Trust the Process is a podcast about socially engaged arts that invites you to trust the unconventional nature of artistic processes and, more importantly, the impact they can have over time. This project is part of the Ask, Pay, Trust the Artist campaign and is supported by the Alliance for Socially Engaged Arts.

This episode is a bit different from the others, as it marks the beginning of a special series that unfolds throughout Culture Action Europe's Satellite BEYOND gatherings.

This interview was recorded during the first of these gatherings, which took place in Riga in mid-April 2026 under the title "Different Times, New Solutions". Nurturing these conversations was a shared intuition: that moments of disruption also carry possibilities for re-imagination, and that culture does not simply react to change, but actively generates it. In a context where democracy can feel increasingly fragile, threatened by the long shadow of conflict, grassroots artistic practices often emerge as acts of care, resistance, and collective agency. This is why socially engaged arts became a recurring thread throughout the conference discussions, with fellows from the Alliance for Socially Engaged Arts directly involved in the programme.

Throughout the episode, you'll hear the voices of Luís Correia, representative of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and collaborator of the Alliance for Socially Engaged Arts, who gives us some more detailed insight into the rationale and intentions behind the creation of the Alliance for Socially Engaged Arts and its flagship programme: the fellowship.

Together with Luís, socially engaged arts practitioners and fellows Samra Said, co-director of Arts and Homelessness International, and Damien McGlynn, Director of Create Ireland, take you through a conversation on what it really means to move at 'the speed of trust’ in the process of co-creating with a community, digging into the limits of short-term project-based funding, and on what it takes to create the conditions in which socially engaged arts can truly thrive.

Enjoy listening.

Special guests:

Luís Correia, Samra Said & Damien McGlynn

Music credits:

Original music by Kerem Çelikoğlu

Episode produced and hosted by:

Sara Bandinu, Culture Action Europe

This podcast aims to spark an ongoing conversation around socially engaged arts — one we hope to nurture by collecting grounded stories of change-making. If you are a socially engaged practitioner and would like to share your experience, feel free to get in touch at sara@cultureactioneurope.org — I would love to hear from you!

This episode is a special edition of the Trust the Process podcast, recorded in Riga during the first BEYOND satellite event, which launched the inaugural series of Culture Action Europe's satellite gatherings.

To sustain and nurture the conversations that took place in Riga from 14 to 16 April, we conducted a series of interviews with speakers and participants whose contributions brought the event to life.

This episode departs from the terrain of socially engaged arts. On this occasion, you will hear an interview with Niels Righolt (Director of CKI – Center for Kunst og Interkultur), Rosa Meriläinen (Secretary General of KULTA ry), and Iwona Preis (Director of Intercult), all members of Culture Action Europe’s Nordic Hub, a regional cultural strategy network bringing together CAE members from Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia.

Moderated by Burak Sayin, Founder of Space-Time Works and former member of the Culture Action Europe Board, the conversation explores the origins of the Nordic Hub and looks at the network’s future strategies and activities aimed at strengthening cultural advocacy across the Nordic-Baltic region and supporting artists and cultural organisations in influencing the policies that shape their lives.

If you would like to learn more about this initiative, reach out to Burak Sayin at burak@stw.nu.

Enjoy the episode, and stay tuned for more conversations from the Riga series!

Trust the Process is a podcast about socially engaged arts that invites you to trust the unconventional nature of artistic processes and, more importantly, the impact they can have over time. This project is part of the Ask, Pay, Trust the Artist campaign and is supported by the Alliance for Socially Engaged Arts.

The guest of this second episode is the Belgian theatre director Frédérique Lecomte, founder of Théâtre & Réconciliation, a professional theatre company that brings people together through participatory theatre, nurturing connection and reconciliation.

At the heart of the conversation is Les Liaisons Joyeuses, an extraordinary project that each year brings together more than sixty people from across Brussels: ordinary citizens with different backgrounds, languages, and life experiences, many of whom might never otherwise cross paths. No previous theatre experience is required: the guiding principle is that everyone has something to share and is welcome to do so.

Developed over more than twenty-five years of work with communities affected by conflict, displacement, and exclusion, Frédérique’s methodology is grounded in a simple but radical idea: theatre does not ask people to relive their suffering, but offers a space where they can meet, play, create, and be recognised by others. The process itself becomes a form of community-building, contributing to what, in the language of public policy, we might call social cohesion.

If you would like to explore her methodology further, we recommend reading Théâtre & Réconciliation: A Method for Theatre Practice in Conflict Zones, a collection of field notes, correspondence and testimonies documenting the evolution of her practice.

Special guest:

Frédérique Lecomte

Music credits:

Original music by Kerem Çelikoğlu

Episode produced and hosted by:

Sara Bandinu, Culture Action Europe

This podcast aims to spark an ongoing conversation around socially engaged arts — one we hope to nurture by collecting grounded stories of change-making. If you are a socially engaged practitioner and would like to share your experience, feel free to get in touch at sara@cultureactioneurope.org — I would love to hear from you!