Onda Partners’ Meeting 2026 in Avignon
Has the artist’s place become impossible?
Every year, on the occasion of Onda’s Partners’ Meeting at Festival d'Avignon, the Festival d’Avignon, the Institut français and Onda offer a space for discussion bringing together artists, programmers and performing arts professionals from a range of contexts and continents. These exchanges build on the reflections initiated during previous editions.
On July 14th, 2026, Portuguese curator and programmer Francisco Frazão moderated a round table bringing together Daria Deflorian (director, playwright and actress / Italy), Vanasay Khamphommala (playwright, performer and author / France), Sasapin Siriwanij (curator, producer and artist / Thailand), and Aristide Tarnagda (director, author and director of the Les Récréâtrales festival / Burkina Faso) around one question: “Has the artist’s place become impossible?”
Today, the artist is often seen as a figure resisting the violence of the world, while also being expected to preserve the autonomy of art and to stand on the side of causes deemed just. Caught between multiple forms of belonging, the artist is also at the heart of contemporary forms of labour flexibility.
What, then, can Art do? Can dialogue and cooperation help bring about a form of collective intelligence capable of responding to the political, social and technological upheavals of our time — and perhaps even challenge what we call artificial intelligence?