Mission Overview

TransCultural Exchange’s mission to bridge cultural, geographic, political and linguistic divides by bringing people together through the arts in order to foster a greater understanding of world cultures. At the same time, TransCultural Exchange seeks to further artistic innovation by creating large-scale, cross-discipline, global art projects and programming. In this way, TransCultural Exchange provides those in the arts with the necessary tools to become active participants in today’s increasingly interdependent society.

In 2007, in addition to its global art projects and artist exchanges, TransCultural Exchange launched a biennial Conference on International Opportunities in the Arts - the only forum that brings artists directly into contact with renowned critics, cultural leaders, curators and artist-in-residency directors. These biennial conferences provide artists and arts organizations with the extensive networks and resources to negotiate today's global arena; universities with new markets and access to key art world leaders and residencies programs; and invaluable platforms for cultural diplomacy.

At the end of 2008 TransCultural Exchange completed its largest installation of public works The Tile Project, Destination: The World for which over 100 artists, from over 40 countries, donated tiles to 22 world sites to create 22 site specific, permanent art works. Their resulting multicultural structures now dot the world landscape from Berlin to Boston, Manila to Mumbai, Toronto to Taipei and 16 other sites in between. The Tile Project has achieved something that few others have: it has brought together people from vastly different backgrounds and cultures to create lasting testimonies of international respect and cooperation—and not just in one geographic location or art world hot spot, but in 22 sites throughout the world. As a testament that global cooperation is possible in this increasingly fractured world, this project is indeed it.

In conjunction with the 2009 and 2011 Conferences, TransCultural Exchange also has asked artists to work with individuals from other countries and across disciplines to create new collaborative art works for a series of global exhibitions entitled Here, There and Everywhere. The aim of these exhibits is to encourage out-of-the-box thinking and, through the display of the works created, celebrate the rich cross-fertilization of ideas and friendships that result from artists and others of different disciplines, backgrounds and cultures working together.

From 1989 to 2001 TransCultural Exchange functioned as a grass-roots arts organization, umbrella-ed by other non-profits. In September 2002, working with the legal offices of Palmer and Dodge, LLP, TransCultural Exchange was incorporated as a 501(c)3 non-profit organization in Massachusetts; and in 2010, TransCultural Exchange expanded its range of resources to include an international advisory board.

In April 2004 UNESCO honored TransCultural Exchange with sponsorship. TransCultural Exchange also has attracted support and sponsorship from such organizations as The LEF Foundation, Massachusetts Cultural Council, Open Society Institute/Soros Foundation Network, The Boston Foundation, Netherland–America Foundation, Mondriaan Foundation, Res Artis, Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation, the Turkish Cultural Foundation, MIT's Office of the Art, the Asian Cultural Council and numerous educational institutions, consulates and embassies. Additionally, in 2002 the Northeast Chapter of the International Art Critics Association honored the organization with a first place award for "Best Show in An Alternative Space" at the Rose Art Museum in Waltham, Massachusetts, also announced at the National Chapter of the International Art Critics' annual award ceremony at the New Museum in New York.