Keeping Cultures Connected, Keeping Connected through Culture
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have become all the more aware of the role that arts and culture play. This is in terms of both our mental wellbeing and in keeping us all connected.
From free films and recorded plays, to exploring museums and art collections virtually, the period of confinement has highlighted the importance of the arts and culture in our every day lives.
We are also living in a time when cultural producers - many of them freelance - are facing extreme financial hardship. Arts organisations have been forced to temporarily close.
In response to these new challenges and opportunities, the Connecting Cultures GRP launched a funding call in April 2020. "Keeping Cultures Connected, Keeping Connected through Culture" provided funding for projects that examine or participate in innovative digital strategies to keep cultures connected during the pandemic. The call also helped secure research collaborations with the cultural sector.
Discover the projects we've funded...
Grey Data: Machine Learning for Analysing Ageing on Screen
Tanaya Guha (Computer Science) & Joanne Garde Hansen (CCMPR)
This project seeks to use AI for measuring age representation and stereotyping on screen so that the data generated can better inform screen industry policy and practice.
Life Under Lockdown: Youth Video Diaries from Informal Urban Settlements in Sub-Saharan Africa
Keith Hyams (PAIS)
Using video diaries to highlight the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic and related policy responses in African informal settlements, and to understand the differential impacts on vulnerable groups.
CONGREGATE: Live Digital Arts and Community Connection at a Time of Social Distancing
James Hodkinson (SMLC)
Bringing together artists and citizens from multiple cultural, often minority backgrounds and different sectors of society to engage in digitally connected conversation and artistic responses to the pandemic and social distancing.
Digitising the tokens of Lyon: The Récamier collection in the BnF
Clare Rowan (Classics and Ancient History)
Creating, for the first time, a digital English edition of part of the Récamier collection of lead tokens in the Bibliothèque nationale de France.
Using virtual reality for teaching art subjects online
Jianhua Yang (WMG)
Explores using state-of-art image processing technologies to build a VR app that allows learners and teachers to communicate smoothly via their mobile devices as if they sit next to each other.
Chinese voices in the age of Covid-19
Ross Forman & Dee Wu (English), Anne Gerritsen & Ni Leiyun (History), Xie Kailing (PAIS)
Collaborative research featuring a variety of Chinese voices, ranging from student activists to elderly residents in Coventry, many of whom have experienced racism in one form or another.
In conversation; Creatives in lockdownLink opens in a new window
Vishalakshi Roy (SCAPVC, Centre for Cultural & Media Policy Studies)
Realities and Dreams: Culture under Covid, is a series of podcasts examining the impact of Covid-19 on the UK creative economy.
Jointly funded by Connecting Cultures GRP and Productivity & the Futures of Work GRP
Engineer Inside: online resources for creative, practical, research -informed learning during school closures
Margaret Low, Diane Burton, Phil Jemmett, Helen Luckhurst (WMG)
Creating free online learning tools that encouraged a creative, practical approach to STEM learning and foster connections between children and university researchers.
Jointly funded by Connecting Cultures GRP and IMFM GRP
Spectacles of Isolation: Livestreaming Experimental Music and Club Culture
Michael Pigott (Film & TV Studies)
Looking at two cultures that have relied strongly upon presence and proximity: improvised experimental music, and club culture, this project supports the development of new and necessary livestreaming platforms for performance.
Jointly funded by Connecting Cultures GRP and IMFM GRP
Found Sound 2020
Jonathan Heron (IATL)
Our practice-as-research explores embodied cultural memory and intangible culture heritage through sound installation. We are developing a digital iteration online, in preparation for the physical installation of the sound work in Coventry Cathedral in 2021.
Jointly funded by Connecting Cultures GRP, IMFM GRP and Coventry Creates
Screening Rights Film Festival Online
Michele Aaron (Film & TV Studies)
Developing an online version of the Screen Rights Film Festival which would enable the annual event to take place in October 2020 during the COVID pandemic.
Funded by Humanities Research Fund in collaboration with Connecting Cultures GRP
Music and Empire in Eighteenth-Century London: A Digital Concert Series
Maxine Berg (History)
A series of performances and talks exploring the fascinating, diverse, and often precarious lives of musicians and their patrons in 18th century London.
Funded by Humanities Research Fund in collaboration with Connecting Cultures GRP