Author：朱筱琪 Hsiao-Chi Chu
該篇文章2026.10.22刊載於國藝會線上誌 This article was published in NCAFe on Oct 22, 2026: https://mag.ncafroc.org.tw/article_detail?sid=1091
(English is below.)
一封邀請函、交通補助、研究身分或可信任的引介，都可能讓危機中的人多一個選擇。庇護不只是抵達，而是能不能在不同節點之間繼續往前走……
2024年秋天，我在台東遇見一位無法返國、正尋求跨國庇護的緬甸藝術家；隔年走訪歐洲庇護機構時，另一位流亡創作者也談起：「我現在只做放得進隨身行李裡的東西。」這並非單純美學風格的選擇，而是生存現實擠壓下的無奈妥協。這樣的處境形塑了他們的非意願移動，創作形式轉向輕便可攜、語言帶著自我審查的隱晦，或藉由當代科技拼湊早已難以企及的故鄉。
另一段難忘的記憶落在同年花蓮馬太鞍災後現場。來到現場的藝術工作者透過藝術在災區陪著受災居民梳理創傷。這些相隔數千公里的境遇看似各異，卻彼此呼應著：「當危機降臨，藝術空間（包括藝術進駐）與藝文工作者，究竟能做些什麼？」
國際倡議組織Artists at Risk（AR）自2013年起推動藝術庇護計畫，串聯各國藝文機構媒合安置受迫害的創作者。（圖片來源／Artists at Risk官網）
這是我在不同田野現場親身感受到的真實情境。若將這些經驗放回到「文化流動」（cultural mobility）的視野審視，移動指涉的不僅是身體移動，更關乎知識、關係、資源與創作實踐如何在遷徙軌跡中重新組裝。史蒂芬．格林布拉特（Stephen Greenblatt）等人將文化流動理解為文化在移動、接觸與交換中持續生成的過程。1沿此觀點，本文將藝術進駐視為文化流動的一種制度化實踐，進駐機構提供工作室、住宿、時間餘裕與資金支持，使創作者得以置身不同語境展開交流，並反思自身的創作脈絡。
近十年來，戰亂衝突、被迫流離、政治迫害、氣候災難與經濟動盪接連發生，藝術進駐原有支持的移動路徑與機制也逐漸改變。對許多面臨迫害的藝文工作者而言，迫切的提問早已超越「何處可創作」，而是當日常與工作條件瓦解時，如何繼續生活、確保安全，並維持連結？當創作者抵達新的落腳處，進駐單位與在地社群又該如何協助他們延續創作與專業實踐？
危機也讓藝術進駐的角色出現不同可能，原本以短期停留與創作交流為主的空間，可能成為臨時庇護所、資訊窗口，或連結法律、資金與人道救援的中繼節點。工作人員也從藝術家接待，延伸到交通、簽證、住宿協調、引介與陪伴。這讓「庇護」（shelter）2的意涵，從實體安全之所延伸為更複雜的支持網絡。3
國際組織ARC（Artists at Risk Connection）於2017年成立，至今已協助全球逾2300位藝文工作者。（圖片來源／ARC官網）
不過，藝術庇護仍需要和既有的難民保護路徑區分。聯合國難民署（UNHCR）將第三國安置（resettlement）與補充性路徑（complementary pathways）視為回應難民不同保護需求的重要機制。藝術庇護則多從藝術進駐、文化組織、高等院校與跨國網絡出發，在正式制度縫隙中補上一層民間支持。
正是在這樣的體制邊緣與文化實踐的張力間，本文以「（跨）基礎設施的庇護實踐」（sheltering as (trans-)infrastructure）作為分析視角，關注支持如何在不同機構、城市、國家與專業社群間串聯，形成移動路徑，並在抵達之後繼續支撐其創作與生活；再回望台灣，思考藝術空間在危機、災後文化實踐與文化援助中的角色。
（跨）基礎設施的庇護實踐
近年當重新審視不穩定時代中的藝術進駐機制時，我常追問：「究竟是誰在庇護誰？創作者正直面何種危機？這些支持網絡依循怎樣的關係而生，又能延續多久？」
與其將「庇護」窄化為特定場域或專案，我傾向將「庇護實踐」（sheltering）理解為持續演進的動態歷程。它非單一機構所能承擔，而是由人際、空間、資訊、流動性、資金、信任與照護交織而成。藝術進駐不會單因提供床位就轉為避難所，更關鍵的是文化空間與網絡如何在特定情境下發揮基礎設施般的支撐機能。
這與基礎設施研究（infrastructure studies）的觀點緊密呼應。基礎設施深植於具體實踐，與工作習慣、社群連帶及使用情境密不可分。4亦有研究者強調其政治、文化與象徵意涵。5近年的文化基礎設施研究更將視野擴展至組織架構、知識生產、人際網絡與治理機制。6
循此脈絡，本文所提出的「（跨）基礎設施的庇護實踐」，試圖描述庇護（sheltering）如何透過不同的人、組織、制度、地域與部門之間的連結，一點一點被組成並維繫。這裡所說的「基礎設施」（infrastructure），不只指正式制度或硬體設施，也包括信任關係、非正式轉介、資源流動、照護工作、知識交換，以及跨組織協作。其中的「跨」（trans-）則強調庇護如何穿梭於藝術創作與人道救援、正式制度與非正式關係、在地支援與跨國流動，以及緊急安全與專業延續之間。
