Cultural Bridge supports arts and cultural organisations across the UK and Germany to develop partnerships that explore social arts practice.
By enabling new and existing connections, Cultural Bridge supports a growing network of organisations committed to sharing expertise and skills, exchanging ideas and collaborating on artistic practices and projects that explore themes and issues faced by communities across both countries.
Through co-investment from Arts Council England, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, British Council, Creative Scotland, Fonds Soziokultur, Goethe-Institut London and Wales Arts International / Arts Council of Wales, Cultural Bridge has so far supported 35 partnerships through 42 awards, across three rounds of funding since its pilot year in 2021 and has recently announced two further years of funding until 2027.
Cultural Bridge partnerships explore a wide range of themes and artforms, from prison theatre, youth led and disability work, climate change, migrant activism, feminism, rural arts, environment-based art and more.
This is a bilateral with UK/Germany and focuses on socially engaged practice we want to encourage sign ups from NI.
ACNI support artists’ international ambitions through a number of funding schemes through our partnership with the Four Nations which includes the Cultural Bridge Programme.
The Cultural Bridge programme aims to act as a platform of artistic exchange, enabling others to discuss social issues, strengthen the exchange between the UK and Germany and foster collaboration and cultural democracy. This was considered especially important in a post-Brexit landscape and as the UK is no longer eligible for Creative Europe and Erasmus funding.
The programme invites organisations to apply who embody cultural democracy through:
- Placing communities at the heart of their work
- Supporting people from across their communities to develop their creativity and discover their individual voices
- Empowering them to work together to shape local place, shared identity, and collective agency
- Exploring new ways of connecting arts and society, particularly through fostering co-creation between communities, artists, and other partners
All of the projects funded aligned with one or more of the strategic themes identified for the programme:
- Re-invigorating post-industrial places/communities
- Places with fewer opportunities to engage
- Places and communities transformed by grass-roots activism
- Redefining the use of public space
There are two tiers of award depending on the project, Tier 1 is up to £10k and Tier 2 is up to £30k. You can see full programme info here.
Deadline for registrations: Monday 2nd September.