The Olive Network
We started thinking about the words that have perhaps been most neglected in recent times, and the need to return to them, and with resolve…in all their forms and resonances
Now gathering
73 voices connected
Lead story · Arts & Culture
With war ravaging their homeland, the Orchestra of Syrian Musicians has been scattered across the globe. But five years since the violence erupted, the group are reuniting for a cathartic tour – and opening Glastonbury
Arts & Culture·28 June 2025
Film follows Radiohead guitarist and Israeli composer Shye Ben Tzur recording alongside Indian musicians
ON Network · 2 min read
United Nations·19 October 2024
In an ever-evolving world, music has the ability to stand as a timeless catalyst for positive transformation. Beyond notes and rhythms, it carries the potential to bridge divides, stir up feelings and emotions, unlock empathy, shift…
MUSEUM FOR THE UNITED NATIONS · 5 min read
Arts & Culture·1 February 2024
A very special choir presented by Sara Soltani, OLBIOS Correspondent in Austria.
ON Network · 2 min read
International Music And Film·8 November 2023
Beethoven statue in Vienna, Austria. Mitzo/
1 min read
Arts & Culture·7 July 2025
Best-selling Writer and Historian William Dalrymple speaks about Gaza and Palestine, and about Britain's historic responsibility for the situation there. His speech introduced 'A Golden String: William Blake in Words and Music ' which was…
SUSHEELA RAMAN · 1 min read
Arts & Culture·1 December 2025
by Rebecca Gordon and Naomi White • November 2025 • Journal article
BURLINGTON CONTEMPORARY · 34 min read
Climate·17 April 2022
WHO ARE EARTHPERCENT? EarthPercent is a charity providing a simple way for the music industry to support the most impactful organisations addressing the climate emergency. HOW DOES EARTHPERCENT WORK? We want to encourage artists and…
ON Network · 1 min read
Dwelling·12 May 2024
View of WIPO's main building from the Place des Nations. Over 1,000 delegates will attend talks on genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge from 13-24 May.(WIPO/Emmanuel Berrod)
ON Network · 5 min read
Arts & Culture·8 November 2023
The Sphinx Organization is the Detroit-based national organization dedicated to transforming lives through the power of diversity in the arts.
ON Network · 3 min read
International Music And Film·6 November 2023
Olive Network Editors note: I would like to share a recent story about
1 min read
Arts & Culture·27 June 2023
A photo released by the Vatican on Friday showed Pope Francis speaking to artists at a gathering that he hosted in the Sistine Chapel. Credit...Vatican Media, via Reuters
ON Network · 5 min read
Arts & Culture·3 October 2025
Thread is a socio-cultural center with a residency program to allow local and international artists to live and work in Sinthian, a rural village in Tambacounda, the southeastern region of Senegal. It houses two artists’ dwellings, as well…
ON Network · 6 min read
Arts & Culture·8 May 2025
Steve McQueen, Bass , 2024. Installation view, Dia Beacon, New York, May 12, 2024–April 14, 2025. © Steve McQueen. Photograph by Bill Jacobson Studio, New York.
MUBI NOTEBOOK · 11 min read
Climate·8 December 2025
(A shorter version of the following statement was published in The Observer Letters section on 24/5/2020. An e-petition is being set up on the final demand of a Citizens’ Assembly. If you would like to sign the petition please drop me a…
ON Network · 12 min read
Education·8 September 2024
WaterAid/Guilhem Alandry Featured Archive Story SOURCE: WATER AID It's not unlike a scene from a Western. The figure of Souleymane Diallo shimmers through the heat haze as he rides across Samabogo's arid landscape, ready for action. He’s a man with one job to do: keep his town’s water flowing. Soule
1 min read
Arts & Culture·6 November 2023
It took a thunderstorm for Gordon Hempton to truly appreciate quiet. After a visit home to Seattle, Washington in 1980, the then-27-year-old graduate student found himself tiring of the 3,000km+ slog back to his university in Madison,…
ON Network · 19 min read
Charities·19 November 2022
by Nicky Stephens, ShelterBox Digital Marketing & Innovation Manager 16/11/2022
ON Network · 4 min read
Arts & Culture·12 November 2021
Pascal, 53, and Carole, 28, are shepherds. In the month of November 2010, they embark on their long winter transhumance: four months during which they will have to cover 600 km in the Swiss-French region, accompanied by three donkeys, four…
ON Network · 3 min read
New Museum·14 February 2024
Join us for our flagship 2020 summit We Make Tomorrow: Creative climate action in a time of crisis to be at the forefront of an urgent and creative plan for change.