因此，本文將庇護實踐理解為一種具有關係性、跨尺度且持續運作的文化支持基礎設施，試圖看見散落在不同地方的行動，如何透過信任、網絡與實踐彼此串接，在制度縫隙與危機斷層之間，形成具韌性且可延續的移動與支持路徑，而不只是危機發生時的臨時安置。
身處迫害中的藝術家，其移動軌跡鮮少是一場由「危險」直抵「安全」的線性旅程。有人留滯原地，有人輾轉鄰國，也有人藉短期進駐爭取喘息，再探尋較長期的落腳可能。與其將庇護理解為靜態的「避風港」，「路徑」（pathway）或許更切中現實。安全空間固然重要，但若缺乏合法居留、資訊、資金與專業網絡轉介，容易只成為短暫落腳處。相反地，一封邀請函、交通補助、研究身分或可信任的引介，都可能讓危機中的人多一個選擇。庇護不只是抵達，而是能不能在不同節點之間繼續往前走。
從「（跨）基礎設施的庇護實踐」切入，重要的不只是跨越國界，而是支持如何跨越體制與專業邊界。合法停留依附政府法制，住宿來自藝術空間，經費仰賴基金會，下一個創作機會則可能源自策展人、學院或跨國網絡。庇護因此是在互不隸屬的節點間持續「組裝」（assembling）而成。
這種「路徑」思考也反映於近年歐洲的行動。2023年歐盟回應如何照應受威脅與流離藝術家時，除了鼓勵增加安全港（safe havens）、庇護城市（cities of refuge）與緊急駐留計畫（emergency residencies），也強調跨國網絡、資訊交換與長期專業實踐的連結。俄羅斯全面入侵烏克蘭後，法律層面由歐盟《臨時保護指令》（Temporary Protection Directive）處理居留與基本權益，文化部門則回應「安全之後，如何繼續創作」。
除了制度上的支持，跨國藝文網絡也逐漸形成長期交換經驗與資源的平台。由 「安全避風港．自由對談」（Safe Havens Freedom Talks，SH|FT）自2013年發展至今的「安全港會議」（Safe Havens Meeting），便持續讓藝術家、文化工作者、人權組織、法律工作者與國際組織聚集，討論藝術自由、受威脅創作者與相關支持機制。2026年，這項長期在歐洲發展的會議將進一步移往亞洲，在柬埔寨暹粒舉行「換個角度看東南亞：從亞洲視角看藝術自由」（SEA Differently: An Asian Lens on Artistic Freedom），由湄公河文化中心（Mekong Cultural Hub，國際生活藝術組織〔Living Arts International〕在東南亞的主要計畫之一）等單位參與籌辦，試圖把全球藝術自由網絡與東南亞既有的文化關係連結起來，形成其長期網絡向亞洲延伸的重要案例。這樣的轉向也說明，「路徑」不只存在於藝術家的實際移動之中，也存在於不同區域之間如何逐步建立資訊、信任與轉介關係。
2026年於柬埔寨暹粒舉辦的「安全港會議」。（圖片來源／Cambodian Living Arts官網）
2020年，烏克蘭跨機構計畫「Zapravka」（烏克蘭語意為「加油站」）由烏克蘭學院（Ukrainian Institute）、烏克蘭文化基金會（Ukrainian Cultural Foundation）與歐洲之家（House of Europe）發起，最初盤點藝術進駐資源並連結TransArtists網絡。戰爭全面爆發後，原本為文化流動建立的關係網被重新動員為庇護資源。Zapravka於2023年推出烏克蘭文版《如何在烏克蘭打造藝術駐留計畫》（How to Make an Art Residency in Ukraine）；2026年TransArtists進一步介紹其英文版及戰時實踐。且即使戰爭持續，烏克蘭的部分藝術空間仍維持接待。這讓人看到，危機中的基礎設施往往不是事後從零建立，而是平時累積的合作、知識與信任，在需要時被重新啟動。
「Zapravka」計畫近年發布的《如何在烏克蘭打造藝術駐留計畫》工具書。（圖片來源／Ukrainian Institute官網）
亞洲不均勻的流動與台灣的路徑
然而，上述路徑在各區域的形成方式並不相同。當視線移向亞洲，可以看到更零散、仰賴非正式關係的支持系統。但這不能化約為「歐洲有制度、亞洲沒有制度」，更值得觀察的是制度化程度的不均。雖然已有固定預算與轉介管道，更多情境仍倚賴私人信任、小型獨立空間與臨時協調。當第一個支持節點的動能耗盡時，下一個足以接應的節點究竟是否存在？
藝術家危機援助網絡（Artists at Risk Connection）的《Arresting Art》（2021）與《Connecting the Dots》（2022）記錄了亞洲創作者面對的言論審查與政治壓力，並指出「區域內部安置」的重要性。ArtsEquator的「東南亞藝術審查資料庫」（Southeast Asian Arts Censorship Database）及「東南亞藝術自由雷達」（Southeast Asia Artistic Freedom RADAR），也持續梳理東南亞藝術自由受限案例。對流離藝術家而言，在鄰近地區暫時停留，能降低財務與行政門檻，並保留在熟悉的文化脈絡中。
