Hello World

Faced with the COVID-19 crisis, the need for social distancing, travel restrictions and reduced contact with others, Mary Sherman grew concerned about the isolation, loss and fear resulting from the pandemic’s decrease in our usual sources of solace – connecting with others, the arts and exchanges of all kinds. Thus, Hello World was born. Mary and TransCultural Exchange’s webmaster, the artist Rudi Punzo, with help from TransCultural Exchange’s board member Susan Cohen, contacted artists around the globe to participate in Hello World.

Hello World extends the reach of local gestures of kindness during the pandemic – such as the Italian balcony singers – to a global level in the hope of offering an antidote to the rising nationalism, discrimination and other extremist tendencies that often occur when people feel scared, stressed and alone.

For this project nearly 250 artists, working in Europe, Africa, Asia, the Americas and Australia came together to offer the world examples of their work to create a virtual travelogue through the world of art.

In addition, Hello World gathered venues (galleries, concert halls, theaters, residencies, cultural centers in more than 70 locations, approximately a third of world’s countries) who agreed to link Hello World‘s website to theirs. In this way, the venues helped share and exchange the project’s content with each other and were provided with ready-made cross-cultural programming for their patrons. Also, their participation addressed these venues’ current need for increased website visibility for what is, for most during this crisis, their most viable programming platform.

With the mere click of a mouse, stay-at-home voyagers can now collaborate with art projects around the globe, listen to sound works from a mix of cultures, browse galleries of contemporary artists’ works and take in movies and dance pieces from around the world.

A complete archive of TransCultural Exchange’s Hello World is available here.