2 min read
Science & Tech·23 November 2023
Tim Berners-Lee, at home in Oxfordshire, England, envisions a framework in which personal online data could be stored in a “pod” that the person controlled. Credit...Lola and Pani for The New York Times
ON Network · 7 min read
Climate·29 October 2023
The Gallery of Ecological Art (formerly China gallery) at the British Museum of Decolonised Nature. Image courtesy John Zhang and Studio JZ, Author provided
ON Network · 15 min read
Arts & Culture·31 July 2022
A dozen years ago, Nana Oforiatta Ayim worked in the Africa department at the British Museum. Since then, the Ghanaian art historian, filmmaker, and writer has been deconstructing the very idea of it—or rather, the very colonial idea of a…
ON Network · 15 min read
Humanitarian·6 June 2022
A woman holding a placard reading 'I'm Russian, I stand with Ukraine' takes part with others in a protest of Russians living in Switzerland against the Russian invasion of Ukraine in Zurich, Switzerland, on Wednesday, May 4, 2022.…
ON Network · 7 min read
Climate·2 January 2022
Responsible investing at Rathbone Investment Management. We see it as our responsibility to invest for everyone’s tomorrow. That means doing the right thing for our clients and for others too. Keeping the future in mind when we make…
ON Network · 6 min read
Climate·30 July 2026
What does systems change actually mean? Watch the fourth video in our global commons e xplainer series , to find out what systems change means, why it’s urgent, and how it actually happens in practice.
GLOBAL COMMONS ALLIANCE · 1 min read
Climate·26 April 2026
“A silent cry about the climate crisis and a penetrating meditation on what life is. A film full of ideas that resonate deeply, told as a penetrating dream that shakes you awake.“
ON Network · 8 min read
Climate·19 January 2026
Tori Tsui is an environmental campaigner, author and advisor from Hong Kong. She is a senior advisor for the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, campaigner for the Stop Rosebank coalition and works across a variety of initiatives within…
TORI TSUI · 1 min read
Climate·16 November 2025
Earth, hessian, oil painting, poetry, voices of reason, ambient sound, scent and Arcadian landscape featuring an imposing structure, abstracted, broken and forgotten, based on the Berlin TV Tower, a symbol of unification.
ON Network · 3 min read
Arts & Culture·24 June 2025
Helinä Piik is sharing her experiences with an outstanding educational system
ON Network · 4 min read
Arts & Culture·20 March 2025
Resiliencia Tlacuache, 2019. © Naomi Rincón Gallardo. Photo: Claudia López Terroso.
E-FLUX · 3 min read
Arts & Culture·31 August 2024
Xirómero/Dryland is a hybrid audio- visual installation that is the result of a collective artistic endeavour. The project’s creative team consists of artists and theorists while the work showcased comprises fragments of research,…
LA BIENNALE DI VENEZIA · 1 min read
Arts & Culture·8 November 2023
The Olive Network Exhibition was scheduled to take place at Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens this summer, but was postponed due to Covid-19 and is now live online to coincide with the launch of the Olive Network. Within the website you will…
ON Network · 4 min read
New Museum·6 November 2023
The director of A Blade of Grass explores how the lockdown era might present an opportunity to change the way the art ecosystem functions.
7 min read
Arts & Culture·6 November 2023
A member of the Kharia tribe in Odisha in Eastern India, Archana Soreng has dedicated her work to collect and document the practices of her community and other tribes in her region. On Wednesday, she spoke at the International Union for…
ON Network · 6 min read
Education·29 October 2023
SOURCE: THE ART NEWSPAPER Going viral, the right way: what it's like running the world’s best museum social media accounts during a pandemic We asked the people behind the Royal Academy’s Twitter, the Met’s Instagram, the Uffizi’s TikTok and the Van Gogh Museum’s Facebook account what 2020 was like
1 min read
Arts & Culture·4 September 2023
In support of shared struggles for equality, social and ecological justice, Art of Internationalism builds from a place-based understanding of the world: one grounded in situated histories, rooted in communities and lands and intimately…
ON Network · 13 min read
Climate·15 May 2023
We have a climate emergency. Regardless of where one stands on this issue – this is our ‘inconvenient truth’ . Yet the power to reach people has never been greater. Close to 3.2 billion people today are online, about 2 billion are from…
ON Network · 11 min read
Arts & Culture·3 January 2023
Currently on view at Park Avenue Armory, the work is a 24-channel installation that also features the Brooklyn Youth Chorus.
ON Network · 3 min read
Climate·23 November 2022
Climate justice collided with political wrangling. The result? Incremental progress.
ON Network · 10 min read
Arts & Culture·11 October 2022
Cecilia Vicuna, Turbine Hall, Tate Modern. Hyundai Commission: Cecilia Vicuña: Brain Forest Quipu Installation View at Tate Modern 2022. Photo © Tate Photography (Sonal Bakrania)
ON Network · 6 min read
Arts & Culture·18 August 2022
Marie-Ange Nouroumby , communication specialist in international development finance
ON Network · 8 min read
Arts & Culture·20 March 2022
Held every year on 21 March, World Poetry Day celebrates one of humanity’s most treasured forms of cultural and linguistic expression and identity. Practiced throughout history – in every culture and on every continent – poetry speaks to…
ON Network · 1 min read
Arts & Culture·10 March 2022
March 9, 2022, 11:46 AM · Violinists across the world have joined together to perform the Ukrainian folk song 'Verbovaya Doschechka' in support of Ukraine.