從這個角度回看台灣，問題不在於複製歐洲的安全港模式，而是如何把既有條件與關係接起來。長久以來，台灣的藝術進駐多著重「走出去」，相較之下，風險準備、危機支援、返國後的專業銜接，以及鄰近地區藝術家無法返鄉時的接待支持，仍較少被放在同一脈絡中討論。自1971年退出聯合國體系後，台灣在參與部分國際公約與難民機制時亦面臨制度性限制。加上地緣政治環境高度不確定，台灣在思考如何接住他人的同時，也必須意識到自身同樣可能身處危機之中。這條路徑因此不只是「台灣接住別人」，也包括文化工作者未來向外移動、尋找支持與延續專業實踐的可能。
如何盤點並串接既有資源，則可參考On the Move推動的「移動資訊站」（Mobility Information Points，MIPs）計畫。在盤點獨立藝術空間、大專院校、人權團體、基金會、文化機構與藝文從業者的同時，也同步掌握住宿、法律與移民資訊、資金支持、地方社群連結與跨國轉介等資源，逐步形成可持續更新與轉介的支持網絡。當這些原本分散的條件被串接起來，並在持續更新中建立信任，跨國網絡便不只是接待他人的能力，更是為自身保留下一個可能的節點，使更具彈性與韌性的移動路徑逐漸形成。
面對全球文化移動資源傾斜的結構不平等，「藝術空間庇護網絡」的思考回應兼具平時串聯樞紐與危機緊急流動通道之雙重功能。（作者製圖）
讓支持成為動態藝術生態系統的一部分
即使有了節點與路徑，也不代表庇護行動就此完成。真正困難的是藝術家抵達安全之處後，這些關係能不能繼續支撐生活與專業實踐。流離意味著失去居住工作地、工作室、收入、觀眾與專業位置，而受脅與流離藝術家在緊急安置後，仍面臨長期社會、經濟與專業整合問題。7對藝術工作者而言，專業延續是重新建立生活的一部分；能不能繼續創作、保持同儕聯繫，並維持藝術家身分，決定了庇護關係能走多遠。
正是在這層意義上，我試圖將「庇護」進一步推展為「永續性」（sustainability）的實踐向度。這裡的永續，是思考危機後創作、人際關係、專業身分與文化知識能否繼續。文化永續關乎文化實踐與關係如何維持，放到藝術進駐中，需要保護的是創作能夠繼續發生的條件。
藝術進駐因此需要放回動態藝術生態系統（dynamic art ecosystem）中理解。藝術家的職涯並非單一駐村所能支撐，而與藝術空間、大學、資助者、策展人、同儕、人權組織與地方社群相連。當資訊、資源與轉介串聯，網絡才具備基礎設施功能。永續指向的是整個藝術生態系統在危機中是否仍有能力回應需求。
然而，跨國庇護網絡若只靠少數人的熱心難以長久，許多支援工作由藝術空間與策展人額外承擔，例如尋找住處、確認文件、聯絡下個機構與陪伴。這些實踐提醒我們，文化機構承擔社會任務時，常面對藝術價值、公共責任與資源分配間的張力。
因此，「（跨）基礎設施的庇護實踐」的意涵，不只是把更多節點連成一線。當支持長期依靠私人關係與額外勞動，未必能形成可持續的基礎設施；支持能否被分擔、轉介與接續，本身即是庇護實踐的一環。同時，當我們把這種對「延續」的關注拉回地方，也會發現類似問題早已出現在台灣的災後文化實踐中。
向外接住流離，向內守住地方
當我們把視線從跨國流離中的藝術庇護拉回地方，藝術空間的另一種角色也逐漸浮現。回望台灣，藝術庇護或許並非多數藝術空間熟稔的日常實踐，但危機也可能來自地震、洪水、氣候災難，或足以令社群日常中斷的災變。許多藝文工作者與藝術空間曾參與災後工作，也讓我重新思考藝術空間在危機中的角色。本文暫時以「文化防災」理解這類實踐。從921地震後的劇場與地方故事，到近年的災後藝術陪伴、創傷書寫與文化記憶保存，藝術實踐往往在緊急救援後介入，回應人們如何修補連帶並重構與地方的連結。
在這裡，文化防災不僅是文物搶救或館舍修繕，更關乎文化工作者與文化空間如何參與社群的減災、整備、應變與復原。當一處藝術空間平時承載著展演、排練或創作進駐，在災難降臨時，是否也可能成為資訊交換、社群聚集、地方記憶保存，甚至重構社會關係的場域？這並非要將藝術機構變成防災指揮所，而是重新看見它們原本就嵌在地方關係之中，因而在危機時也可能承擔起未被預設的支持功能。
若把這些經驗和海外流離中的藝術庇護放在一起討論，兩者雖是不同工作，卻都在面對危機如何打斷生活與文化實踐。本文無意將兩者畫上等號，而是從「（跨）基礎設施」視角看，文化空間平時累積的關係、知識與信任，即是危機中可重新啟動的能力。藝術庇護處理藝術家如何重覓停留與創作位置；災後文化工作則面對地方日常、社群關係與集體記憶如何恢復。兩者皆顯示，支持建立在危機前即存在的關係之上。
也正是在這個交會點上，我開始把「文化援助」（cultural aid）理解為兩者可以共享的實踐視角。對流離異鄉的藝術家而言，意味著創作不中斷與專業關係重建；對在地社群而言，則是陪伴、記憶保存與關係修復。這些工作發生在基本安全穩定後，處理受影響生活能否繼續的部分。藝術庇護與文化防災不需整併為同一制度，但可共同追問：「當日常被打斷，文化空間與從業者如何讓文化實踐與關係繼續存在？」
