It is with a heavy heart that we announce that we have ceased publication of The Calvert Journal. Since its founding over 10 years ago, the Calvert 22 Foundation has been committed to exploring and celebrating art and culture in post-Soviet and post-socialist Europe, bringing knowledge and insights about creative figures to an international audience. Although we began doing this through offline events and exhibitions, most recently our operations focused mainly on the publication of The Calvert Journal.
With many colleagues across the region, and with a recent slew of restrictive laws in Russia which target the media, the decision to cease publication of The Calvert Journal was to ensure our staff are protected. We hope to return once there’s greater clarity about the situation.
We oppose the war in Ukraine and will continue to act in a way that ensures our staff and partners in the region remain safe during these difficult times.
A sincere thank you to those of you who have supported us over the years.
With gratitude,
The Calvert Team
Calvert 22 is the UK’s leading cultural institution dedicated to promoting and supporting the new culture of the New East. Situated at the intersection of culture, economics and the arts, Calvert 22 works as a think net, building partnerships and collaborating with international companies and top universities to conduct research and deliver in-depth analysis on the creative industries of the region.
Mission
Our mission is to build opportunities for emerging creative talent in the New East. It is to invest in the skills and experience of young professionals on the cusp of big things, and to facilitate connections, expertise, and experience which will help give them a leg up in their career trajectory. Culture and the arts have the power to change how we live and why we live, and we believe that by giving young creative people in an underreported region the chance to be seen and heard in front of an international audience, they will be able to take an active role in shaping how we see the world, and how the world sees culture.
Calvert 22 Foundation was founded in 2009. The foundation’s address was at 22 Calvert Avenue in Shoreditch in East London for a decade since its founding, where it hosted 53 exhibitions and hundreds of events dedicated to pulling back the curtain on the cultural and creative life in the New East. Before the closure of the exhibition space on Calvert Avenue, the foundation held exhibitions which were often the first of their kind in Europe, and sometimes outside the New East. Some of the most popular exhibitions included Red Africa, Post-Soviet Visions, Close and Far, and Dmitry Prigov: Theatre of Revolutionary Action. The events held at the space were noted for their breadth, inclusiveness, and creativity, and included film screenings, supper clubs, journalism workshops, photography portfolio reviews, and more.
In 2013, the foundation launched a magazine, The Calvert Journal. Now in its 9th year, the Journal is a multi award-winning publication and the world’s leading authority on the culture and visual arts of the New East region. Updated daily, The Calvert Journal publishes features, news, photography, and travel reports, and stands apart for its wealth of original research, striking photography, and clarity of insight on a region that, despite its richness, often goes under-reported.
With an editorial team based in Somerset House, London, and a network of regional contributors from Warsaw to Vladivostok, the Journal seeks to bring context and insight to the places, people and creative projects of the region. The Calvert Journal started with a Russia-only focus, broadening out to cover the 29 countries of the New East in 2016.
At the start of 2019, the foundation closed its dedicated exhibition space in Shoreditch, moving its headquarters to Somerset House. Increasing our global partnerships, we continue to contribute to the field of the arts and give opportunities to creatives from the New East to be seen and heard worldwide.
Board of Trustees
Nigel Nicholson
Director, trustee
Dominic Sanders
Director, trustee
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