In a year which has seen conflict and instability in many parts of the world, we have seen how the arts can be a powerful catalyst in peace-building.
Through mutual understanding and positive cultural programmes, our initiatives have engaged, provoked and enthralled millions of people worldwide, from all walks of life.
Join us as we look back on highlights from a very busy 2024. We look forward to sharing more incredible art with you in 2025.
Selector Radio in 2024
Selector continues to bring the best UK music to the world every week. This year we welcomed new UK host, Sian Eleri – one of BBC Radio 1's biggest music tastemakers. In October we launched Selector Behind the Music, a new podcast designed to keep you bang up to date with the latest global conversations in music.
We’ve also added tonnes of new videos to our ever-growing library of Selector sessions, including live performances from this year’s Mercury prize winners, English Teacher, and Welsh Album of the Year Award winners, Adwaith and LEMFRECK.
10 years of Five Films For Freedom
This year marked a decade of Five Films For Freedom. Since 2015 our annual LGBTQIA+ showcase has touched hearts and opened minds, reaching over 23 million people in over 200 countries and principalities, including places where freedom and equal rights are limited.
We’re getting ready for Five Films For Freedom 2025, which runs from 19 – 30 March. Look out for more announcements soon!
UK/France Spotlight on Culture
Friends in Love and War - L’Éloge des Meilleurs Enemies explores the complex theme of friendship, featuring works from the British Council Collection and macLYON, as part of our UK/France Spotlight on Culture.
The exhibition ran at macLYON in the spring before transferring to Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, where it continues until 23 February 2025.
Announcing the Unlimited International Open Awards recipients
In March, in partnership with Unlimited, we awarded grants to enable 15 new commissions, including a live radio drama connecting disabled communities in Scotland and Nepal and woodblock workshops reclaiming space for queer, disabled stories in England and Bangladesh.
We can’t wait to see these projects come to life!
British Pavilion 2024
Since 1937 we've commissioned the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, inspiring global audiences with incredible British art.
For 2024, John Akomfrah's exhibition 'Listening All Night To The Rain' combined geopolitical historical narratives with imagined tableaux - often surreal or dreamlike in nature - to reposition the role of art and its ability to write history in unexpected ways.
The exhibition weaved together newly filmed material with found still images, video footage and audio content.
Connections Through Culture
Our Connections Through Culture grants programme nurtures fresh cultural partnerships between East Asia and the UK.
This year, our grants have supported projects which address climate change and focus on diversity and inclusion. The collaborative efforts across borders and artistic disciplines will lead to new thoughts and ideas created to address global challenges and help build long-term international relationships.
Find out more about one of the collaborations between music collective Elephant in the Philippines and Inferno London in the UK.
Festival making in the Arab region
In August, our IN BETWEEN x MOMENTUM initiative brought festival directors from the Arab region and the UK to Edinburgh to explore festival making amidst current global challenges.
The programme featured discussions, workshops and networking opportunities that highlighted shared experiences and unique cultural perspectives on audience development, the integration of technology, and how to navigate political and economic barriers.
International Collaboration Grantees
In October we announced the latest recipients of our International Collaboration Grants, supporting projects developed by UK artists, arts professionals and organisations and their peers around the world.
The £1 million fund enables projects that will unite artists and build valuable, ongoing connections. We’ll be sharing more on the successful recipients and their projects in 2025.
Follow #InternationalCollaborationGrants for updates.
WOW - Women of the World Festivals
In May, in partnership with the WOW Foundation, we ran the first ever WOW Manchester - featuring our new South Asia Pavilion - followed by the seventh edition in Kathmandu City in November.
WOW is the world’s biggest festival celebrating women, girls and non-binary people. To date, WOW Festivals have reached five million people in more than 45 locations across the globe. We're looking forward to WOW Athens in April 2025.
British Council Literature Seminar
Our 38th Literature Seminar, chaired by Helen Oyeyemi, took place in Berlin in November. Featuring five of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists 2023, the seminar explored subjectivity in contemporary UK fiction.
Catch all the inspiring readings and discussions below, and relive one of this year’s literary highlights.
Red Sky At Night at Belfast 2024
In November, as part of Belfast 2024, we commissioned a series of international creative collaborations exploring the theme of Art and the Public Realm, presented in six locations across the city.
Curated and delivered by collectively-led arts organisation Household, the festival included work by international artists Zuza Golińska (Poland), Kanich Khajohnsri (Thailand), Kasper Lecnim & Irmina Rusicka (Poland), Dina Mimi (Palestine), Aisling O’Beirn (Ireland) and Leandros Ntolas (Greece).
See the commissions and hear more from the Belfast 2024 team in our short film.
Wales in India at Hornbill Festival
We partnered with the Hornbill Festival in Nagaland, marking the end of the Welsh Government’s year of Wales in India 2024.
Artists Mari Matthias and Gareth Bonello performed in Delhi and at Hornbill, bringing contemporary Welsh folk music to India’s largest celebration of tribal heritage.
The Wales in India cultural fund has supported six new projects connecting creatives in Wales and India across different art forms. Look out for updates on the resulting collaborations in 2025.
Heritage is...
The Reconfiguring Heritage Research Team, consisting of young people from Iraq, Syria and Jordan, created a poem in response to the prompt ‘Heritage is…’.
It was presented at Facing Change: Jordan 2024, a recent conference organised by the International National Trusts Organisation, the Cultural Protection Fund and Petra National Trust. The event explored how heritage organisations are facing threats to intangible and tangible cultural heritage, and the challenges of adapting to conflict and our changing climate.
90 years of making connections
This year we celebrate our 90th anniversary. In 1934 we established our vision to build lasting connections through education, arts, and culture, bringing the best the UK has to offer to the world.
Find out more about the history of our work in arts, with our spotlights on the British Council Collection and a celebration of our boundary-pushing work on stage.
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