從這裡再回看「在安全之後，究竟該如何延續」，問題也不只屬於流離異鄉的藝術家。災難過後，一個地方同樣可能失去文化空間、日常關係與集體記憶。「以庇護實踐永續」（sheltering as sustainability）所關心的「延續」，也引導我們理解危機後哪些關係、記憶與文化實踐仍需要被維持。回到「庇護」，問題已不只是有沒有安全空間，而是支持關係能不能被接續下去。
藝術進駐空間作為文化援助網絡樞紐（AIR Space as Cultural Relief Network Hub），展現其「向外橋接」流亡藝術家之跨國庇護，與「向內守護」在地社群之文化避風港的雙重向度。（作者製圖）
結語：當庇護超越空間
身處不穩定的時代，並不意味著藝術進駐必須放棄原本角色，轉而成為另一套人道救援系統。真正需要重新思考的，是我們如何理解當代的「文化流動」與「支持」。工作室、居所與創作時間依然重要，只是當危機滲入日常，人身安全、合法流動、信任、專業延續與地方關係，也成為藝術進駐無可迴避的維度。
當庇護超越空間，我們追問的不再只是某個場域是否足以被稱作「安全港」，而是不同支持如何被串接與延續。「（跨）基礎設施的庇護實踐」（sheltering as (trans-)infrastructure）是一種重新觀看的方法。「以庇護實踐永續」（sheltering as sustainability）則提醒我們，真正需要維繫的是藝術家、文化工作者與地方社群在危機後是否仍有條件繼續創作、生活與重新連結。
對台灣而言，這或許正是新實踐路徑的起點。盤點現有資源與關係，讓節點形成網絡、交換資訊，既可能接住異地流離的藝術家，也能在危機來臨時，成為台灣文化工作者向外移動時可以依靠的網絡。庇護因此不是終點，也不只是一個實體安全空間。更重要的是，當一個人、社群或文化實踐被危機打斷後，是否仍有人、有關係，也有下一個可以前往的地方，讓生活得以重新安放，讓文化與思考繼續延續。
In the autumn of 2024, I met a Myanmar artist in Taitung who was unable to return home and was seeking possibilities for transnational shelter. The following year, while visiting sheltering organisations in Europe, another artist living in exile told me, “I now only make things that can fit into my carry-on luggage.”
This was not simply an aesthetic choice. It was a compromise shaped by the pressures of survival. Such circumstances directly influenced the forms their practices could take: materials became lighter and more portable; language grew more indirect under self-censorship; digital technologies were used to piece together geographies of home that had become increasingly difficult to reach.
Another memory from the same period takes me back to the aftermath of the Matai’an disaster in Hualien. An arts worker involved in the local response described spending time with affected residents, making things by hand while slowly working through experiences of trauma. These situations, separated by thousands of kilometres and shaped by very different conditions, nonetheless raised a similar question: when crisis arrives, what can cultural spaces, including artist residencies, and cultural workers actually do?
This is not an academic question constructed in abstraction. It emerged from situations I encountered and felt directly while moving between different fields of research.
