NICA - Artstream Myanmar

NICA is an independent not-for-profit resource development centre for culture and the arts located in Yangon. Established in early 2003 , NICA has 2 main objectives:

(1) to identify and support those aspects of arts and cultural practices within Myanmar that are in need of resource-building to facilitate their development and

(2) to facilitate access and exchanges between Myanmar arts and cultural practitioners with counterparts, organizations and opportunities outside Myanmar.

Office , resource and reference library, archive, exhibition and activity spaces, IT training capacity, studio space, kitchen, accommodation for artists and writers-in-residence.

NICA's programmes are divided into 3 categories: Residency, Research & Development and Training Programmes within Myanmar/Burma; International Networking and Resource-sharing Programmes and General Programmes/ Services .

In order to address the lack of contact, interaction and access on the part of Myanmar art and cultural practitioners with and to their counterparts, information, knowledge and opportunities from outside the country, one of NICA's primary objectives is to facilitate exchange, collaboration, networking and resource-sharing between Myanmar arts and cultural practitioners with those from neighbouring regions and internationally. We encourage and actively invite local and international artists, writers, historians, educators and organisers to come into Myanmar to share knowledge and resources, and to engage in creative exchanges and collaborations with Myanmar artists, writers and cultural participants.

NICA seeks to connect the Myanmar practitioner to the various discourses, activities, practices and organizations outside. To begin with, NICA is focusing on creating regional networks for artistic and intellectual exchange and discourse, primarily within the South Asian, Southeast Asian and Mekong regions.

Writing Big Books for Children workshop by Suchen Christine Lim, novelist & curriculum developer from Singapore. Sept 2003

Myanmar artist Pe Nyunt Way, on exchange residency in Cambodia, giving a drawing workshop at Reyum Art School.

NICA has been hosting residency programmes for foreign artists and cultural workers since 2003. Due to the downsizing of our facilities, from 2006 onwards, we are no longer able to provide accomodation and studio space to our resident artists. For all our visiting artists, we continue to provide an office with facilities, a library and activity room, organisational, coordination and administrative support. This transition is also more in line with the constrains of local conditions. With our assistance, artists will be accomodated at an accomodation of their choice or at budget hotels/ guesthouses allocated for foreigners at discounted or subsidised rates. Costs for accomodation will need to be covered by artists' funding organisations.

In line with our objective of nurturing resource development for arts and cultural practices, NICA supports the research and development processes of art making through residency, discussions, workshops and research grants; as well as the writing, translation and publishing of art and cultural studies and research by Myanmar arts practitioners, writers and researchers.

NICA also offers training schemes, internships and informal education programmes to contribute to the building of broad based organizational support structures and skills for the development of arts and cultural practices. These include project management and organizational skills, IT skills, writing, curatorial, marketing and other such professional skills and knowledge. We also offer creative programmes for young people which enables them to express themselves creatively through drawing, painting, photography, video and literary writings.

NICA's programmes have been sponsored by : Prince Claus Fund, Netherlands ; Japan Foundation Asia Center ; LEE Foundation, Singapore ; Arts Network Asia; Singapore International Foundation; Asian Cultural Council

NICA welcomes interested parties to contact us about possible collaborations and participation in our programmes, as well as contributions and donations in all forms for our various facilities, programmes and activities. Please direct all enquiries and correspondence to nica@mail2art.com

NICA is an extension of the project Collaboration, Networking and Resource-sharing: Myanmar , initiated by IFIMA (International Forum for Intermedia Art), following more than 5 years of research and networking carried out by IFIMA in Myanmar. NICA has the objective of being instituted as a local NGO . In the first 2 years, IFIMA has undertaken the local staff training and running of NICA's programmes.