Our work in 2023

Connections Through Culture grants support new cultural collaborations between the UK and East Asia. We enable artists and cultural organisations working across all art forms to create new connections and collaborative projects. Look out for the grantee announcement in January!

From 2022 into 23, we had meaningful engagement with 111 million people worldwide, and reached 600 million people in total. In the UK and across the world, we helped 1,400 arts institutions to work in partnership.

In partnership with Liverpool Biennial, we offered ten fully-funded opportunities for early to mid-career curators across selected countries in Asia and Africa to attend a curators networking week within the 12th edition of Liverpool Biennial.

We helped disabled artists, in the UK and beyond, to connect through our continuing partnership with Unlimited, the arts commissioning body for disabled artists. 2023 saw strategic visits and artist development initiatives such as the British Council Unlimited Micro Awards, helping UK disabled artists and their international peers explore ideas together.

Over the past nine years, Five Films For Freedom has showcased five LGBTQIA+ themed short films from around the globe annually, making them available for the world to watch online for free over a 12-day period.​ In 2023, the LGBTQIA+ digital campaign attracted over three and a half million views from around the world with a quarter of views coming from parts of the world where freedom and equal

We were delighted to commission and present the British Pavilion exhibition Dancing Before the Moon at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia 2023. Dancing Before the Moon aims to inspire debate that will challenge and influence the future of British architecture.

Selector Radio's mission has been to bring the best new UK music to the world, every single week for over two decades. In 2023, for the first time, Selector hosted incredible live stages at SXSW (South By Southwest festival) in Austin, Texas and The Great Escape festival in Brighton, UK – both festivals central to connecting new music makers with new fans and industry insiders.

The UK / Viet Nam Season has seen six months of rich cultural exchange between Viet Nam and the UK, celebrating the diverse and innovative artist communities of each nation. Themed around climate change, the environment and shared heritage, the season has seen over 60 events take place in both countries from June to December 2023.

Sonia Boyce’s Golden Lion-winning exhibition Feeling Her Way came to the UK in 2023. The exhibition, which won the prestigious award for the Best National Participation at La Biennale di Venezia 2022, visited the Turner Contemporary in Margate in February, before heading to Leeds Art Gallery in May.

Every ten years since 1983, Granta – the literature publisher and seasonal magazine producer – have triumphed emerging young British novelists.  Each time the list features 20 of the best British novelists, under the age of 40, deemed to be the most significant of their generation.

This forward-thinking report from edge and story, commissioned by us, builds on our 2020 Missing Pillar report, which explored culture’s contribution to the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Our international poetry development programme Language is a Queer Thing continued in 2023 with The Queer Muslim Project and VERVE Poetry Festival. The programme engages with six talented LGBTQIA+ poets, from India and the UK, who will perform their work together at CSL.

As a collection, these essays explore the role of cultural heritage in a sustainable future, and the principles and approaches that can guide action to realise the potential of heritage for human development.

Join Creative Producer Jafar Iqbal and BBC Content Producer, Hannah Loy for a new four-part podcast series focusing on a recent British Council scoping trip to Sub-Saharan Africa.

This year British Council Collection has loaned out artworks to over 20 venues worldwide, reaching global audiences. Recent highlights include an international loan of Folk Archive to Jeremy Deller's 'Art is Magic' exhibition at Frac Bretagne, France.

In April the British Council in Northern Ireland hosted a week-long international arts and cultural programme - Peace and Beyond 2023 - to mark the 25th Anniversary of The Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement.

Our partnership enabled international perspectives to enrich the LEEDS 2023 programme, and connected Leeds and West Yorkshire based creatives with their counterparts overseas.

We collaborated with Culture Liverpool, the Ukrainian Institute and Ukrainian artists and schools, through our partnership with EuroFestival and Eurovision, hosted by Liverpool on behalf of Ukraine in May. We helped facilitate UK and Ukraine collaborations for EuroFestival’s creative commissions and these took over Liverpool – 19 out of of 24 involved UK and Ukraine partnerships.