Welcome to Creative Scotland’s round-up of international opportunities and information, put together by Kate Deans, Creative Scotland’s International Officer.
In this blog, we cover:
Remember that our Creative Scotland Opportunities site is the main resource for events, workshops, funding calls and more, and you can filter by ‘International’ there.
With Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival swiftly on the horizon, and the programmes and tickets released for the August festivals, we’re pleased to announce that Momentum is back for 2022!
Momentum is a long-running international delegate programme delivered jointly by Festivals Edinburgh, British Council Scotland and Creative Scotland, which aims to build international relationships and cultivate collaborative opportunities, and runs for the last week of July and throughout the month of August.
As in previous years a wide range of delegates will be attending Momentum: Culture Ministers, government officials, heads of creative agencies, independent producers, festival directors, cross-artform programmers, curators, policymakers, venue managers, cultural entrepreneurs, representatives from national and regional arts agencies, and more.
The Literature and Visual Arts delegations for 2022 are already announced as they took part in online discussions last year, with a preview of the country-specific delegations being shared at a briefing session on Tuesday 28 June. View a recording of the session.
If you’re interested in taking part in Momentum activity this year, get in touch with Festivals Edinburgh to register your interest.
Showcase Scotland is bringing Scottish music to some of the largest folk festivals in Germany, Finland, Denmark and Belgium from now until December.
The activity kicks off with Rudolstadt Festival in Germany (8-10 July) and Kaustienen Festival in Finland (11-17 July). At Rudolstadt there will be Duncan Chisholm, Fara and Manran featured, with BBC Radio Scotland broadcasting and acts being recorded for European Broadcasting Union radio shows. This is just the beginning of other activities across Germany in 2022, including a festival of Scottish music in partnership with Scottish Government in Berlin in December.
A few days later, Blaizin Fiddles and Talisk will appear at Kaustienen Festival in Finland (11-17 July) as part of a two-year mini focus on Scotland and our artists.
We’ll then see huge presences in Belgium and Denmark, with eight bands featured in Dranouter Festival and 11 artists in Tønder Festival in August.
Fringe Connect, Edinburgh Fringe Society’s online platform, hosts a three-part programme with respected thinkers, word-warriors, change makers and creators from Canada, Australia and Aotearoa.
Beginning with The Call (available to watch online anytime until 5 July) and followed by two conversations (Part 1 on 5 July and Part 2 on 6 July both at 9pm BST), join a deconstruction of the ‘colonial project’ and an imagining of what could have been. Each session is precluded by a film by a spoken word artist.
Our next coffee morning is Tuesday 5 July, with Paula from CVAN Contemporary Visual Arts Network as our guest contributor. On the first Tuesday of every month at 9.30-10.30am, Arts Infopoint UK holds informal coffee mornings to bring together UK-based arts and creative professionals to share cross-border challenges, plans and ambitions, as we navigate the constantly shifting terrain of working internationally currently.
More recently we’ve been hearing about significant delays of over six weeks processing times for visa applications coming into the UK; as well as insights into increased freight costs. More broadly we’ve had discussions including topics such as joined up touring and sources of funding for international working. Book your place now on any of the upcoming 2022 sessions.
From 18 to 20 July, and online/hybrid on 21 July, The Creativity World Forum 2022 gathers together the network of Districts of Creativity, and invites discussion on the new challenges for the creativity industries. The programme features themes such as Sustainable Digital Innovation, AI, Smart Cities, Virtual Spaces, Start-Ups, as well as space for discussion around Games, Fashion, Architecture and more.
In collaboration with British Council, Dancebase is turning Studio 2 into a space for promoters and presenters from around the world to connect with artists from the country showcases of theatre and dance across the whole Edinburgh Festival Fringe. With a programme of events, a British Council Trade Fair and a space to rest and recharge, this space is invitation-only, to keep it a place of focused networking and discussion.
If you have someone you’d like to nominate who is in Edinburgh during August and looking for work to present, you can contact the Dancebase team.
Fringe Central is to be located at a brand-new location at St James Quarter, very close to Waverley station and on the route of the Fringe’s newly revamped street event circuit. Here, arts industry and artists will be able to access all the usual Fringe support services (including Arts Industry and Media offices, and the Artist Development team), and the full Fringe Central events programme of aroune 30 discussions, meetups and networking opportunities.
If you’re taking part in the Fringe, make sure you accredit with the Arts Industry Office and tell them that you’ll be in town.
Publishing Scotland has opened the new round of translation funding for 2022. The purpose of the fund is to support publishers based outside the United Kingdom with the payment of translation fees to translate Scottish writers.
Priority is given to the translation of contemporary literature, including fiction, non-fiction, poetry, writing for children, and graphic novels. Assessment criteria include the merit of the work to be translated, financial need of the publisher, track record of publisher and translator, and the proposed marketing plan.
Round one of 2022/23 is open for applications until Monday 22 August 2022.
The Arts Explora – Académie des beaux-arts European Award is a leading award championing new dialogues between arts and audiences. Open to all non-profit European cultural organisations, the European Award encourages new forms of audience engagement and participation in arts and culture, supporting innovative projects, across all art forms, that can be shared, replicated and scaled across Europe.
Three prizes of €50,000 each and one Audience Choice award of €10,000 is available, and this runs alongside a platform for sharing and disseminating best practices and an annual gathering. Deadline is 31 August, with the award ceremony in December.
Read more on the Art Explora website.
