Since July 2021, 40 exciting projects have seen relationships and collaborations develop between Wales and 30 international partners across almost every continent of the globe, funded by the International Opportunities Fund. As Wales Arts International’s staple funding for creative professionals and arts organisations, the International Opportunities Fund (IOF) supports the development of relationships, collaborations and networks between Wales and the world, and enables the sharing of experiences and skills through the arts and raises the profile of Wales and its connections internationally.
The International Opportunities Fund will reopen for applications on 27 June 2022, with 5 deadlines across the year.
Those deadlines are:
20 July 2022
14 September 2022
16 November 2022
18 January 2023
15 March 2023
Applications will close at 5pm for each deadline. Applications reopen the following Monday after each deadline.
Previously awarded projects have spanned a wide range of artforms and included residencies, digital and hybrid collaborations, exchanges, research and development periods and more, offering opportunities for many creative professionals and arts organisations to engage in sustainable international relationships.
A selection of projects who have received the International Opportunities Fund include:
Wales>>Canada>>Reframing the Past>>Emerging Futures
"Our online project Reframing the past>>Emerging futures has given the chance for 6 artists (3 from Canada and 3 from Wales) to work together. Working in pairs, the artists come from completely different backgrounds and usually work in completely different disciplines. Despite the geographic obstacles it has given the artists the chance to discuss, explore and take risks presenting an idea in film to be shown at Elysium Gallery and the Canada Improv festival.
“This project has opened new ways of thinking for the artists and been a really successful way of instigating topical discussion and looking at their place in this increasingly fragile and combustible environment we now live in. The project is already leading into new ways and further opportunities for Wales and Canada artists to work together in the Future."
- Elysium Gallery
"This project has been a milestone in my work with benefits across many levels. I feel lucky to have been partnered with Megan Arnold. Our artistic concerns and approaches initially seemed very different but a shared openness to playfulness, accident and risk led us to explore and create together in ways that were continually surprising and refreshing.
“Being part of this well-structured and mentored group has been invaluable for me: - the honesty and commitment of our exchanges, the intensity of engagement with each other's work, the warmth and sense of connection have all been an enlivening and effective counterbalance to the isolation of living/working in a rural area.
“The challenge of new and international perspectives has brought fresh energy and balance to my hyperlocal investigations, widened my awareness of cultural and environmental issues and opened up new relationships that I hope will be sustained in future."
- Penny Hallas
"I have valued this situation of working internationally through zoom, with a desire to travel to Canada and work in person and to host an artist here too. It has lent itself to both my collaborator and I sharing our ever day life situations as a starting point of the creative practice.
“We have found common ground in our work and creative outlook. We share the performative and improvisational realm. I have found my collaborators influence and contribution easy to work with. It has allowed me to move outside of my usual way of working and back in again. It feels a bit like I'm offering the bones of what I am about as a person/artist without the form, as together we are creating a new mode and the beginning of a new form."
- Jessica Lerner
The Bridge - Y Bont
"Over the past 12 months we have been working on an incredibly exciting Wales Arts International funded project that links art, community and heritage internationally. We have joined forces with Compagnie Pyramid in Rochefort, France, local community performance collective L’Attroupanou and alongside Stephanie and the team at Le Pont Transbordeur, Communauté d'agglomération Rochefort Océan, we are exploring something truly magical that harnesses and uses the world of illusion to engage with audiences across the world.
“With support from Newport City Council and Emma Newrick at the Transporter Bridge Newport, The projects first research and development performance sharing will take place in early October. Watch this space!"
- Tin Shed Theatre
Wales Indonesia Disabled Artists Mural
"The online collaboration I ran with Jogja Disability Arts was undertaken to maintain and strengthen a relationship started a year ago. I wanted to do it in order to explore what 'Indonesian' culture might be, as there are a lot of different islands in Indonesia, each with their own distinct culture and history, which parallels my own Welsh/British culture. There are, of course, also many other subcultures, including disability culture and I wanted to find and build on whatever it is that disabled people have in common internationally. Funding to do this project allowed me to work internationally and so to work toward identifying that worldwide disability culture. I now hope to work in other countries in the same way."
- Andrew Bolton