Nine awardees have been announced for the Spotlight on Culture UK/France 2024 Fund. Established and delivered by the British Council in partnership with Creative Scotland, the fund aims to spark new and refresh existing connections between Northern Ireland, Scotland and France, supporting collaborations that build long-term relationships between artists, creative practitioners, and arts and cultural organisations.
The £155k fund (£105K for Scottish projects and £50K for Northern Irish projects) is part of the programme Spotlight on Culture UK/France 2024 - Together We Imagine, led by the British Council France. It will be a celebration of Franco-British artistic co-creation and cultural partnerships, taking place as France is in the international spotlight as host of the Paris 2024 Olympic & Paralympic Games, and their Cultural Olympiad. The selected projects cover a range of artforms.
Belfast choreographer Oona Doherty is thrilled about receiving the grant:
“I just moved on my own from Northern Ireland to Marseille. I wrote a physical play about Belfast and grief. Thank you for supporting me, it is a push to keep me going! Felt like home was coming with me on this journey.”
Patsy Horton, Arts& Cultural programmer at The Linen Hall says:
"The Linen Hall is delighted to have the Centre Culturel Irlandais as a partner on this project and to be collaborating with the Poetry Jukebox, run by Northern Ireland company Quotidian. We’re incredibly excited that this multilingual curation will be launched to the public at the prestigious Etonnants Voyageurs festival in St Malo and will then make its way to the Centre Culturel in Paris. This creative journey, with its beginnings in nineteenth-century Belfast, demonstrates the enduring connections between Northern Ireland and France and the new collaborations that this award is making possible."
Jonathan Stewart, Director, British Council Northern Ireland, added:
“We are delighted to support three major Northern Ireland-France creative partnerships during the UK/France Spotlight, particularly during the year of the Cultural Olympiad as well as British Council's 80th Anniversary in France.
“The UK/France Spotlight projects will help maintain vital links between our countries, and will support the opportunity for creatives across both countries to connect, collaborate and form lasting relationships. We’re excited to follow the work of the grantees and to bring the work of both Northern Ireland and France to new audiences”.
Rhona Matheson, CEO of Starcatchers, is thrilled to be receiving the grant, saying:
"Little Top will transport you to a playful, joyous, upside down, topsy-turvy world where people can fly, patterns fill the air and anything is possible. We are delighted to present our award-winning show, a co-production with SUPERFAN, at Festival Premières Rencontres. This is an opportunity to strengthen our partnership with Compagnie ACTA, fresh from our collaboration on international project, Arts & Early Childhood. The presentation of this work will allow us to continue working together to explore best practice in arts for early years on a European scale. We are very grateful to the British Council's Spotlight on Culture UK/France 2024 Fund for this invaluable opportunity."
A list of all the successful projects is included below.
Northern Ireland
- Choreographer Oona Doherty and Ballet Preljocaj will collaborate on Oona’s new production, with a premiere at Pavillon Noir in Aix-en-Provence in Autumn 24. Inspired by Northern Irish mythology, this new piece will mix dance, theatre, and performance, offering opportunities to forge links with a range of new partners, venues and co-producers. The project will also include workshops in schools in Aix-en-Provence and the surrounding area.
- A Poetry Jukebox curation inspired by The Linen Hall’s Robert McAdam Comparative Lexicon will commission and showcase new work – 10 new poems and 10 translations, mainly from Northern Ireland (English-and Irish-speaking), but also include poets from France (and poems in Breton). A collaboration with Quotidian, who run the Poetry Jukebox project, will feature a tour and public readings at Etonnants Voyageurs Festival in Saint Malo in May 2024 and at Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris.
- The collaboration between Outburst Art and Festival Transform involves co-presentation and workshops between two queer arts organisations in Northern Ireland and France. The project includes a major public performance and engagement programme at Festival Transform in Marseille July 2024, with ongoing mentoring and organisational development support.
Scotland
- A co-production between Cryptic and Station Mir for a first collaboration between artists Alex Smoke (sound and music) from Scotland and Paul Duncombe (digital art) from France. Exploring the endangered natural heritage of our coral reefs, the project will cross music, digital arts, biology and the environmental emergency with poetic exploration and ecological claim. The project will be presented at Festival ]interstice[ in Caen (May to August 2024) and Sonica Festival in Glasgow (September 2024).
- A first collaboration between Glasgow International and CAPC Bordeaux for a co-production of a new performance-based work by Glasgow-based artist Tako Taal, with public performances in both locations. These performances will take place in June 2024, as part of Glasgow International Festival and CAPC’s L’Academie des Mutantes.
- Following a Memorandum of Understanding signed in June 2023, Dovecot Studios and the Cité Internationale de la Tapisserie in Aubusson will produce public displays in Aubusson and Paris in Summer and Autumn 24, of 21st C tapestries created in Scotland with women artists. The project will also support inspiration and exchange between Scottish and French artist-weavers studying and creating new artworks. The collaboration includes a co-produced work by a French woman artist to be displayed in Scotland in Summer 2024.
- Take Me Somewhere, Glasgow / Festival Actoral, Marseille. This collaboration includes a Scottish focus on radical performance within Festival Actoral in Autumn 2024 centring approaches to sustainability, equity, diversity inclusion and accessibility. It will increase both organisations’ understanding of French/Scottish showcasing and provide residency opportunities to build lasting relationships between French and Scottish live art practitioners whose identity reflects or whose practice responds to issues of environmental justice, decolonisation, queer/trans politics/lived reality/disability.
- The collaboration between the University of Aberdeen and La Pie qui Joue in Rennes, with innovative research at its centre, will celebrate Scottish female folk musicians and make their legacy more accessible to new and wider audiences. With storytelling at the core of Scottish folk tradition, music will be intertwined with literature from underrepresented Scottish authors, giving voice to a broader Scottish experience. A series of performances and workshops will take place in a range of venues in Brittany in Summer 2024.
- Following on from their Eramus+ collaboration on artistic awakening in early childhood, Starcatchers Productions and Compagnie ACTA strengthen their partnership through the presentation of Starcatchers’ award-winning production Little Top at Festival Premières Rencontres in April 2024. Here they will share their research findings and explore and develop new opportunities to expand exchange of experience and best practice between companies, artists and practitioners working in arts for early years.
