India-UK Creative Industries at 75: Opportunities and Challenges.

Lead Research Organisation: Birmingham City University
Department Name: ADM Birmingham School of Media

Abstract

This follow-on funding application draws on the PI's collaboration with artists on his 'Slanguages: Languages in the Creative Industries' research strand, part of the AHRC-funded 'Creative Multilingualism' project (2016-2020). Here, artists based in the UK diaspora, particularly from British Indian ethnic and cultural backgrounds, professed a need for a better understanding of their Indian counterparts in the creative industries; mainly, to foster better India-UK dialogues and to create potential opportunities for new India-UK projects across the creative industries. As such, 'India-UK Creative Industries at 75' will seek to answer this call by creating a series of 3 online workshops and a final online showcase symposium that will bring together artists in India and the UK across three strands: screen industries, live performance, and fashion. Together, the artists will share their crafts and engage in dialogues regarding the possibilities, challenges and resources that have affected their respective industries, particularly since Covid-19, with a further opportunity to network with each other and create new short artistic outputs.

Our project intends to build capacity in developing the creative economies between these two nations by connecting local artists and knowledge to identify opportunities and overcome challenges in their respective sectors, especially as India marks 75 years of Independence.

Publications

10 25 50
 
Title 19 Creative Outputs 
Description 19 creative outputs ranging from short films, music videos, presentations, podcasts, visual illustrations etc. were produced by the project artists over the course of the project. 
Type Of Art Artwork 
Year Produced 2022 
Impact New ways of working internationally across India-UK Working on-line Working across genres Thinking across new ideas and concepts across the India-UK creative industries of screen, live performance, and fashion. 
URL https://www.bcu.ac.uk/media/research/research-groups/creative-industries/research-projects/india-uk-...
 
Description 1. That British Indian ethnic and cultural heritage artists and creatives in the UK do not necessarily know about their counterparts work in India, and vice versa for Indian artists and creatives.
2. More networks and opportunities - actual and online - to meet should exist to facilitate new relationships and projects, and to enhance and or develop existing relationships.
3. More funding opportunities should exist for India-UK creatives to work together and to develop further industries and outputs.
Exploitation Route The funding was for up to £50,000 for online projects. As we are moving out of the more harsher restrictions of the previous Covid pandemic, this could be increased up to £100,000-£250,000+, in order to facilitate larger projects and outcomes and in person meetings across India and the UK.
Sectors Communities and Social Services/Policy,Creative Economy,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Education,Healthcare,Leisure Activities, including Sports, Recreation and Tourism,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections,Retail
URL https://www.bcu.ac.uk/media/research/research-groups/creative-industries/research-projects/india-uk-creative-industries-at-75/project-reports
 
Description The aims and objectives of the project were to develop impact, innovation, creativity and engagement for the India-UK artists in the following ways for non-academic creative impact: Impact: to network Indian and UK creatives from across the cultural sectors in order to nurture cross-cultural dialogue. This enabled the artists to gain an understanding of the challenges and opportunities in their respective fields and to enable the co-creation of new artistic outputs. Innovation: The project brought together 3 different strands into conversation with each other, especially during the 4th online event, the final showcase symposium. In doing so, the project provided a collaborative and interdisciplinary opportunity for our project participants to examine the dynamics of the India-UK cultural industries. Creativity: By engaging a variety of artists from across two countries and three strands, we sought to tap into the potential of collaborative synergies in order to encourage the artists to produce short creative outputs over the course of the project. Engagement: We involved the artists and their related user communities, that perhaps might not have been in engagement with each other before, to be part of reflexive thinking about the possibilities and challenges facing the creative industries across India and the UK.
First Year Of Impact 2022
Sector Communities and Social Services/Policy,Creative Economy,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Education,Healthcare,Leisure Activities, including Sports, Recreation and Tourism,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections
Impact Types Cultural,Societal,Economic
 
Description 5 Project workshops 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact 5 workshops were held across the project from Feb 2022 to October 2022. The first one introduced the India-UK artists to each other, the next 3 allowed the artists to be organised into sub-groups and start to work on the creative outputs across the screen industries, live performance and fashion, and the final one presented their work to a wider public and themselves. The workshops also allowed the artists to think about future projects and funding together.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://www.bcu.ac.uk/media/research/research-groups/creative-industries/research-projects/india-uk-...