If these fragmented experiences of survival are situated within the broader perspective of cultural mobility, movement is no longer simply the physical relocation of bodies from one place to another. It also concerns how knowledge, relationships, resources, and creative practices are reassembled along trajectories of movement. Stephen Greenblatt and his collaborators (2009) understand cultural mobility as a process through which culture is continuously produced through movement, contact, and exchange. Following this perspective, I approach the artist residency as an institutionalised form of cultural mobility: residencies provide studios, accommodation, time, and financial support, allowing artists to enter different contexts, encounter others, and reflect on their own practices.
Over the past decade, however, war, forced displacement, political persecution, climate disasters, and prolonged economic instability have increasingly reshaped the routes and support mechanisms traditionally associated with artist residencies. For many cultural practitioners facing persecution, the urgent question is no longer simply where they can make work. It is how they can continue living, remain safe, and sustain relationships when the conditions of everyday and professional life begin to collapse. Once an artist reaches a new place, another question follows: how can residency organisations and local communities help them continue their creative and professional practices?
Crisis has therefore opened up different possibilities for the role of artist residencies. Spaces originally designed for temporary stays and artistic exchange may become temporary shelters, information points, or intermediary nodes connecting people with legal assistance, funding, and humanitarian support. Staff members whose work usually centres on hosting artists may suddenly find themselves coordinating transportation, visas, accommodation, referrals, and forms of accompaniment. In this process, the meaning of shelter expands from a physically safe place into a much more complex support network (Artists at Risk, 2017; Müller, 2019; Yazaji, 2025).
Artistic sheltering, however, needs to be distinguished from existing refugee protection pathways. UNHCR identifies resettlement and complementary pathways as important mechanisms for responding to different protection needs among refugees (UNHCR, n.d.-a, n.d.-b). Artistic sheltering more often emerges through artist residencies, cultural organisations, higher education institutions, and transnational networks, adding a layer of civil-society support within the gaps of formal systems.
It is precisely within this tension between institutional margins and cultural practice that I have begun to rethink artistic sheltering as something more than the question of where a person is physically accommodated. This article proposes sheltering as (trans-)infrastructure as an interpretive lens. It asks how forms of support connect across institutions, cities, countries, and professional communities to form pathways of mobility, and how those relationships continue to sustain creative and everyday life after arrival. Moving between Europe, Asia, and Taiwan, I also consider the role cultural spaces might play in moments of crisis, post-disaster cultural practice, and cultural aid.
Sheltering as (Trans-)Infrastructure
In reconsidering artist residency mechanisms in an uncertain era, I have increasingly found myself asking: Who is sheltering whom? What kinds of crisis are artists confronting? Through what relationships do these networks of support emerge, and how long can they last?
Rather than reducing shelter to a particular place or a clearly bounded programme, I understand sheltering as a dynamic and evolving process. It cannot be carried by a single institution. It is woven through people, spaces, information, mobility, funding, trust, and care. An artist residency does not become a shelter simply because it provides a bed. What matters more is how cultural spaces and networks can, under particular circumstances, function as forms of infrastructure.
This understanding closely resonates with infrastructure studies. Star and Ruhleder (1996) argue that infrastructure is embedded in practice and inseparable from working routines, communities, and contexts of use. Larkin (2013) further emphasises the political, cultural, and symbolic dimensions of infrastructure. More recent research on cultural infrastructure has expanded this perspective beyond buildings to include organisational structures, knowledge production, interpersonal networks, and mechanisms of governance (Bain & Podmore, 2023).
Building on these perspectives, I extend the infrastructural lens into the context of artistic sheltering and propose sheltering as (trans-)infrastructure as an analytical framework. This is not a fixed term directly proposed by the literature above. Here, the prefix trans- refers not only to crossing national borders, but also to the ways sheltering moves between artistic practice and humanitarian response, formal systems and informal relationships, local support and transnational mobility, immediate safety and longer-term professional continuity.
The aim is not to outline a standardised system of artist protection. Rather, it is to make visible how dispersed actions become connected through trust, networks, and practice, and how they may form resilient and workable pathways through institutional gaps and moments of crisis.
For artists facing persecution, movement is rarely a linear journey from “danger” to “safety.” Some remain where they are. Others move temporarily to neighbouring countries. Some first enter a short-term residency to gain breathing space before searching for a more sustainable place to stay. Rather than understanding shelter as a static safe haven, the idea of a pathway may be closer to lived reality.
A safe space is undoubtedly important. But without legal status, information, financial resources, professional networks, and onward referrals, it can easily remain only a temporary place to stay. Conversely, an invitation letter, a travel grant, a visiting research affiliation, or a trusted referral may create one more possible route for someone in crisis. Sheltering is therefore not simply about arrival. It is about whether someone can continue moving between different nodes.
Seen through the lens of sheltering as (trans-)infrastructure, the important movement is not only that of the artist across national borders, but also that of support across institutional and professional boundaries. Legal residence may depend on a government system; accommodation may come from an arts organisation; funding may come from a foundation; and the next creative opportunity may emerge through a curator, university, or transnational network. Sheltering is continuously assembled across nodes that do not necessarily belong to the same institutional structure.
