BE OPEN Art, an online gallery set up by Elena Baturina’s humanitarian think-tank BE OPEN,
continues to run BE OPEN Regional Art, the regional competition for emerging artists aimed to
support those whose art best represents their regional, cultural and ethnic identities.
Throughout 2024, the BE OPEN expert community will continue selecting those artists who
best represent the artistic tradition of a certain region to feature in the BE OPEN Art gallery and
offer them greater visibility.
The fourth stage of the second year of the programme run will cover the countries of
Southern Africa: Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swa
ziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
The stage will traditionally last three months, and the regional winner for Southern Africa will be
announced and awarded 500 euro at the end of December 2024. In the meantime, artworks by
20 emerging artists from the listed countries will be posted at the online gallery every month,
and a public vote will select the Regional Artist of the Month. At the end of the stage, one of the
monthly winners will become the Artist of the Region, based on the amount of votes by the
public and the BE OPEN art community members.
The regional competition runs alongside the regular ongoing work of BE OPEN Art, whose
experts every month select 20 new artists for the gallery, using online voting to name the Artist
of the Month and the Artist of the Year.
Aiming to support emerging talent, BE OPEN Art selects artists at an early stage of their career
who emphasize social consciousness and aesthetical solutions to the wrongs of the
contemporary world. The project sees its mission in looking for new influencers in the art scene,
and invites everyone to contribute.
BE OPEN is a global initiative to foster creativity and innovation, a think-tank whose mission
is to promote people and ideas today to build solutions for tomorrow. It is a cultural and
social initiative supported by Austria-based international philanthropist and businessperson
Elena Baturina.