As an enabling institution, the foundation will seek to catalyze and nurture processes of transformative creative action and reflection by supporting organizations, networks, initiatives, groups and individuals all over the world.

Deepening The Space For Critical Dialouge
It will back initiatives that deepen the space for critical dialogue, imaginative action, and engaged creativity particularly in the Global South, but also in developed countries. The foundation recognizes that there are different kinds of crises of institutional infrastructure, meaning making, discourse, and creative action in all kinds of societies (in “developed” as well as “developing” countries).

Support For Creative Processes
In order to redress these situations, the foundation seeks to support structures and processes that can further the activities of creative and engaged intellectuals, artists, writers, performers, media practitioners, critics, curators, scholars, researchers, environmentalists, cultural workers, activists, and community organizers.

Generation Of New Knowledge
Support structures put in place through the foundation’s efforts will be designed especially with a view to generating new knowledge and fostering collaborations and exchanges across cultural, political, and economic divisions globally. The foundation is committed to undertaking activities, launching projects, generating resources and assets, and incubating new ideas that are conducive to the fostering of global conversations that extend our imaginations, enrich our experiences, and deepen our understanding of the contemporary moment.

Exchanges, Dialogue and Debate
As a clearing house for ideas, and as a setting for a global conversation, the foundation will create the context for exchanges, dialogues and debate between the best and most innovative minds and creative intelligences. The foundation sees support for dialogue and collaboration between theorists, scholars, creative people and practitioners, artists, scientists, writers, performers and communicators belonging to different cultures and different parts of the world, pursuing different disciplines and practices, as key to the process of preparing us all for the emergence of a sense of responsible and aware global citizenship.

Collaboration In The Global South
The foundation is invested in the need to deepen and further intensive dialogue and collaboration between partners in the new Global South. The foundation will seek to specifically promote direct links between 'Southern' voices and initiatives. Also, it will recognize the vitality, urgency and significance of the contributions that intellectuals, cultural practitioners and artists from the Global South and spaces outside the intellectual-cultural-political mainstream in Western Europe and North America have to make in the deepening of contemporary cultural and intellectual life.

Intellectual Plurality
The foundation bases itself on the premise that we are living in a world where there exist a multiplicity of wills and desires to reshape our destiny and future as a global community, and that it is only through a creative conversation between these wills and desires that we can guarantee a stable future for humanity. The foundation sees intellectual plurality and the diversity of cultural forms and communicative acts as key to this process.

Ecological Concerns
The foundation recognizes that one of the most important questions facing contemporary culture is that of evolving modes of consumption and production, especially in cities, that do not poison the eco-system, are energy efficient, and that are in consonance with the needs of the global environment. With this in view, the foundation will evolve a special focus on research, architecture, contemporary media and art projects and other critical interventions that speak to ecological concerns.

Common Threads
Broadly, concerns for peace, liberty, social justice, sustainable eco-systems, democratic culture, gender equity, freedom of conscience, expression and enquiry, racial inequality, and non-discrimination towards all minorities (or oppressed majorities) will be common threads and will weave themselves through all foundation activities. The foundation will especially work toward supporting forms of cultural and intellectual activity that are able to demonstrate a deep engagement with these concerns.

Specifically, the foundation will support innovative thinking, research and creative activity that locates itself strongly in the public realm, and seeks to raise the bar of the level of discourse in the media, in culture and education, and in society generally.