This pathway-based thinking is also visible in recent European cultural practice. In responding to at-risk and displaced artists, the European Union’s 2023 Council Conclusions encouraged not only the expansion of safe havens, cities of refuge, and emergency residencies, but also stronger transnational networks, information exchange, and connections to artists’ longer-term professional practices (Council of the European Union, 2023).
Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the European Union activated the Temporary Protection Directive in 2022, providing rights related to residence, employment, accommodation, social welfare, healthcare, and education (European Commission, 2026). The cultural sector, meanwhile, began responding to another question: after safety, how can creative practice continue?
Alongside institutional support, transnational cultural networks have increasingly become platforms for exchanging experience and resources over the longer term. Since 2013, the Safe Havens Meeting has gradually developed into an international networking platform connecting artists, cultural workers, human rights organisations, legal practitioners, and international organisations (Safe Havens Freedom Talks, n.d.). In 2026, the meeting will take place in Siem Reap, Cambodia, under the title SEA Differently: An Asian Lens on Artistic Freedom, co-convened by SH|FT and Living Arts International, with Mekong Cultural Hub participating as part of the collaboration. This marks an important extension of the network’s long-standing work into Asia (Mekong Cultural Hub, 2026).
Such developments suggest that pathways exist not only in the physical journeys of artists, but also in the gradual building of information, trust, and referral relationships between regions.
Another example is Zapravka, an inter-institutional Ukrainian initiative launched in 2020 by the Ukrainian Institute, Ukrainian Cultural Foundation, and House of Europe. The initiative, whose Ukrainian name means “gas station,” initially mapped residency resources and connected Ukrainian residencies with the international TransArtists network (Ukrainian Institute, 2020).
Based on currently available material, the relationships built for cultural mobility before the full-scale war had the potential to be reactivated as resources for support and shelter once the war began, although their actual operation requires further case-based research. In 2023, Zapravka published the Ukrainian-language edition of How to Make an Art Residency in Ukraine. In 2026, TransArtists introduced the English-language version and its online launch (TransArtists, 2026).
This demonstrates that infrastructure in crisis is often not created from nothing after the crisis begins. Rather, cooperation, knowledge, and trust accumulated in ordinary times can be reactivated when they are most needed.
Uneven Mobility in Asia and Possible Pathways for Taiwan
These pathways do not emerge in the same way everywhere. When the perspective shifts from Europe to Asia, a more fragmented support landscape appears, one that often relies more heavily on informal relationships.
Artists at Risk Connection’s Arresting Art (2021) and Connecting the Dots (2022) document censorship, political pressure, and legal restrictions faced by artists across Asia, while also highlighting the importance of intra-regional relocation (Artists at Risk Connection, 2021, 2022). The Southeast Asian Arts Censorship Database, developed by ArtsEquator and Five Arts Centre, together with the later Southeast Asia Artistic Freedom RADAR, has continued to document restrictions on artistic freedom across Southeast Asia (ArtsEquator & Five Arts Centre, 2022–present; Rowland, 2023, 2025).
For many artists, temporary relocation within a neighbouring region can reduce financial and administrative barriers while making it more possible to remain within familiar cultural and social contexts. Yet this should not be reduced to a simple contrast in which “Europe has systems and Asia does not.” What deserves closer attention is the uneven degree of institutionalisation.
Some forms of support operate with established budgets and referral mechanisms. In many other cases, support still depends on personal trust, small independent spaces, and temporary arrangements. From a (trans-)infrastructural perspective, the crucial question is what happens when the first node of support runs out of capacity. Is there another node able to receive what comes next?
Seen from Taiwan, the question is therefore not whether a European safe haven model can be replicated. It is what conditions already exist, and which relationships might be connected more intentionally.
For a long time, artist residencies and cultural exchange in Taiwan have largely focused on going outward. Comparatively less attention has been given to risk preparation before departure, support during crisis, professional continuity after returning home, or how Taiwan might receive and support artists from neighbouring regions who are temporarily unable to return to their own countries.
At the same time, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of China (Taiwan) notes that since leaving the United Nations in 1971, Taiwan has been unable to formally participate in many meetings, mechanisms, conventions, and activities led by the UN and its specialised agencies (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of China [Taiwan], 2026). Taiwan itself is also situated within a highly uncertain geopolitical environment. This means that while considering how Taiwan might receive others, it cannot imagine itself as a permanently secure centre standing outside crisis.
For this reason, rather than positioning Taiwan immediately as a hub for artistic sheltering in Asia, it may be more useful to begin by mapping resources and networks that already exist.
Independent art spaces, universities, human rights organisations, foundations, public and private cultural institutions, curators, researchers, and arts workers already hold different forms of capacity: temporary accommodation, legal and migration information, funding, connections with local communities, and possibilities for transnational referral. What Taiwan needs to consider is how these existing conditions might gradually be connected.
