Today, the Cultural Bridge programme and its co-investors: Arts Council England, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, British Council, the National Lottery through Creative Scotland, Fonds Soziokultur, Goethe-Institut London and Wales Arts International / Arts Council of Wales, have announced the recipients of its fourth year of funding intercultural UK and German partnerships.
A total of £360,000 has been awarded to fund the development of 20 partnerships that will share expertise and skills, exchange ideas and collaborate on artistic practices and projects that explore themes and issues faced by communities across both countries.
Following an open call to attend matchmaking sessions in September 2024, Cultural Bridge received over 130 applications, which were assessed and reviewed by an independent jury of professionals from the UK and Germany. A further year of funding is confirmed for 2026 - 2027, and applications will open later this year.
Funding is awarded across two tiers with up to £10k for new partnerships and up to £30k for existing partnerships. This year’s programme supports twelve new and eight established connections, including six partnerships that will receive continued funding from Cultural Bridge.
The funding network launched in 2021 and has now supported 49 partnerships through 62 awards. It enables hundreds of artists and practitioners to work with thousands of community members across a range of art forms and themes.
This year’s funding will support work exploring youth leadership, digital storytelling and emerging technologies, disability-led dance and movement, the intersection of LGBTQI+, neurodivergence and disability, West-African craft and puppetry, circus arts, diaspora communities, music, age inclusion, environmental and climate issues, industrial heritage and more.
The 2025 – 2026 partnerships from Wales are:
Tier one (new partnerships receiving funding up to £10k):
- Act Your Age!: Youth Leadership in Art and Activism: Common Wealth Theatre (Bradford, England & Cardiff, Wales) and FUNDUS THEATER / Theatre of Research (Hamburg). An exchange for 15 diverse young people (13-16yrs) from the cities of Hamburg and Cardiff, to explore approaches to art and activism and how it can support & inform youth leadership.
- Songs of Neighbours and Strangers: Das Clarks (Newport, Wales) and Cargo-Theater (Freiburg, Baden-Württemberg). Exploring methods of engagement and sustainable practice, including music and storytelling, with prisoners and individuals who have least access to arts.
Tier two (existing partnerships receiving funding up to £30k):
- Exploring Flows: Dyffryn Dyfodol (Wales) and Syndikat Gefährliche Liebschaften (Quakenbrück). Rural access: Dyffryn Dyfodol’s (Future Valley) is an organisation based in rural Wales focussed on creative engagement to power positive changes for their communities. SGL is an artist-led organisation based in Quakenbrück, a small town in Lower Saxony. The artists connect with rural communities throughout Germany through socially engaged performing arts. In Tier 2 the organisations will collaborate on two environmental projects: Gofod Glas, DD’s work about people's relationship with freshwater and Syndikat’s Gimme Moor project, a landscape theatre about industrial heritage and eco-anxiety in Emsland. This will allow partners to explore real world integration of each other’s methods and ways of working, including evaluation and documentation by other creatives to capture and share process & learnings. They will also open new spaces for discourse on socially engaged art in the countryside and instigate change within their communities through tangible creative action.
Dafydd Rhys, Chief Executive of Arts Council Wales said:
“We are so pleased to see the Cultural Bridge programme and funded projects developing and growing with another year of exciting projects and partnerships. It’s great to see Dyffryn Dyfodol build on their existing partnership with Syndikat Gefährliche Liebschaften and receiving tier two funding. We’re also excited to see both Common Wealth Theatre and Das Clarks receiving funding for the first time giving them the opportunity to further develop their relationships and work with partners in Germany.”
Common Wealth Theatre and FUNDUS THEATER (Theatre of Research) said:
“FUNDUS THEATER | Forschungstheater (Theatre of Research) and Common/Wealth are excited to come together to explore the involvement of teenagers in arts and activism and how it can inform youth leadership. Common/Wealth will welcome the Theaterberater:innen, a group of young people with migration backgrounds who advise Fundus Theater on anti-racist programming, to Cardiff. Common/Wealth will facilitate a collaboration between the Theaterberater:innen and young leaders from working-class communities of Cardiff. The cohort will share their experiences with art and activism, and research the role that young people have played in social arts practice since the 1960s. We are excited to be joined by Professor Heike Roms from the University of Exeter, a practitioner/researcher on child art and activism based in Cardiff and Hamburg, and two artist-facilitators: Alex Owusu (Hamburg) and Fahadi Mukulu (Cardiff). By empowering teenagers as co-leaders and collaborators, we aim to challenge traditional hierarchies in arts and activism. Our project will reveal young people’s crucial contributions to these fields, examine why these contributions are so little celebrated, and explore how they offer young people today models with which to address their experiences of systemic racism and anti-Blackness, and economic injustice.”
Das Clarks and Cargo-Theater said:
“Das Clarks and Cargo have much in common in terms of our participatory social arts practices, love of music, shared values around inclusion and empowerment, and our desire to make work that encourages contemplation and action. We are excited to have this opportunity to explore ways to support and learn from one another, especially in relation to working with local neighbourhoods and people with experience of the prison system.”
Dyffryn Dyfodol and Syndikat Gefährliche Liebschaften said:
"Dyffryn Dyfodol and Syndikat Gefährliche Liebschaften continue developing and exploring the integration of their practices across countries, focusing on empowering communities and addressing key issues shaping rural spaces. Through reciprocal visits and collaborative residencies of socially engaged creatives, we aim to instigate positive change in rural communities."
For further information about the Cultural Bridge 2025- 2026 projects, visit: www.culturalbridge.info