Para Site and Asia Art Archive (AAA) jointly announce the open call for ‘Unconditional Trust: Impact Grant for Central Asia’, generously supported by Virginia Yee.
Following the first edition of ‘Unconditional Trust: Indonesia’, where the grant supported eight artists and collectives from Indonesia, the current edition of ‘Unconditional Trust’ continues to expand our perspectives on community-building and positive structural change within the field of visual art. Through collaborations with the Central Asian art community, Para Site and AAA contribute to the development of local art ecologies and create long-term engagements that bring Central Asian practitioners in relation to peers in Hong Kong and the Asia-Pacific region.
‘Unconditional Trust: Impact Grant for Central Asia’ supports sustainable programming, professional development, infrastructural building, and knowledge sharing. Examples of projects to be supported include digitising an artist’s archive, expanding an exhibition space, facilitating a programme series, organising a regional symposium, kickstarting a publication project, and more. The primary goal of the grant is to provide for capacity- and organisation-building activities, and not to directly support artwork or exhibition production.
In this funding cycle, ‘Unconditional Trust’ offers grants totalling US$60,000 to be distributed among artist-led collectives and independent arts organisations based in Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan) working in the expanded field of visual arts and film. The projects should commence in year 2026 and could last up to two years from when the grants are awarded. Each project will be awarded up to US$10,000; the final funding amount will be determined by the number of awardees and the extent to which the application meets the grant objectives and assessment criteria. Para Site and AAA will also match grantees with a mentor tailored to their developmental needs.
To apply for ‘Unconditional Trust: Impact Grant for Central Asia’, applicants must submit all application materials to unconditionaltrust@aaa.org.hk by 12 April 2026, 11:59pm (Hong Kong Time, UTC +8). Following the open call, the grant recipients will be shortlisted by a jury panel and interviewed by the Para Site and AAA team in May 2026. Grant results will be announced in June 2026.
The open call proposals will be reviewed and shortlisted by a jury comprising the following art professionals:
- Alima Kairat (Artistic Director, Tselinny Center of Contemporary Culture, Kazakhstan)
- Gulnara Kasmalieva and Muratbek Djumaliev (Artists, Kyrgyzstan)
- Furqat Palvan-Zade (Artist and Writer, Uzbekistan)
- Weiwei Wang (Curator of Exhibitions and Collections, CHAT, Hong Kong)
Application Checklist
- Project proposal (max. 750 words)
- Profile of collective/organisation and key parties involved (max. 2 pages)
- Project budget (must be in USD; please fill in budget template)
- List of non-financial mentoring support that the collective/organisation would like (max. 250 words)
All application materials must be submitted in English. If you need any additional information, please do not hesitate to contact project coordinator Nick Yu at unconditionaltrust@aaa.org.hk.
More about Unconditional Trust
Unconditional Trust is a grant-making initiative administered by Asia Art Archive and Para Site, Hong Kong, generously supported by Ms Virginia Yee. Originally conceived as the NoExit Grant for Unpaid Artistic Labour, the grant first responded to the COVID-19 crisis by awarding unrestricted grants to artists dependent on in-person exchanges, events, and projects for their livelihoods. The grant has since evolved to address wider issues of development and sustainability within arts ecosystems. In 2023–24, the grant was renamed to Unconditional Trust, with Unconditional Trust: Indonesia becoming its first full-fledged iteration that awarded a total of eight grants to artists and collectives from Indonesia.