Only when information can be updated, trusted, and referred onward can a flexible and resilient pathway begin to emerge.
More importantly, such a pathway should not be imagined solely as Taiwan receiving others. Within an unstable geopolitical environment, Taiwanese artists and cultural workers may themselves one day need to move outward or continue their professional lives elsewhere. Transnational relationships and networks built over time therefore represent more than a capacity to host others. They also preserve possible future nodes of support for ourselves.
At one moment Taiwan may be able to provide space. At another, it may need to be received elsewhere.
Sheltering as Sustainability: Making Support Part of a Dynamic Art Ecosystem
Even when nodes and pathways exist, sheltering does not end when someone reaches safety. The more difficult question is whether those relationships can continue to support everyday and professional life after arrival.
Displacement does not only mean losing a place to live or work. It may also mean losing a studio, income, audiences, professional relationships, and a position accumulated over years of practice.
Yazaji (2025) points out that at-risk and displaced artists continue to face long-term challenges of social, economic, and professional integration after emergency relocation. For arts workers, professional continuity is not an additional benefit. It is part of rebuilding a life.
The ability to continue creating, maintain relationships with existing peers, and still be recognised as an artist rather than being permanently defined through the identity of an “at-risk person” all influence how far a sheltering relationship can actually go.
It is in this sense that I extend sheltering toward a practice of sustainability.
Sustainability here does not mean asking one organisation to host someone indefinitely. It means asking whether creative practice, relationships, professional identities, and cultural knowledge can continue after crisis.
Cultural sustainability similarly concerns how cultural practices, knowledge, and relationships can be maintained over time (Soini & Birkeland, 2014; Soini & Dessein, 2016; Dessein et al., 2015). Within the context of artist residencies, what needs to be protected is therefore not simply a studio or a period of residence, but the conditions that allow creative practice to continue.
Artist residencies also need to be understood as part of a dynamic art ecosystem. An artist’s career is never sustained by a single residency. It is connected to art spaces, universities, funders, curators, peers, human rights organisations, local communities, and policy environments.
When information, resources, and referrals become connected, a network begins to function as infrastructure. Sustainability therefore does not primarily concern how long one shelter can survive, but whether the wider art ecosystem retains the capacity to respond to different needs during crisis.
At the same time, transnational sheltering networks cannot remain sustainable if they depend only on the goodwill of a small number of individuals.
Much support work is undertaken by art spaces, curators, and cultural workers on top of their existing responsibilities: finding accommodation, checking documents, contacting the next institution, making referrals, and accompanying people through unfamiliar systems. These practices remind us that when cultural organisations take on social responsibilities, they often face tensions between artistic value, public responsibility, and resource allocation (Belfiore & Bennett, 2008; Belfiore, 2015).
The critical dimension of sheltering as (trans-)infrastructure, therefore, is not simply about connecting more nodes into a network. When support depends for too long on private relationships and invisible additional labour, it may continue to function temporarily without ever becoming sustainable infrastructure.
The capacity for support to be shared, referred, and carried forward is itself part of sheltering.
When this concern with continuity is brought back to the local level, similar questions can already be found within Taiwan’s post-disaster cultural practices.
Receiving Displacement Outward, Sustaining Place Inward
When we shift our attention from artistic sheltering across borders back to local contexts, another possible role for cultural spaces begins to emerge.
In Taiwan, artistic sheltering may not yet be an everyday concept familiar to most art spaces. Yet crises also emerge through earthquakes, floods, climate disasters, and other events capable of interrupting the everyday life of communities. Many arts workers and cultural spaces in Taiwan have taken part in post-disaster work, prompting me to reconsider the role cultural spaces may play during crisis.
For the purposes of this article, I provisionally describe these practices as cultural disaster preparedness.
From theatre and local storytelling following the 1999 Jiji Earthquake to more recent forms of post-disaster artistic accompaniment, trauma writing, and the preservation of cultural memory, artistic practices have often entered after the immediate emergency response, responding to the slower processes through which people repair social ties and rebuild relationships with place (Ministry of Culture, Republic of China [Taiwan], 2019; Council for Cultural Affairs, Executive Yuan, 2010).
Here, cultural disaster preparedness is not limited to the rescue of artefacts or the repair of cultural buildings. It also concerns the ways cultural workers and cultural spaces may participate in community mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery (Council for Cultural Affairs, Executive Yuan, 2010).
When an art space ordinarily hosts exhibitions, rehearsals, or artist residencies, could it also become a site for exchanging information, gathering communities, preserving local memory, or rebuilding social relationships when disaster occurs?
This does not mean turning art institutions into disaster-response command centres. Rather, it means recognising that cultural spaces are already embedded within local relationships, and that during crisis these relationships may enable them to take on forms of support that were never originally planned.
If these experiences are discussed alongside artistic sheltering for displaced artists abroad, the two should not be treated as equivalent. They involve different forms of work. Yet both confront the ways crisis interrupts everyday life and cultural practice.
