British Council: New Narratives (Africa_UK) - Co-creation Grant

Overview

Overview

Targeting a youth (18 – 35-year-old) audience, the co-creation grant aims to support Africa and UK cultural partnerships to develop digital, face-to-face, and hybrid artistic projects that examine New Narratives.

Funding Offer

Three co-creation grants of up to GBP20,000, to three different hubs/collectives.

They are inviting multidisciplinary hubs and/or collectives working across technology, science, or arts and culture to co-create works and/or deliver projects that speak to New Narratives through exploring thematic areas in different disciplines.

• Themes for projects can range from climate, higher education, arts, digital innovation, heritage/culture, media and more.
• The grant will support production of new works, building connections and collaboration across different countries.

While this grant is not designed for research, an element of research can be included in the project.

Objectives of grant

• Storytelling – Using a variety of mediums and platforms, supporting the creation, sharing and promotion of more nuanced stories that disrupt stereotypical narratives about countries of Africa and the UK.
• Creative output - To support young people to produce new works that offer more contemporary, diverse, and plural narratives.
• Young engagement – To support and engage with more young people to shape current narratives and to facilitate stronger connections between the young people across the countries of Africa and the UK

All applicants will have access to the New Narratives research (commissioned by M&C Saatchi World Services) as a reference point. The research presents:

• A historical review of the narrative trajectories, cultural and socio-political themes dominating relations between the countries of Africa and the UK from 1500 to the present.
• An analysis and comparison of how young people in countries of Africa and the UK view each other, using images from popular culture. These images were gathered by narrative scouts and young people across the two regions.
• Youth discussions with young people from countries of Africa and the UK.

Who are they looking for:

Multidisciplinary hubs and/or collectives applying need to work directly with young people aged between 18 and 35yrs old and the core team can include creatives/practitioners/experts from different countries of Africa and the UK.

• The administrative lead of the application needs to be from one of the primary (1) countries listed, with the rest of the members of the group being from any of the listed secondary (2 )countries.
• The group’s capability and skills must be spread across Africa and UK
• There should be a clear articulation of roles and responsibilities of each member of the group
• The successful groups need to have Intellectual Property and other applicable rights agreed on and in place on signing of the contract.

(1) Primary Countries: England, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Northern Ireland, Nigeria, Scotland, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, Wales, Zimbabwe.

(2) Secondary Countries: Algeria, Botswana, Egypt, Libya, Malawi, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia

Outputs

• Disciplines: technology, science, or art
• Thematic range includes climate, education, digital innovation, heritage/culture, media and more.
• Projects must have relevance across both Africa and UK and contribute to new narratives
• The projects must be multidisciplinary and innovative, across different artforms, that appeal to a young audience.
• The project can take the form of collaborations and exchanges, exhibitions, installations, dialogue and more, and should encourages the exploration of our different cultures and languages.
• Projects should have the potential for scale to be further developed and shared with a broader audience, particularly through digital means and have an impact in the group’s communities.
• Projects must engage young people between 18 to 35-years through activities that are delivered face to face and online or that take on a hybrid approach, with a reach of at least:
  • 200 for face-to-face engagement
  • 500 for online engagement (excluding impressions),
  • 250 face-to-face and 250 online for hybrid engagement, in countries across Africa and the UK.
• Project to be delivered between September 2022 and September 2023.
• Providing a report/summary sharing insight

Notes:

• A grant agreement will be issued with detailed terms and conditions and will be signed with the lead administrative applicant.
• Project teams will be responsible for the marketing and communications of their project across the different countries of delivery.
• All project collateral must adhere to British Council’s communication and branding requirements and should be visible across different social media channels to gain maximum visibility of the project (branding and social media guidelines will be provided). Collateral should be signed off by British Council marketing team.
• During delivery, the selected teams will be required to meet regularly with the British Council team to provide updates on the project and report against progress.
• Upon completion of the project, teams will be required submit financial and narrative reports using project report templates provided.