Promoting Contemporary Creation as a Driver of Human Progress

The AXA Foundation for Human Progress fosters contemporary creation through major partnerships with the Aix-en-Provence and Avignon Festivals as well as the Villa Albertine

Across these initiatives La FabricA in Avignon, the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, and Villa Albertine, the AXA Foundation for Human Progress pursues one same goal: to make contemporary creation a catalyst for understanding, dialogue, and transformation.

By acting as an incubator, we invest in structuring venues, support long-term programs rather than one-off events, encourage cross-border and cross-disciplinary collaboration, and promote broad access to artistic innovation.

Through these strategic partnerships, we reaffirm our commitment to contemporary creation as a key condition for meaningful and sustainable human progress.

Festival d’Avignon - La FabricA: A Space to Invent the Theater of Tomorrow

In 2026, for the third time, we are Lead partner of the Festival d’Avignon (July 4–25) and Major Patron of La FabricA, the Festival’s only permanent venue.

The partnership supports a dedicated space for research and production, where artists can develop their work before public performances, in a venue open year-round and environmentally exemplary.

Both an artists’ residence and a full-scale rehearsal stage mirroring the Cour d’Honneur at the Palais des Papes, La FabricA is a laboratory for new aesthetics and innovative relationships with text, space, and audiences—fully aligned with the Foundation’s role as an incubator for contemporary theater.

Festival d’Aix-en-Provence: Shaping the 21st-Century Opera Repertoire

Since 1948, the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence has been a leading European opera festival, welcoming about 70,000 spectators and presenting works from Baroque to contemporary repertoire, alongside recitals and concerts.

By supporting the Festival from 2025 to 2027, we help renew operatic language, rethink the relationship between works, audiences, and venues, and contribute to the 21st‑century opera repertoire.

Under the vision of Pierre Audi, the Festival combines international artistic excellence with multidisciplinary experimentation. The Academy and the Mediterranean Youth Orchestra serve as laboratories where young artists develop projects at the crossroads of cultures—an ecosystem we are committed to nurturing.

Villa Albertine: a Transatlantic Bridge for Contemporary Creation

With Villa Albertine in New York, we support a key platform for Franco-American cultural and intellectual exchange. The Villa hosts artists, writers, researchers, and cultural professionals, giving them time and space to create and connect.

The partnership is rooted in Étant Donnés, a flagship contemporary art program that, over more than 30 years, has supported over 700 artists, 50 curators, and 350 projects in 87 cities across France and the United States.

In its first year, the partnership also enabled a collective residency in Marfa, Texas, where researchers and intellectuals spent a month reflecting on major contemporary issues such as migration and environmental change - illustrating our vision of contemporary creation as a tool for inquiry and critical reflection.