The Rolex Mentor And Protégé Arts Initiative
Mentors and protégés named for 2018–2019
Four of the world’s most distinguished artists − Sir David Adjaye (architecture), Zakir Hussain (music), Crystal Pite (dance) and Colm Toíbín (literature) − have each chosen an outstanding young talent for a period of creative exchange and personal inspiration, made possible through the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative.
The multidisciplinary philanthropic programme, established by Rolex, seeks out highly talented artists in the early stages of their careers and brings them together with recognized leaders in their fields for a year or more of open-ended collaboration, so that artistry at the highest level can be transmitted across the generations.
In the mentoring period that spans 2018 and 2019, Ghana-born British
architect David Adjaye has chosen to work with Mariam Kamara, 38, Niger; Indian musician Zakir Hussain with Marcus Gilmore, 31, United States; Canadian choreographer Crystal Pite with Khoudia Touré, 31, Senegal; and New York-based Irish writer Colm Toíbín with Colin Barrett, 35, Ireland. The mentor-protégé pairs are free within this period to schedule their times and places of interaction according to their particular needs.
From this year, the Rolex Arts Initiative mentorships will address disciplines in alternating periods. In 2018–2019 mentorships will take place in architecture, dance, literature and music. In 2020–2021 the programme will address film, theatre, visual arts and a variable eighth mentorship. In this expansion of the programme, the variable mentorship will take place in other fields of the arts and will be multidisciplinary; it will be announced in 2020.
Rolex also said that protégés who have completed their mentorships will become known as Rolex fellows who will be invited to apply to a collaboration fund for joint projects. Through the fund, Rolex is acknowledging the bond that has formed with many of the past fellows who have become a global community, diverse in their ages and disciplines but united by their experience of the Rolex Arts Initiative. In encouraging former protégés’ desire to create new work together, the fund recognizes that much exciting new work now happens between disciplines and beyond the traditional framework of a single artistic area.