The Connections Through Culture grants programme is designed to nurture fresh cultural partnerships between the Asia Pacific region and the UK. These grants are instrumental in supporting new ideas and collaborations from artists and cultural organisations at any stage of development.

The grants supported in this round of Connections Through Culture programme have focused on two distinct areas: diversity and inclusion and addressing climate change. The collaborative efforts across borders and artistic disciplines will lead to new thoughts and ideas created to address global challenges.

The grants support new connections, exchanges, and collaborations. These grants help build long-term relationships and collaborations between artists, cultural professionals, creative practitioners and art and cultural organisations, hubs, networks, and collectives. 

2024 Grant Recipients: Philippines

Bridging Communities in Music: String Ensembles in Manila and Leyte

UK: Carmen Flores, Nottingham Chamber Music Festival

Philippines: UP Arco, Joselle Cayatano

Bridging Communities in Music explores the cultural impact of string ensembles and music education in Filipino communities. This collaboration will focus on creating and sustaining ensembles in local communities through knowledge and cultural exchange, music workshops, string ensemble coaching, and parallel music rehearsals. 

Coastal Connections

UK: Pilot Theatre 

Philippines: Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA)

This project is a cultural exchange, uniting arts practitioners and young people from coastal communities in the Philippines and the UK to explore the impact of climate change. Through workshops and the co-creation of a bilingual learning resource, the project addresses themes of climate justice, identity, and community. 

Dancing to Music You Hate: The Philippine Remix

UK: Jasmine Gardosi

Philippines: Leandro Reyes, Babaylanes

Dancing to Music You Hate: The Philippine Remix will collaborate with Filipino musicians, poets and LGBTQIA+ organisations to create a version of the award-winning show that integrates Philippine folk music, dialects and queer narratives informed by the country's binary-breaking, pre-colonial queer heritage.

 

Forage Friction

UK: Freya Edmondes aka Elvin Brandhi

Philippines: Tengal Drilon

Forage Friction is a long-term, multi-site, multidisciplinary art project that explores the frictions within the intersections of climate change, biodiversity, and human interactions through experimental audiovisual media, digital and analogue technologies, community research, workshops, art installations, and painted and printed material.

Growing a field

UK: Reneta Minoldo

Philippines: Katherine Nuñez

Done through field research, studio-garden experimentations, talks, workshops, and a small zine publication on how to set up a small eco-dyeing garden, ‘growing a field’ aims to study and share knowledge on Philippine eco-dyeing plants while taking into account strategies that would make the practice more accessible, sustainable, and ecological.

Hapag Ugnayan Potlucks: an international exchange with women creatives and land workers

UK: Malaika Cunningham (The Bare Project)

Philippines: Jen Horn

Hapag Ugnayan Potlucks aims to build connections between women creatives and land workers in the Philippines and the UK through a series of potluck meals. Through digital and analogue correspondences, conversations gathered from one will feed the other - unearthing stories of connection with food, experiences of women farmers, and the sounds of our voices and lands.

Nature KwenTour: Co-creating Solarpunk Futures

UK: ESEA Green Lions

Philippines: Lokal Lab

This project explores the intersection of technology, indigenous knowledge, and island-urban exchange between Siargao, Philippines, and London, UK. The project connects island youth with emerging Filipino artists to map Siargao’s biodiversity through creative technology and storytelling workshops. Meanwhile, Green Lions’ ambassadors in the UK will utilize these learned methodologies to chart the rich ecosystems of their urban landscapes.

Shame Parade

UK: Angel Cohn Castle

Philippines: Ken Santos

Shame Parade is a collaborative project that will produce performance, film, and music, exploring the historical practice of charivari—a medieval tradition of public shaming through loud noises and mocking costumes. Originally practised in Europe, its legacy unexpectedly continues today in the Philippines, where 'charivari' is written into the penal code as a noise restriction law.

 

Swallowed by Water

UK: Atlantic Institute-XR Lab

Philippines: Rappler

This collaborative research and creative development project explores how Extended Reality (XR) can create a visceral, emotional connection to the climate crisis. By shifting from facts to feelings, immersive storytelling techniques such as XR can inspire action through empathy rather than data alone. This project will produce a storyboard and a production plan for the planned XR film "Swallowed by Water". 

The Net

UK: Lorna Nickson Brown (Copper Thread Productions)

Philippines: Anjeline de Dios

The Net is a narrative film R&D project that intimately explores the inner life of a Filipino fisherman in the context of environmental degradation and the use of destructive fishing methods. The Net will provide a personal and sensory perspective, uniquely led by music and sound, including live scoring creative exchanges in Makati, Manila, and Birmingham, UK.