Since 2006 the British Council has run a well-established UK-China Connections through Culture (CtC) programme, which enables over 400 cultural professionals in China and the UK to see one another's work, exchange skills and co-develop projects.
CtC offers Professional Development Grants with a value of £2,500 to enable artists or members of arts organisations to work with their counterparts in China or the UK, and Alumni Grants for CtC alumni to further facilitate collaboration and partnerships. Applications open 27 October 2022, with a deadline of 27 November 2022.
Introduced by the European Cultural Foundation (ECF) in 2020, the Culture of Solidarity Fund was originally set up as a corona-response mechanism for pan-European cultural initiatives.
Today, with pooled resources from a group of European co-funders, the Culture of Solidarity Fund was relaunched as a pan-European effort at the beginning of the war in Ukraine to respond to local cultural emergency needs. After an initial phase of cultural emergency relief, the Fund is now open to individuals, collectives and organisations from all sectors and civil society at large that propose short-term or mid-term European cultural initiatives in the following three areas: counteracting disinformation, misinformation and propaganda filter bubbles; providing and nourishing safe cultural spaces for individuals feeling their homes and look for shelter; counteracting forces of fragmentation through artistic and cultural expressions. Read more on the European Cultural Foundation website.
A series of calls have opened in March under Horizon Europe, the EU’s Research and Innovation funding programme, covering important topics like climate adaptation and resilience, health, sustainable rail system, clean energy technologies and many others, including at least a couple of calls with a focus on culture and the arts. More here
Open throughout the year, Scottish Books International’s Author International Travel Fund is available to Scottish writers who have been invited overseas to promote their work. Applicants can apply for a maximum of £1000 to support travel costs towards their trip. There are no deadlines, and applications are accepted each quarter as long as there is budget left, taking around four to five weeks to turnaround. Since re-opening the fund in February, Scottish Books International has supported 18 Scottish writers already, and you can check the Featured Authors on their website.
Creative Scotland and British Council Scotland publish a new report on Wednesday 6 July on Scotland’s arts and cultural assets: ‘To See Ourselves’ and ‘As Others See Us’.
Creative Scotland and British Council Scotland have worked in partnership for over ten years to identify and invest in strategic initiatives and multi-year programmes that further international cultural relations and help create new opportunities for the Scottish arts sector. Experiencing first-hand the level of sector engagement with these programmes, it would be easy to take for granted how international the Scottish arts and cultural sector is in its outlook and sense of place in the world, but the pandemic forced us all to pause and helped inform the final brief for this report.
Our aim is for the report to be widely used by those here in Scotland with an interest in the internationalisation of the sector, and internationally by those interested in or yet to discover Scotland. It is a resource to help national campaigns and a practical tool to inform, spark curiosity and support engagement with a diverse range of international stakeholders, including governments, policy and funding bodies, and art professionals and organisations.
The link to the report will be shared here when available.
CVAN Contemporary Visual Arts Network, England and a-n The Artists Information Company publish ‘International Connections: The impact of the UK departure from the European Union on the Visual Arts Sector’, a report by BOP Consulting, funded by Arts Council England.
Based on in-depth interviews with 25 visual artists and visual arts professionals, the report gathers insights about the impact of the UK leaving the EU on the visual arts sector. Interviewees reported four main areas where their artistic practices, businesses or institutions have faced challenges: increased costs; limited access to talent and talent development opportunities; perceptions of the UK; lack of information (or costs relating to obtaining information) on new procedures. The report also calls for a series of actions and initiatives to mitigate these challenges.
We’re pleased to share with you the brand-new Arts Infopoint UK Visa Guide, launched by Arts Infopoint UK, a collaboration between the four nations’ art councils and agencies. This comprehensive guide aims to help international artists and cultural professionals navigate the UK immigration system and guides them through the visa options available to them when planning a visit to the UK for work purposes. This guide is also useful for UK-based venues and hosts looking to invite artists to the UK for work purposes. This guide was co-drafted by legal professionals; however, it does not constitute legal advice.
At the same time, we’ve also launched a refreshed website at https://artsinfopointuk.com We’ll be continuing to develop our website over the next few months and welcome your valuable feedback. For updates from Arts Infopoint UK, sign up to the newsletter.
See our previous July update for a summary of the working groups and who is taking part in discussions.
Voices of Culture is a series of focused discussions around different themes, convened by the European Commission, each time with a different group of stakeholders and cultural practitioners from across Europe in the mix.
The structured discussions are then compiled and summarised into a report of findings, giving a snapshot of best practice examples and recommendations on the issue. This new report focuses on International Cultural Relations.
Mariya Gabriel’s June update included the ongoing European Year of Youth, with Eurobarometer publishing new annual data relating to Youth and Democracy. The Faroe Islands also signed an association agreement with the EU on its participation in Horizon Europe.
Creative Scotland, in collaboration with people and organisations from across the culture sector in Scotland, and with the support of Scottish Government, launches a new initiative aimed at promoting the value that art and creativity contributes to all our lives.
With a dedicated website at its centre, Our Creative Voice is a new platform for demonstrating the tangible benefits that art and creativity contribute to our lives.
Several case studies, such as North Lands Creative, show the way in which international working can weave into and enrich local activity, and be sure to share your own stories too!
And finally, here are some core sources of information on international working:
Don’t forget that all events, workshops and funding opportunities can be found if you filter by ‘International’ on Creative Scotland’s Opportunities website.
