Artist Links is a joint project between Arts Council England and the British Council. The two-person team operates within the British Council and is based out of Shanghai.

Artist Links seeks to nurture a fragile cross-cultural environment between China and Britain through links between contemporary arts practitioners. As a development opportunity for artists, Artist Links uses its particular expertise of the UK and Chinese arts scenes and of the cultural operating environments in both countries to facilitate early stage development of artists' projects.

The featured artists are young, emerging and established practitioners. Their work covers theatre, dance, live intervention, new music, sound work, video and other lens based practice, installation, performance, ceramics, curating, digital work and other cross art form practice.

Whilst some of the artists have international reputations, all are working very effectively within their own regions or countries. There is a strong participatory, community and multi-disciplinary approach evident among the group.

Once the programme was properly established all of the projects were selected through an open process with the input from specialists in China and the UK. An Open Call was published simultaneously in England and in China calling for artists interested in development projects between the two countries. Half of the projects received were submitted in Chinese and half in English. Twenty four artists' projects, directly involving 34 individual artists were selected for Artist Links support through 2005 – 2006.  These awards are equally divided between UK based and China based practitioners.

The programme drew to a formal close in October 2006. Nevertheless the both the British Council in China and Arts Council England are committed to building further on the projects and relationships formed.   

Simon Kirby and Ophelia Huang