Sanctuary of Creation’s Founder Serena Marija Selected as Fellow for “Art & AI: Creating Futures for Tomorrow’s Narratives” by Arts Council Malta

We are proud to announce that Serena Marija,the founder & director of Sanctuary of Creation, has been selected as one of 50 participants for Salzburg Global Seminar’s renowned Fellowship in “Art & AI: Creating Futures for Tomorrow’s Narratives”, supported by Arts Council Malta from May 6-10, 2024 at Schloss Leopoldskron, Salzburg, Austria.

This highly selective international fellowship brings together 50 artists, technologists, and cultural architects from over 25 countries to explore the critical intersections between artificial intelligence, ethics, cultural diversity, and future narrative formation. In an era where machine-generated content is no longer speculative but embedded in daily life,from generative design tools to voice assistants, predictive algorithms to synthetic media, this programme seeks to ask the deeper questions: What future are we training these machines to reproduce? Who gets to author tomorrow’s stories?

At the heart of this enquiry is the recognition that creativity and criticality are essential to AI governance, and that artists are not simply passive users of technology—but active co-designers of its evolution. The five focal areas of the programme—human–AI relationships, creative intelligence, ethical frameworks, inclusion, and Indigenous narratives, invite Fellows to reimagine the role of AI through lenses that challenge dominant techno-capitalist paradigms.

Serena Marija’s work is uniquely aligned with this mission. Through Sanctuary of Creation, she has developed pioneering neuroaesthetic and immersive systems that leverage AI not for novelty, but for emotional intelligence, civic activation, and collective healing. Her practice integrates speculative design with rigorous interdisciplinary research, probing the edges of cognition, mythology, and consciousness in a data-driven world.

Her selection recognises a growing global need for alternative imaginaries and critical engagement with AI’s cultural, psychological, and political implications. As a Fellow, Serena will contribute to shaping inclusive approaches to AI development that do not merely replicate existing structures, but offer visionary alternatives rooted in equity, empathy, and multidimensional intelligence.

Salzburg Global’s “Art & AI” fellowship creates space not only for artistic experimentation but for the strategic alignment of culture with global policy, industry, and technological ethics. It responds to a moment where the livelihoods of creatives, the sovereignty of cultural narratives, and the future of knowledge itself are increasingly shaped by opaque, commercial AI systems, many of which are trained on human creativity without consent or compensation.

By participating in this global forum, Serena joins a vanguard of practitioners who are not only questioning the ethics of machine learning but actively prototyping responsible, regenerative frameworks for the future of AI, ones that centre diverse worldviews, honour memory, and cultivate imaginative resilience.

We extend our deepest gratitude to Arts Council Malta for supporting this significant milestone and for enabling Malta’s creative voices to contribute meaningfully to international movements that are defining the next frontier of human–machine co-evolution.

This was much more than a fellowship. It was a call to shape the soul of the digital age.