A newly revamped British Council programme, “China Now”, stands at the forefront of fostering artistic collaboration between the UK and China, writes Tom Pattinson. After a challenging period for cultural exchange between the two countries, it provides an essential resource for UK arts organisations and artists wanting to work in mainland China.
Two decades ago, cultural relations between China and the UK were at an all-time high. At the time, I was the editor of the cultural and entertainment magazine Time Out in Beijing, and there was a constant stream of British talent landing in China.
The pre-Olympic build-up years saw China-based music promotors bring top-flight British musicians, including Frank Turner, Faithless, Friendly Fires and Joss Stone to clubs and venues in Beijing and Shanghai on what felt like an almost weekly basis.
Concerts, art fairs and theatre festivals were springing up in stadia and parks across the country, including the Midi, Intro, Modern Sky, Yue, and Zebra festivals, to name but a few. Major government-to-government cultural exchanges were the norm – such as the 2006 visit by then Director of the British Museum Neil MacGregor, to loan 272 of the British Museum’s most valuable artefacts to China.
This positive energy was crystalised by the 2008 CHINA NOW programme held in advance of the Beijing Olympics at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, the largest festival of Chinese culture in Britain. It featured contemporary photographers such as Chen Man, designers including Shao Fan, and architects such as Ma Yansong, along with filmmakers, artists, musicians and more.
In return, the British Council organised UK NOW in advance of the London Olympics in 2012, and a whole host of iconic British photographers, choreographers, artists and directors descended on China to showcase the best of British.
British media were making documentaries on China, journalists were writing about the Chinese contemporary art and music scene, and international film productions were shooting in locations all over China, from the outskirts of the capital to the far western deserts of Xinjiang.
From my front-row seat to the cultural goings-on between the two countries, it was incredible to witness these two nations working together and the impact it had on both the British and Chinese populations.
The impression of China among the British population was overwhelmingly positive, and Chinese tourists and students flooded to the UK to be in and around the British cultural scene that was promoted so well in venues in Beijing, Shanghai, and other cities.
This cultural explosion led to an openness and freedom of expression that showed a confident China on the world stage. “Culture has always been the most immediate form of social commentary and political criticism. And, for the moment, the authorities appear unfazed by this new-found freedom of expression. The strong sense of ‘Chineseness’ that artists and architects raise in media interviews, the patriotic and nationalistic pride depicted on canvas and on film, is, for the most part, accepted, encouraged even,” I wrote in the V&A Magazine for the launch of China Now in 2008. “It remains to be seen if the authorities will be quite so easy-going this time next year when the Olympics are just a memory. Will they clamp down as they might have in the past?”
It turns out they did. And it was a great shame when much of that cultural light started to fade. Increased restrictions on the number of foreign films allowed to be shown in cinemas, complexities around getting permits for international music acts and geopolitical tensions saw the number of cultural exchanges reduce. When Covid-19 hit in 2019, many of the independent promotors, corporate sponsors and international audiences in China left the country leaving not just a vacuum of events but also a lack of experience and knowledge that had been built up over the previous decades.
According to a new report, the UK has fallen behind Russia in its soft power ranking among Chinese people. However, Dom Hastings, the British Council’s Director of Arts in China hopes to bring back some of the cultural opportunities for British creatives with the re-launch of the website China Now – and in turn, boost the cultural standing of the UK in China.
The British Council have revamped and relaunched the website ‘China Now’ (no direct relation to the V&A’s 2008 blockbuster) as a central point for UK artists and arts organisations interested in exploring creative ventures in China.
According to Hastings, the site is now a central hub for people to “find resources about China’s creative sector, to build connections, and to highlight opportunities in China. It also highlights the risks such as intellectual property issues, too,” he says.
Hastings is quick to point out that there are still any number of major cultural exchange programmes between the two countries. The V&A has five exhibitions currently touring China, and the Royal Philharmonic are currently in the country, he says. But it is mostly the bigger national institutions who are putting on productions, and it is very “government to government. I want to ensure that all of the UK’s arts sectors are represented in China,” he says.
In a bid to boost cultural exchanges, the British Council has taken a number of Chinese cultural leaders to various festivals in the UK, including Great Escape in Brighton and Hove and the Edinburgh Festival, and invited British festival organisers to China to see if they can bring some of their projects to the country.
The China Now site not only provides information, reports and stories on the sector but also ‘how to’ guides on funding applications for projects. Currently, the British Council has grants of up to £10,000 under their Connections Through Culture programme. The grant, which runs until 2 September, provides seed funding for research, development and partnership outreach for collaborative projects between the two countries. Further down the line there are International Collaboration Grants of up to £70,000 for organisations that are ready to put on a project.
Cultural exchanges might not always be seen as the most important or direct value stream when it comes to trade and relations between the UK and China, but companies want to invest in countries with a strong creative culture, students want to study where creativity thrives, and nothing helps public the understanding of two nations more than a shared love of culture. So whether it’s British rock bands to Beijing or Chinese photographers to London – building cultural exchange between our two great countries has never been more important than it is today.
Visit the China Now website
