We are pleased to announce that Villa Decius has become the first place of refuge in Poland under the Artist Protection Fund, an American network managed by The Institute of International Education.
Since September this year the residency program at Villa Decius is also open to artists-refugees.
The first scholarship recipient of the program was Chulud Sharaf, a Syrian poet and award-winning author of travel prose. Congratulations!
The interview with the author is available here:
More information about the program:
https://www.iie.org/Programs/Artist-Protection-Fund/About/IIE-and-the-Arts-A-History
https://www.iie.org/Programs/Artist-Protection-Fund/Eligibility-and-Application/FAQ-for-Artists
Chulud Sharaf – poet, writer, art critic and activist from Al Mjemir in southern Syria. In 2016 she published her debut, excellently received by critics, a poetry volume entitled “The Remains of Butterfly”. For her book “Return to the Mountains. The Journal in the Shadow of War” received the Moroccan Ibn Battuta Award for travel prose (2019). Her poems were translated into English, French, Italian and Polish.