From a (trans-)infrastructural perspective, both reveal that relationships, knowledge, and trust accumulated by cultural spaces in ordinary times can become capacities that are reactivated during crisis.
Artistic sheltering addresses how artists might find new places from which to live and continue creating. Post-disaster cultural work addresses how everyday life, community relationships, and collective memory may be restored in a particular place.
Their professional methods and responsibilities differ, and neither can substitute for the other. Yet both demonstrate that support is often built upon relationships that already existed before crisis began.
It is at this point of intersection that I have begun to think of cultural aid as a practical perspective shared between the two.
For artists displaced abroad, cultural aid may mean enabling creative practice to continue and helping rebuild professional relationships. For local communities, it may take the form of accompaniment, memory preservation, storytelling, and the repair of relationships.
These forms of work are usually not part of the immediate frontline emergency response. Instead, they often begin once basic safety has been partially stabilised, addressing the easily overlooked conditions that determine whether everyday life can continue.
Artistic sheltering and cultural disaster preparedness do not need to be merged into a single system. But they can share one question:
After crisis interrupts everyday life, how can cultural spaces and cultural practitioners help cultural practices and relationships continue to exist?
Seen from this perspective, the question of what happens after safety does not belong only to artists displaced abroad.
After disaster, a place may also lose cultural spaces, everyday relationships, and collective memory. The concern with continuity embedded in sheltering as sustainability can therefore also help us understand what relationships, memories, and cultural practices need to be sustained after crisis.
Returning once again to sheltering, the question is no longer only whether a safe place exists. It is whether relationships of support can continue.
Conclusion: When Shelter Extends Beyond Space
Living in uncertain times does not mean that artist residencies must abandon their existing roles and transform themselves into another humanitarian relief system.
What needs to be reconsidered is how we understand contemporary cultural mobility and support.
Studios, places to stay, and time for creative work remain important. But as crisis increasingly enters everyday life, personal safety, legal mobility, trust, professional continuity, and relationships with place have also become dimensions that artist residencies can no longer ignore.
When shelter extends beyond space, the question is no longer simply whether a particular place qualifies as a safe haven, but how different forms of support can be connected and sustained.
Sheltering as (trans-)infrastructure is not a blueprint for a new institution. It is a way of seeing differently.
Sheltering as sustainability, meanwhile, reminds us that what needs to be sustained is not merely a one-off relocation, but the conditions through which artists, cultural workers, and local communities can continue creating, living, and reconnecting after crisis.
For Taiwan, this may be the beginning of a new pathway of practice.
The first step may be to map existing resources and relationships, allowing different nodes to form networks and exchange information. Such networks may help receive artists displaced from elsewhere, while also becoming relationships that Taiwanese artists and cultural workers themselves could rely on should they one day need to move outward during crisis.
Sheltering is therefore not an endpoint, nor is it only a physically safe space.
What matters more is whether, after a person, a community, or a cultural practice has been interrupted by crisis, there are still people, relationships, and another possible place to go, so that life can be resettled and culture and thought can continue.
註1｜Greenblatt, S., Županov, I. G., Meyer-Kalkus, R., Paul, H., Nyíri, P., & Pannewick, F. (Eds.). Cultural mobility: A manifesto. Cambridge University Press. 2009.
註2｜本文所稱的「庇護」（shelter）並不等同於asylum、refuge或emergency shelter。Asylum通常涉及法律與移民制度中的庇護申請與保護身分；refuge較偏向逃離危險後獲得安全與保護的狀態；emergency shelter則多指危機情境下提供的短期、即時性安置。本文使用「庇護」一詞，則更廣泛指涉使處於風險、流離或遷徙中的藝術與文化工作者得以暫時或持續維持安全、生活、創作與行動能力的支持條件，其內容不僅包括實體空間，也可能涵蓋照護、資訊、資源、法律協助、心理支持、專業延續與社群連結等。
註3｜Artists at Risk. Artist Safety / Safe Haven Hosting. 2017.
Müller, M. (Ed.). Temporary shelter and relocation initiatives: Perspectives of managers and participants. ifa Edition Culture and Foreign Policy / Martin Roth-Initiative. 2019.
Yazaji, R. Intersecting temporalities: At-risk and displaced artists in transition (Vol. 1: Scoping review). On the Move. 2025.
註4｜Star, S. L., & Ruhleder, K. Steps toward an ecology of infrastructure: Design and access for large information spaces.Information Systems Research, 7(1), 111–134. 1996.
註5｜Larkin, B. The politics and poetics of infrastructure.Annual Review of Anthropology, 42, 327–343. 2013.
註6｜Bain, A. L., & Podmore, J. A. (Eds.). The Cultural Infrastructure of Cities. Agenda Publishing. 2023.
註7｜Yazaji, R. Intersecting temporalities: At-risk and displaced artists in transition (Vol. 1: Scoping review). On the Move. 2025.
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