Connections Through Culture Grants 2025, image

The Connections Through Culture grants programme nurtures fresh cultural partnerships between the UK and select countries in Central Asia, including Kazakhstan. These grants support new ideas and collaborations from artists and cultural organisations at any stage of development.

The grants supported in this round of the Connections Through Culture programme focus on two areas: diversity and inclusion as well as addressing climate change. The collaborations across borders and artistic disciplines will lead to new ideas to address these global challenges.

The grants support new connections, exchanges and collaborations between artists, cultural professionals, creative practitioners and art and cultural organisations.

2025 Grant recipients: Kazakhstan

Forbidden Playground: Reclaiming Public Space for Play and Collective Imagination

Forbidden Playground: Reclaiming Public Space for Play and Collective Imagination

UK: Leap Then Look

Kazakhstan: Madina Joldybek

This is a participatory project transforming unexpected public spaces into temporary playgrounds of joy, mess and solidarity. Through play stations, embroidery sessions, therapy gatherings and a public manifesto, the project challenges the erasure of mothers and children in public life, reframing care work as vital infrastructure while celebrating collective presence, imagination and intergenerational play.

Connections Through Culture – Impact Investing in Creative Industries: Case Studies from the UK and Kazakhstan

Impact Investing in Creative Industries: Case Studies from the UK and Kazakhstan

UK: Upstarter Incubator

Kazakhstan: Nastia Goncharova

This applied research project will produce a handbook aimed at entrepreneurs, investors and intermediaries. It introduces accessible, impact-oriented approaches to financing cultural and creative ventures combining storytelling with analytical insights to demystify investment, highlight pitfalls and share practical tools. It will raise awareness, build literacy and stimulate patient capital flows into the regional creative economy.

Connections Through Culture – Inclusive Music Practice Sharing

Inclusive Music Practice Sharing

UK: Drake Music Scotland

Kazakhstan: Music Unbound

This collaboration will champion disabled artists and develop accessible music making. The project will build relationships with charitable local organisations that support disabled people and continue to disseminate expertise in inclusive approaches to music including use of technology. They will deliver practical workshops and a concert with a view to future development of inclusive music making in Kazakhstan.

Connections Through Culture – T1/2: Residual Frequencies

T1/2: Residual Frequencies

UK: Vicky Clarke

Kazakhstan: Kamila Narysheva

This is a site-specific iteration of sound installation T1/2, first shown in Almaty, Kazakhstan. The project probes the acoustic memory of the Semipalatinsk Test Site, where the Soviet Union conducted over 450 nuclear tests. It aims to create an immersive installation in a Cold War-era nuclear shelter in Manchester and draws sonic and historical connections between Kazakhstan’s radioactive legacy and the UK’s participation in nuclear testing.

Connections Through Culture – When the River Speaks

When the River Speaks

UK: Georgia Leigh-Münster

Kazakhstan: Anel Moldakhmetova

This collaborative multimedia project explores the impact of flooding in Northern Kazakhstan, centring on a field research residency and exhibition. Participants will engage with local communities impacted by recent disasters to investigate ecological vulnerability and resilience. Artists, researchers and ecologists will engage in cross-cultural dialogue, creative collaboration and mutual learning rooted in pressing ecological realities.

Explore previous projects