In October 2023, artist Arely Morales traveled from her home in Texas to Guanajuato, Mexico, to attend the Festival Internacional Cervantino as a representative of U.S. Embassy Mexico. Festival Cervantino is the largest cultural festival in Latin America celebrating art, heritage, and sports, and this year the United States was a guest of honor. The exchange was also part of the Embassy’s celebrations of the bicentennial of the two nations’ bilateral relationship.
In June 2023, artists Tim Davis and Charles Philippe Jean-Pierre traveled to Malawi to participate in an Art in Embassies Democracy Collection artist exchange. Their visit took them from Zomba to Lilongwe and culminated with the Embassy’s Juneteenth celebrations. They met with artists, students, faculty, civil rights activists, and a host of other audiences as they engaged with the community about the power of art in social change.
In May 2023, American photographer Richard Webb traveled to Türkiye as part of an Art in Embassies Democracy Collection exchange where he engaged directly with the Turkish people in Ankara, Cappadocia, and Istanbul. His trip included workshops and photo outings with a variety of audiences, including young artists and other local creatives with whom he was able to foster meaningful relationships.
In August 2023, American artist Ángel Rafael Vázquez-Concepción traveled to Astana and Almaty, Kazakhstan, to participate in an Art in Embassies Democracy Collection Artist Exchange in conjunction with the recognition of the UN Day Against Nuclear Testing. Much of Vázquez-Concepción’s art is rooted in the history of atomic culture and nuclear technology in the United States, and he created several original pieces for the exhibition in Astana that spotlight the Nevada-Semipalatinsk anti-nuclear movement and the connection to both American and Kazakh struggles to close nuclear test sites.
In May 2023, botanical artist Anne Blackwell Thompson traveled to Slovenia as part of an Art in Embassies Democracy Collection artist exchange, conducting several days of community outreach. Her exchange took her from the capital of Ljubljana to Triglav National Park, the country’s only national park. “Activities included interacting with primary school students, undergraduate and graduate students, national park visitors, Botanic Garden Directors, and other leaders in the Slovenian arts community,” Thompson described.
In April 2023, American artist Hillary Waters Fayle traveled to Algeria for a week of cultural outreach as part of a Democracy Collection artist exchange. Over the course of four days, she worked with local artisans, spoke with art students, and collaborated with noted Algerian artists and art venues to share her experiences as an American artist with the Algerian people.
In March 2023, Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian’s Paul Chaat Smith visited New Zealand on an Art in Embassies artist exchange as part of the Democracy Collection initiative. Across five days, three cities, and two islands, he spoke to a variety of groups about the contemporary landscape of Indigenous art in the United States and how that connects to similar conversations taking place in New Zealand.
In March 2023 as part of the Democracy Collection initiative, American artist Zoë Charlton traveled to Vilnius, Lithuania, where she spent five days on an artist exchange conducting outreach with the U.S. Embassy.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the State Department sent a number of musicians, including Louis Armstrong, on international tours of American goodwill across the Middle East and North Africa, earning them the nickname Jazz Ambassadors. In February 2023, Art in Embassies sent Regina Bain from the Louis Armstrong House Museum to Manama, Bahrain, to conduct a series of events and presentations about the historical legacy of that period in cultural exchange and diplomacy.
In January 2023, Susan Gott and Derwin Leiva—two Art in Embassies artists—traveled to Guatemala City, Guatemala, as part of the first Democracy Collection initiative artist exchange. Over several days of programming, they met and talked with local students and artists creating in a variety of media to lead master classes, have conversations about life as working artists, and speak to the freedom of expression offered through the arts.
In September 2022, American photographer Alexandra Buxbaum traveled to Bujumbura for an artist exchange facilitated by the United States Embassy in Burundi. During the exchange, Buxbaum held sessions with local photographers and photojournalists, took part in a women’s entrepreneur luncheon that was hosted by Ambassador Higgins, worked with local children, and spoke at the American Corner.
In May 2020, Elizabeth Hack started off the Art in Embassies Virtual Exchange Series. In the new digital format, which was created to continue to amplify the program’s cross-cultural exchange mission, Hack spoke to students and other community members in Tunisia about her background, her process, and Wave X2 and Wave X14, two abstract paintings that are on display at the United States Ambassador’s Residence in Tunisia.
In December of 2020, Ambassador Jamie D. McCourt and the U.S. Embassy in Paris hosted a webinar about the Art in Embassies exhibition at the Ambassador’s residence for an audience made up primarily of university students in Paris and their professors.
“I wanted to be a part of something in Vietnam, where my parents came from and where my mother’s family still resides… Even though it is a complicated and emotional subject, I think we have to keep working together to keep our countries’ peaceful relationship, similar to how working on this project has enhanced my understanding of my heritage and brought new friendships.” – Christine Nguyen
Art in Embassies artist Mark Bradford met at U.S. Embassy London with students from the Royal College of Art at the location of his site-specific, large-scale commission We the People.
Art in Embassies artist Sheila Dunn traveled traveled to Kathmandu, Nepal in 2019 for an artist exchange.
“Culture is about people, how we live, communicate, what we make, and what we value, which is to say all that make us who we are as people…” – Yunhee Min
American artist Courtney Mattison draws inspiration from our oceans and the coral reefs within, a subject intrinsically connected to the Coral Triangle islands of Indonesia. Her commission for the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, Confluence (Our Changing Seas V), and the following artist exchange to Indonesia allowed her to reconnect with these ideas and engage with communities across the islands.
