As part of the first year of the UN Decade of Indigenous Languages, Wales Arts International are inviting applications to the new Gwrando (Listening) Fund. This new fund forms a part of the Gwrando programme and reflects our theme for the first year of the UN Decade, which is supported by Welsh Government.
Deadline for applications: 5pm, Monday 19 December 2022
The Gwrando (Listening) Fund aims to nurture the art of listening to endangered languages and indigenous communities, and to learn about their efforts in protecting the land they inhabit.
Earlier this year, poet Mererid Hopwood shared a call to listen to the linguistic landscape of the world. The deliberate choice of the word landscape and the connection between language and the environment is a call to action – to listen to the diversity of languages for the same benefits that are appreciated in the diversity of species within the natural world.
Wales Arts International will be working with partners in Wales and internationally in the context of the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act’s 7 goals, and 5 ways of working. This means we also want to learn about existing bridges between Wales and indigenous communities globally. This is an opportunity to identify a wider spectrum of new and existing collaborations to contribute to the aims of Gwrando.
As part of the Arts Council of Wales’ commitment to transformation and embedding learning, Wales Arts International will be learning along with the artists, and together we will be looking at tools and protocols set by indigenous partners and designed to create safer and equitable spaces.
The Indigenous Climate Hub, an important hub of information and resources related to climate justice from indigenous perspectives, outline the climate crisis as “a key issue in relation to indigenous languages. Indigenous peoples are among the first to face the direct consequences of climate change due to their dependence upon, and close relationship with the environment and its resources.”
Gwrando is also about de-colonising our attitudes to languages and cultures. Wales has a duality of experience of colonialism, both as the homeland of an oppressed language and culture but also as part of an Empire that has colonised many countries and cultures around the world such as in the land we know as Canada, where 400,000 claim Welsh heritage. As part of our commitment to global responsibility and to de-colonise our international work, Gwrando gives us a framework to reflect on the direct and indirect privileges Wales and the Welsh language has had through colonisation.
We expect to think again about our own histories with indigenous cultures around the globe by listening to the impact of colonisation of languages in Canada and India where many speakers have lost and are reclaiming their languages. We’re committed to supporting and encouraging arts collaborations to address this through our work with partners globally and as part of the Year of Wales in Canada 2022.
Eluned Hâf (Head of Wales Arts international) said “It was both an honour and a responsibility to be a witness to the raw discussions and the intergenerational trauma in Canada on their second ever national day of Truth and Reconciliation. It was an opportunity to reflect on our responsibility in Wales to listen and create safe spaces in the UK to engage in conversations around truth and reconciliation for indigenous people, cultures, and languages, as we observed important moments such as Orange Shirt Day. We listened to the lived experiences of residential school survivors and the devastating impact on them, where children were taken from their families, and many died, in a deliberate attempt to prevent language transmission.
The 32 spoken languages of British Columbia are engaging in language revitalisation projects through reviving artistic indigenous cultural practices. We also heard about the connection between indigenous cultures, land and climate emergency. There is a lot that Wales can learn and share from listening to the experiences of these languages, and their cultural, social and economic relations with the land they inhabit.”
About the fund
Inspired by the work of artists in Wales and around the world, Gwrando is a learning journey facilitated by Wales Arts International that will include an opportunity for artists based in Wales to listen and learn to connect with indigenous practice around the world through creative means.
Listening to indigenous languages through and with other indigenous languages enables deep cultural, creative and linguistic exploration. From these creative explorations we plan to build future collaborations and opportunities. This fund is seen as the first step in venturing deeper during the decade to come.
#EveryChildMatters