The Connections Through Culture grants programme nurtures 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 the Connections Through Culture programme focus on two areas: diversity and inclusion and addressing climate change. The collaborations across borders and artistic disciplines will lead to new ideas to address these global challenges.

The grants support new connections, exchanges, and collaborations between artists, cultural professionals, creative practitioners and art and cultural organisations. 

2024 Grant Recipients: Malaysia

Alunan Dengung: Where Seagrass meets electroacoustic Gamelan

UK: Adrian Lee

Malaysia: Rhythm in Bronze

What happens when the whispers of seagrass meet the bold resonance of Malay gamelan? Alunan Dengung unites Rhythm in Bronze with UK artists Adrian Lee, Sunetra Fernando, and Simon Limbrick, blending field recordings of Malaysian seagrass ecosystems with electroacoustic gamelan. Through workshops and a public sharing, this project fuses art and environmental awareness, amplifying nature’s voice to inspire action and imagination.

Peat on Earth

UK: Studio 91 Media

Malaysia: Factual TV

Bogs and peat swamps are often seen negatively, with terms like "swamped" or "bogged down" giving them a bad reputation. However, these biodiverse habitats have an important, planet-saving story to share. This project highlights these ecosystems through the voices of young poets Matt Sowerby and Kimchi Lai. The 10 written poems and spoken word films will shift perceptions by celebrating these vital, climate-mitigating habitats.

 

Supporting Diverse Communities to Take Climate Action

UK: Take A Part

Malaysia: Global Environment Centre

Take A Part and GEC, together with Owen Griffiths (Plymouth, UK) and Shaq Koyok, will deliver a shared UK-Malaysia community-created environmental justice call to action through this Bridging Cultures. This project will allow the artists to share, test, and explore practices and consider ways to strengthen and capacity-build the environmental justice and Socially Engaged Arts (SEA) sectors between the UK and Malaysia.

 

Dancestors

UK: Akademi South Asian Dance UK

Malaysia: Gerimis Art

Dancestors aims to bridge South Asian and Orang Asli cultures through dance, addressing climate change and social justice. By combining ancient and contemporary dance forms, the project seeks to create new works that reflect the experiences of marginalised communities. This initiative will involve workshops and performances in Malaysia, culminating in a large-scale work-in-progress. 

Heritage Reimagined: Interactive Database and Augmented Reality for Malay Kelingkan and Scottish Tapestry

UK: Francesca Boyd

Malaysia: Institute of the Malay World and Civilization

This project integrates Augmented Reality technology to merge Malay Kelingkan metalwork embroidery with Scottish tapestry, highlighting their shared cultural heritage. Building on research from Istana Puteri Bongsu and Scottish Bothy, it explores the relationship between nature, landscape, and traditional textiles in Malay and Scottish architectural philosophies. 

Reframe and Resist

UK: Leon Wainwright - The Open University

Malaysia: Rebecca Yeoh - Xiamen University Malaysia

Reframe and Resist brings together creative practitioners of various art disciplines, teaching and learning specialists, students, exhibition audiences and the wider public. Designed as a sequence of three segments, it will enable a process of exploration and dissemination of its outcomes, with an emphasis on creative and emotional responses to decolonisation as a concept and a cultural practice.

 

Reimagining Charcoal

UK: University of East London

Malaysia: Collab UCSI

The Reimagining Charcoal project, led by Colllab UCSI and Unit H UEL, brings together UK and Malaysian research to explore sustainable innovations in Kuala Sepetang’s charcoal industry. By comparing vernacular practices in Malaysia with sustainable approaches in the UK, the project investigates new uses for charcoal and its by-products, incorporating local materials like mangrove bark, dye, vinegar, shells, and algae.

 

Sync Shorts - Malaysia/UK

UK: Sync Leadership

Malaysia: NakSeni

NakSeni and Sync Leadership, supported by a British Council Connections Through Culture grant, will host the first online residency for four learning-disabled and autistic artists—two from the UK and two from Malaysia—during Spring 2025. The residency, facilitated through the Syncing Space platform, will provide experimentation, idea development, and leadership coaching opportunities. Artists will showcase progress at a hybrid exhibition in KL, April 2025.