In September 2023, we offered grants to UK and eligible international biennials/festivals to showcase contemporary visual artists as part of our Biennials Connect Programme. The grants were offered to facilitate new partnerships, new work, cross-cultural exchange, skills building and showcasing. 22 projects received funding, enabling almost 50 visual and performance artists to participate in UK and international biennials.

You can find out more about the 22/23 Biennials Connect Grant recipients below:

  • Bethlehem Cultural Festival, UK will host Bethlehem-based street artist Taqi Spateen in London where he will collaborate with street artist James Cochrane on a new mural. Street artist Ciaran Globel and Taqi will also work together on a mural in Glasgow.
  • The 8th Yokohama Triennale, Japan “Wild Grass: Our Lives” - Jeremy Deller, Lewis Hammond, and Margaret Salmon will participate in the international exhibition curated by the Artistic Directors, Liu Ding and Carol Yinghua Lu, opening in March 2024.
  • Triennale Art & Industrie, France - The symposium “Collective Energy: Commissioned Art and Public Space”, held on January 12-13 in Dunkirk, closed the edition of the “Triennale Art & Industrie – Chaleur humaine“ organized by the Frac Grand Large — Hauts-de-France and the LAAC, musée de France.
  • COLOMBOSCOPE Interdisciplinary Arts Festival, Sri Lanka - Shiraz Bayjoo is attuned to the oceanic horizon as a passageway of human, botanical, and economic histories. Botanical Shrines (2023) focuses on the network of botanical gardens which evolved with the diminishing of the indigenous forests they were extracted from. Adjacently, the latest iteration of fabric-based installation Pu Travers Sa Dilo (2023) in Mauritian Creole ‘To cross this water’ uses Kanga cloths as ‘coda’ gesturing to Indian Ocean transfers and placements."
  • Ukraine Pavilion at the Venice Biennale - As part of the ‘Net Making’ project of the National Pavilion of Ukraine at the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, ‘Comfort Work' by Andrii Dostliev and Lia Dostlieva ironically investigates the stereotypes and expectations laid upon refugees in Europe. The project involves Ukrainian communities across Europe who shaped the stereotypical representations of themselves with the help of local professional actors.
  • Wonderfruit, Thailand - Wonderfruit is an annual five-day celebration of art, music, food and ideas in Chonburi, Thailand. During the 2023 edition artists Grace Ndiritu, Nissa Nishikawa, Sion Parkinson, Sarah Shin, and Ben Rivers' presented performances and screenings at the Unconditional Space, curated by Francesca Bertolotti-Bailey.
  • Bristol Photo Festival, UK - Artist Sarker Protick has developed a series of projects that start with listening, using photography to engage with the hidden or unseen. Bristol Photo Festival will collaborate with Pathshala South Asian Media Institute and Chobi Mela International Festival of Photography to produce an exhibition by Sarker.
  • PHOTO Australia - This grant supports Mark Sealy’s travel to Melbourne to attend PHOTO 2024. Director of Autograph and an expert on race and representation in photography, Mark will participate in PHOTO 2024’s International Curators’ Program and deliver a headline talk at Centre of Contemporary Photography, Fitzroy.
  • The Tetley, UK is working with artist Benaiah Matheson on Town Island, a project inspired by migration and belonging. Beginning with workshops and an exhibition in Grenada and continuing in Huddersfield, the project leads up to the artist’s presentation as part of the Grenada Pavilion at the 2024 Venice iennale.
  • Indian Ceramics Triennale and British Ceramics Biennial, UK - For the fourth international exchange, British Ceramics Biennial and Indian Ceramics Triennale are presenting artist duo Copper Sounds and their sonic installation, Sequenced Ceramics, at Indian Ceramics Triennale 24 in New Delhi. They were selected for their unique approach to ceramics, combining visual art and sound.
  • Cell Project Space, UK - In her debut UK solo exhibition 'Capital', London-based Senegalese-American artist Coumba Samba presents a new performance-installation 'FIFA', a collaboration with École Des Sables (Dakar, Senegal). 'Capital' explores the interplay of ideologies circulating between the West and West Africa.
  • KLA ART, Uganda and Iniva, UK - KLA ART is Kampala’s free contemporary art festival produced by 32° East. The theme of the fifth edition, KLA ART ’24 is Care Instructions, envisioning cultural heritage as a series of instructions for other ways of living and being.
  • 15th Gwangju Biennale, Korea - The 15th Gwangju Biennale, titled "Pansori - a soundscape of the 21st century," is directed by Nicolas Bourriaud. The Biennale will feature an array of international artists and present a visual symphony that tells a story about our spaces. It will bring together artists whose works reflect the Anthropocene era and our new spatial conditions.
  • Busan Biennale, Korea and Brent Biennial, UK - Extended from her ongoing exploration of grief and healing as the transformative process of solidarity building, Youngsook Choi’s commission will instigate spiritual holdings for pirate care, decolonial intelligence and community-led rituals through the body of water and embodied engagement with it.
  • Experimentica, Wales, UK - Brought to the UK for the first time for live art biennial - Experimentica 2024, Forest Silent Gathering by Begüm Erciyas enables reflection on the bonds between people, forests and histories. What is it that keeps us together?
  • Create/Elevate: 2024 Harewood Biennial, UK is a major exhibition of works at Harewood House by international artists including new commissions. It explores craft as a tool to connect with and learn from others, across generations and continents.
  • MUTEK, Spain has invited the artist Sian Fan to present an installation and participate in a symposium program during the international electronic music and digital creativity festival, which will be presented in Catalonia.
    CASA COMUM Festival, Brazil is an international artistic collaboration between 12 Amazonian artists, RR Produções Artísticas in Brazil and SDNA in London that began in 2021. On the 10th of January, it launched as a multidisciplinary festival at Oi Futuro in Rio de Janeiro.
  • EFfoto Cymru 2024 (Diffusion) International Festival of Photography, Wales, UK
  • Glasgow International, Scotland, UK
  • Edinburgh Art Festival, Scotland, UK
  • Photoworks Festival, UK and Chennai Photo Biennial, India