ON Network · 4 min read
Climate·6 January 2022
Rather more than half of the population of Afghanistan is facing levels of food shortage not seen for decades. Just under 1,500 people died in the Mediterranean during 2021, attempting to flee to a safer environment. The likelihood of…
ON Network · 5 min read
Arts & Culture·5 February 2021
The 2021 UN Year of Creative Economy puts the ‘orange economy’ front and centre at a time when we need creative solutions for the world’s challenges.
ON Network · 4 min read
Climate·25 January 2021
Climate change is upending the world as we know it, and coping with it demands widespread, radical action.
ON Network · 7 min read
New Museum·5 November 2020
Liu Xiaodong, in his painting “Refugees 4” (2015), depicts Syrian refugees at the port of Lesbos gathered together in a moment of rest. A show at the Phillips Collection features 75 artists on migration and displacement. Credit... Liu…
11 min read
Feed · 21/12/2025
The Irish singer-songwriter does what the best musicians do: perfectly crystallising their time while inspirationally taking a stand against it, says Guardian columnist John Harris
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Feed · 06/10/2025
Harry Thorne addresses the practical and conceptual links between the visual art of Peter Doig and the work of various musicians on the occasion of Peter Doig: House of Music at Serpentine, London ...
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Feed · 20/09/2025
What we watch, listen to, and experience every day shapes more than our taste—it shapes our world. In The Shift , UN Live’s thought leaders explore how music, art, media, and even everyday spaces—from stadiums to dinner tables—become stages for stories that connect us, inspire empathy, and spar
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Feed · 24/07/2025
The Estonian composer’s music of simplicity, spirituality – and silence – is universally appealing and enduringly rewarding. We pay tribute ahead of his milestone birthday
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Feed · 30/06/2025
In this ongoing series, the curator Hans Ulrich Obrist has devised a set of thirty-seven questions that invite artists, authors, musicians, and other visionaries to address key elements of their ...
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Feed · 22/06/2025
London music venue Kings Place quietly cut a Lockheed Martin-sponsored event after performers began cancelling shows. Maybe there’s hope for this world after all, writes Simon Childs.
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Feed · 15/03/2025
Das MUSEUM MMK FÜR MODERNE KUNST Frankfurt am Main gehört zu den weltweit bedeutendsten Museen für Gegenwartskunst und hat in seiner vergleichsweise jungen Historie einen festen Platz in der internationalen Museumslandschaft eingenommen.
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Feed · 11/03/2025
His characters – tramps, discarded people, poor people, people on the fringes – are connected with all the people we know of today who are refugees.
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Feed · 26/02/2025
Recordings of empty studios represent impact on musicians of UK’s plans to let AI train on their work without permission
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Feed · 30/07/2024
Emiliano Echeverria and Marcelo Gabriel Yáñez on preserving Cuba’s recorded musical heritage
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Feed · 15/05/2024
Defying narrative, the artist mixes LED lights and colour with ricocheting music inspired by West Africa, resulting in a throbbing show that sucks the air from your lungs
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Feed · 30/03/2024
In the past nine years, the musician and artist has lost two sons – an experience he explores in a shocking, deeply personal new ceramics project. He discusses mercy, forgiveness, making and meaning
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Feed · 06/01/2024
The Future is Sound | Barbican Centre London | 2024 - TICKETS NOW AVAILABLE. At FutureSound we believe that music can change the world - LEARN ABOUT OUR MISSION...
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Feed · 06/11/2023
Unleashing the power of music in service to the planet.
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Feed · 26/06/2023
Music therapy offers a flexible and accessible way of supporting wellbeing and addressing traumatic experiences.
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Feed · 16/05/2023
A very special choir presented by Sara Soltani, OLBIOS Correspondent in Austria.
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Feed · 13/01/2023
Theaster Gates’s first museum survey exhibition, “Young Lords and Their Traces,” is an astonishing compendium of the artist’s multidisciplinary practice.
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Feed · 17/10/2022
Co-founder Julien Lombrail called Ladbroke Hall “a Gesamtkunstwerk.” David Adjaye, Christopher Le Brun, Ingrid Donat, Miche`le Lamy, and Rick Owens are helping bring it to life.
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Feed · 11/07/2022
From songs on the Spanish revolution to others on American Imperialism, Strummer’s lyrics inspired a generation of music-lovers to action.
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Feed · 27/06/2022
SHHH! Museums are often thought of as being quiet spaces, for contemplation and learning. But some museums are embracing the power of music to create...
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Feed · 14/01/2021
The Orchestra of Syrian Musicians: ‘When there is violence, you have to make music` With war..
View in FeedFeed · 10/06/2020
Feed · 10/06/2020
