Sustaining international cultural exchange

Published: 27 Nov 2023

Further funding for international cultural exchange and collaboration has been awarded to 39 new projects in a second round of the Four Nations International Fund.

EVA performers of Where Our Shadows Meet, photography by Michael Smith.

They bring together 60 partners from across the four UK nations and 50 international partners across 25 different countries, from Portugal to Lebanon; Norway to Nigeria; and Canada to Bosnia & Herzegovina.

Appetite for working internationally across England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales remains strong as applications increased significantly in this new round of the fund. This crucial investment of £315,765 from Creative Scotland, Arts Council England, Arts Council Northern Ireland and Arts Council of Wales/Wales Arts International enables individual artists and arts organisations, across the four UK nations and internationally, to share, connect and learn from each other in new ways.

The activity covers a wide range of artforms, backgrounds and geographies. Awards include: women of colour revolutionising nature writing, unearthing queer lives and histories across the isles, telling the stories of young people growing up in conflict, and d/Deaf and disabled artistic practices in minority languages, to name a few project themes.

A selection of projects receiving funding include:

Alycia Pirmohamed, recent winner of the Nan Shepherd Prize 2023, is leading Fieldnotes Collective from Scotland.  Connecting with contemporaries in England and Germany including poet Alycia, author Jessica J. Lee, poet Pratyusha and writer Nina Mingya Powles, they’re looking to break new ground in the nature writing genre.

Fieldnotes Collective authors Alycia Pirmohamed, Jessica J. Lee, Pratyusha and Nina Mingya Powles, images courtesy of those pictured.

Fieldnotes Collective said: “As nature writers with similar interests, co-creating in different ways over the years, the four of us have long admired each other's work.  Receiving this funding provides us with an exciting opportunity to develop our writing in tandem, across borders and for new audiences, challenging us to reimagine what our creative practices can be.”

This will produce a series of online nature writing workshops as well as a collaborative work of inter-genre nonfiction and poetry reimagining the role of the narrator in environmental writing, traditionally associated with men, exploring how colonial histories have shaped ecological literature.

Based in Northern Ireland, Our Queer Isles: Unearthing the Ancestors, delves into queer histories within the isle nations of England, Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland.  Three extraordinary artists, poet Cat Brogan, storyteller Rachel Rose Reid and musician Branwen Kavanagh will shine a light on the often-obscured queer narratives of the past, culminating in a live performance hosted at Strule Arts Centre in partnership with Omagh Pride. Seamlessly blending their creative input across storytelling, poetry and music, they’ll encapsulate the legacy of queer lives who came before in a powerful narrative that will resonate with audiences, inspire conversations, creativity and a greater understanding of queer heritage.

Our Queer Isles performers: Branwen Kavanagh, Cat Brogan (image by Alexander Radu), and Rachel Rose Reid.

Project lead, Cat Brogan said: “This grant will afford us the time and space to collaborate as multidisciplinary artists in a performance piece that blends music, storytelling, spoken word, myth, characters, research and reimagining to shed light on untold queer stories.  I am delighted to welcome Rachel and Branwen to my hometown in collaboration with Omagh Pride, centering new work with queer themes in a rural context.”

In England, theatre company Fake Escape will work with the War Childhood Museum in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kabosh Theatre and MAC Theatre in Belfast, Northern Ireland, to explore the positive resilience of young people growing up in war and conflict for a documentary theatre work called Innocence Unbroken.  They will be exploring the parallels between children growing up in environments of conflict in Belfast during ‘The Troubles’ and in the 1992-95 Bosnian War.

Fake Escape Artistic Director, David Shopland said: “Fake Escape has been growing as an outward looking, international theatre company for the last several years, and this grant not only allows us to build networks and connections with international partners to tell these stories with authenticity and sensitivity, but also to explore a new way of making theatre for us; being led by a research gathering interview process as opposed to starting work with a finalised idea."

Immersing themselves in over 300 hours of oral history interviews as well as exhibits and the network of the War Childhood Museum, then taking this material to Belfast theatre companies, they’ll begin to build a theatrical piece emphasising a sense of play and innocence in the story of these young people.

Playwright and writer, Kaite O’Reilly in Wales, Ramesh Meyyappan in Scotland and Equal Voices Arts in Aotearoa, New Zealand, are creating international discussion and forming part of Equal Voices Arts’ accessible training programme for the Deaf community in Aotearoa.  Fully inclusive for d/Deaf people, it will allow them to access training in theatre, dance, physical storytelling, bilingual and bicultural performances, all accessible to d/Deaf and hearing audiences.  Taking place over several months of hybrid workshops, theatre maker Ramesh Meyyappan and Kaite O’Reilly will have the opportunity to connect culturally and linguistically both Māori and Pākehā Deaf contexts, and Equal Voices Arts’ approaches to bilingual and bicultural work from indigenous perspectives.

Equal Voices Arts’ Artistic Director, Laura Haughey said: “We deeply appreciate this opportunity to bring together an international team of artists from across the globe for this important multi-layered and multi-directional exchange of knowledge and practice.  This innovative exchange will take place in intercultural contexts where much will be explored, shared and learnt from each other as well as together.”

Creative Scotland manages the Fund’s application process for the four nations’ art councils and agencies. On the partnership’s behalf, Dana MacLeod, Executive Director of Arts, Communities and Inclusion at Creative Scotland said: “This second round of the Four Nations International Fund has made possible new and exciting initiatives for artists in the UK and around the world to connect, exchange and collaborate.

“The 39 projects demonstrate a strong diversity of cultures, practise and perspectives highlighting the positive effect arts and culture can have on communities globally.

“Coming together as agencies and funders to share resources and knowledge enables a much broader reach and impact for our artists and audiences.  We can also tackle important issues and challenges facing artists and practitioners around the world.”

Explore the full list of recipients

Background

Up to £7,500 was available to applicants from a budget of £320,000, including £28,000 allocated for Access Costs to support any accessibility requirements removing barriers to application.

Creative Scotland is the public body that supports the arts, screen and creative industries across all parts of Scotland distributing funding provided by the Scottish Government and The National Lottery. Further information at creativescotland.com. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Learn more about the value of art and creativity in Scotland and join in at www.ourcreativevoice.scot

Arts Council England is the national development agency for creativity and culture. We have set out our strategic vision in Let’s Create that by 2030 we want England to be a country in which the creativity of each of us is valued and given the chance to flourish and where everyone of us has access to a remarkable range of high-quality cultural experiences. From 2023 to 2026 we will invest over £467 million of public money from Government and an estimated £250 million from The National Lottery each year to help support the sector and to deliver this vision.

The Arts Council of Northern Ireland is the lead funding and development agency for the Arts providing support to arts projects throughout the region, through its Treasury and The National Lottery funds.  Our funding enables artists and arts organisations to increase access to the arts across society and deliver great art that is within everyone’s reach.

Wales Arts International is the in-house international agencyof the Arts Council of Wales, thepublic body responsible for funding and developing the arts in Wales. Further information at wai.org.uk and arts.wales. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram

Media contacts

Creative Scotland

Jacqueline Munro, Media & PR Officer

T: +44 (0)141 302 1708

M: +44 (0) 7967 822 266

Arts Council England

Nathan Dean

[email protected]

Wales Arts International, Arts Council of Wales

Siwan Dafydd

[email protected]

Arts Council of Northern Ireland

Angela Warren, Media Relations and Communications Officer

[email protected]

+44 (0) 7733 227 187

Four Nations International Fund recipients 2023/24

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