03/12/2025
Hello from Upė Foundation!
After months of preparation and eager anticipation, we are delighted to launch a new London-based platform for dialogue and exchange between the Baltic region and art communities internationally. Our work begins with the Curatorial Fellowship Programme, for which we partnered with Hayward Gallery Southbank Centre, Tallinna Kunstihoone and Camden Art Centre to support the next generation of curators across the UK and the Baltic countries.
On 10 December we open the first calls for applications for the fellowships at two major institutions in the UK and the Baltic region, Southbank Centre's Hayward Gallery and Tallinn Art Hall, offering curators 12 to 18 months of full-time work and mentorship within a partner institution. In April 2026, we will open the second round of open calls for a fellowship at the artist-centric and rigorous Camden Art Centre and additional Baltic partner.
The foundation takes its name from the Lithuanian and Latvian word for ‘river’ – upė, evoking movement and exchange of ideas across different contexts. This sense of flow underpins the fellowship model: a channel for young curators to move between ways of working and carry gained insight forward.
Upė launches at a moment when global conversations in culture are becoming more decentralised and new relationships between places are transforming how art is experienced. We believe articulating one’s own context and entering dialogue on equal footing are both an opportunity and a responsibility. We step into this uncertain moment with faith that it holds possibilities for self-determination, transregional collaboration and solidarity.
The Curatorial Fellowship Programme, inaugurating Upė, is our first step in building these bridges, hoping that those who move through them will carry the river’s flow in many unanticipated, unruly directions. London, close to Baltic artists, students and wider diasporas, and to both of us, felt like a natural starting point.
We are truly grateful for all the support we have received so far and could not be more thrilled for what lies ahead and where this river will take all of us.
– Adomas Narkevičius and Justas Janauskas, co-founders, Upė Foundation
