The Connections Through Culture grants programme is designed to nurture fresh cultural partnerships between East Asia 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.

Connections Through Culture grantees 2023

Paul Goodenough

Rewriting Extinction

Peter Middleton and James Spinney

Writers and Directors

Peter and James have been working together for the past six years on a range of fiction, documentary and cross-platform projects. During this period they have adapted John’s diary material into a series of award winning short films. The first of these, ‘Rainfall’, won the Best Short Documentary Award at Hot Docs 2013. This was followed in 2014 by the Emmy Award-winning short, also entitled ‘Notes on Blindness’, which screened at Sundance Film Festival and won Best Documentary at Encounters Short Film and Animation Festival.

Notes on Blindness is their first feature.

Pustaka Pias

Queen’s University Belfast

Queen’s University Belfast was established in 1845 and is the UK’s ninth oldest university and the top UK university on the island of Ireland. A city-based campus located in Belfast - one of the top 10 UK destinations, as voted by Trip Advisor 2015. Queen’s is ranked 180 of universities in the world (QS World University Rankings 2019) and is a member of the UK’s Russell Group. 96% of Queen’s graduates are in employment or further study six months after graduation. The University is committed to delivering a world-class student experience, and has committed to investing £700M into enhancing student support services and facilities, including an annual International Scholarships fund of £1.5M. Queen’s is ranked in the top 10 most beautiful universities in the UK (Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2018); a world-class international university built on a foundation of exceptional teaching, cutting-edge research, innovation, collaboration and engagement.

Ratih Suryahutamy (Neonomora)

Musician

Ratih Suryahutamy or Neonomora is an Indonesian female singer-songwriter, with a sound that is a combination of various genres including electronic, rock, and soul. With her debut album recently released in Japan in February this year, she has also been awarded various accolades such as Indonesia's Best Albums for two years in a row by Rolling Stone Indonesia. Neonomora is featured in a book "Southeast Asia on a Shoestring" by Lonely Planet as one of the best performers from Indonesia.

Robbie Thomson, Alicia Matthews, WAFT Lab

Robin Malau

Founder and CEO of Musikator, Musikator

Robin is the founder and CEO of Musikator, Indonesia’s first music think tank that aims to foster the growth of Indonesia’s new music ecosystem. Founded in 2008, Musikator was initially a music community for musicians in Bali and pivoted into an aggregator for unsigned acts, distributing work by 600 bands to global digital service providers.


 

Rosella May

Rosella May

Fashion Designer, Nottingham Trent

Rosella May is a designer who focusses mainly on timeless style with an urban edge. She moved to Nottingham in 2011 to pursue a career in costume design. After changing her degree to focus more on creating textiles and interesting fabrics, Rosella studied Fashion Knitwear and Knitted Textiles. During her degree, she spent a year working with designer Stuart Peters in London. 

 

Rosy Dewi Arianti

Journalist

Rosy started her journalistic career as contributor at Kantor Berita Radio (KNR) 68H in 2019. She joined Tren as desk reporter in 2021, and also Kompas.com as a member of Fact Check Team. She is interested in topics related to diversity, women, disability, and Human Rights issues, as well as popular topics that are widely discussed in social media. 

Sally Goggins, one of the judges for the Education UK Alumni Awards 2016 in Indonesia

Sally Goggin

Country Director, British Council in Indonesia

Sally Goggin took up her current role as Country Director for Indonesia in August 2013. Sally comes from Arts background but since joining the British Council over 27 years ago she has moved progressively into the governance and education sectors. She was previously based in the Palestinian Territories, Turkey, Egypt and India.

During her time overseas Sally has also managed large scale donor funded projects in Education and Governance for the World Bank, DFID and the European Commission.