CEC ArtsLink promotes international communication and understanding through collaborative, innovative arts projects for mutual benefit. They support and produce programs that encourage the exchange of visual and performing artists and cultural managers in the United States and 37 countries overseas. As an international organization, they believe that the arts are a society's most deliberate and complex means of communication and that the work of artists and arts administrators can help nations overcome long histories of reciprocal distrust, insularity and conflict.

ArtsLink Residencies offers artists and arts managers from eligible overseas countries a five-week residency at an established, non-profit arts organization in the US. The program is designed to create opportunities for artists and communities across the US to share artistic practices with artists and arts managers from abroad and engage in dialogue that advances understanding across cultures. Host organizations are selected based on an application process open to US non-profit organizations from all fifty US states. Applicants do not need to have contacts with organizations in the US to apply for this program.