“Garden of Collective Futures” is a public art project initiated by nine members of the EUNIC Cluster New York featuring artists from ten European countries. In the first step, the artists will create a collaborative mural design through a series of workshops under the creative lead of New York-based, Ukrainian-born painter, muralist, street artist and illustrator Misha Tyutyunik. In the second step, they will bring it to a wall in New York City. The unveiling of the mural is planned for June 21, 2024.

In the spirit of artistic exchange between Europe and the US, the project seeks to emphasize the importance of international cultural cooperation. The result will be the product of different artistic positions from Europe and the US coming together: both the design as well as the actual mural itself will be created by the group. Poland will be represented by the New York-based artist, Asia Sztencel.

The artists taking part in the project:

· Rob Anderson (Hungary)
· Riivo Kruuk (Estonia)
· David Leitner (Austria)
· Julius Ludavicius (Lithuania)
· Radu Pandele (Romania)
· Jan Deejoohcee Rosius (Flanders)
· Rosa Sarholz (Germany)
· Asia Sztencel (Poland)
· Verka Vybiralova (Czech Republic)
· Misha Tyutyunik (Ukraine/US)

About the Polish artist:

Asia Sztencel, (b. Łódź, Poland), is a Brooklyn based conceptual artist who pursues socially engaged practice based on research about experience of immigrants in local communities in relationship to landscape and memory of a place. Activating painting, traditional craft, and multidisciplinary forms, Sztencel’s practice offers a personal exploration within the larger narrative of cultural displacement and immigration experience. Using landscape as the base narrative form, Sztencel dissects the feelings of exile, recall, and longing.

“Garden of Collective Futures” is a project led by the Austrian Cultural Forum New York for EUNIC New York, in cooperation with the following partnering institutions: Hungarian Cultural Centre (Liszt Institute), Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Lithuanian Cultural Institute (Lithuanian Consulate-General in New York), Romanian Cultural Institute in New York, Delegation of Flanders to the USA, Goethe-Institut New York, Polish Cultural Institute New York, Ukrainian Institute of America, and Czech Center New York. The project is supported by the EUNIC Global – European Union National Institutes for Culture, Europe’s network of national cultural institutes and organizations, with 39 members from all EU Member States.