Idea
Aid A – Aid for Artists in Exile helps artists from anywhere in the world who are persecuted in their home countries for standing up for freedom of expression, human rights and democracy, and as a result are being prevented from carrying out their creative work in the areas of theatre, fine art, literature, film and music. The artists are often forced to leave their countries and built up a new existence in exile.
Aid A awards scholarships to individual artists who through their creative work continue championing democracy and human rights in their home countries.
Aid A also promotes projects by artists in exile and initiates its own projects to raise awareness about the situation in the respective countries, to ease integration and to inspire political discourse.
In the spirit of its founders, Aid A is continuing the work started by Ariane Mnouchkine and Patrice Chéreau in Paris in 1979 with the association AIDA (Association Internationale de Défense des Artistes): »We will bear witness, we will be the echo of those who call out for help. We will disseminate their writings, reproduce their drawings, ceaselessly repeat their words and perform their music.«
Executive Board
The new board has been elected and now consists of the members Anna Schildt (left), Lisa Karlström (right) and Max Schildt.
Become A Member
Your annual contribution helps directly.
It’s very simple: Please fill out the form below and send it off. You will receive a confirmation email from us.
Or fill out the membership application as a PDF and send it by e-mail to: .
You can also print the PDF, fill it in and send it in a suitably stamped envelope: Aid A – Aid for Artists in Exile e. V., Hospitalstrasse 107, House 3, 22767 Hamburg.
History
1979 marks the founding year of AIDA (Association Internationale de Défense des Artistes). The incident that triggered this action was the trial in camera of the Czech writer and later President Vláclav Havel that same year. The government defamed and arrested him and other artists for being members of the civil rights movement Charta 77 and as signatories to the manifesto of the same name which called for the fulfilment of civil and human rights in their country.
The film, theatre and opera director from Paris Patrice Chéreau took down verbatim transcriptions of the trial from family members in Prague. This material formed the basis for the theatre reconstruction of the trial which was performed at the Théâtre du Soleil under the leadership of Ariane Mnouchkine. At the end of the performance Ms Mnouchkine appealed to artists throughout the world to join together to help their persecuted colleagues. The aim of the association was to raise public awareness about the fate of persecuted artists through creative actions and events.
In addition to Vláclav Havel, AIDA also supported people including the Uruguayan pianist Alba Gonzales Souza, the South African poet and painter Breyten Breytenbach, the Russian cartoonist Vyacheslav Sissoyev and the Albanian composer Dhora Leka. A German section of AIDA was founded in February 1980 following the German performance of the trial reconstruction. Aid A (Aid for Artists in Exile) has retained the sequence of characters to form a new name. It is continuing the work of the former association but has now created a new focus for its work. It is continuing its support for the Chinese writer and dissident Wei Jingsheng who has been living in the USA since his release from prison in 1997 and who works there for the promotion of democracy in China through the Wei Jingsheng Foundation.
Ariane Mnouchkine, founder of AIDA in 2015
Picture Archive
Historical photo documents of actions, demonstrations, charity concerts, exhibitions and performances. In addition, posters, flyers and a fax from Salman Rushdie to AIDA.
