Visiting Arts' purpose is to strengthen intercultural understanding through the arts.

What do we do?

• Provide information and intelligence to help people engage in intercultural activity
• Create opportunities for artists and cultural professionals to explore new connections
• Expand the skills and knowledge of artists and cultural players

How we do this

Among other things we:

• Produce and distribute our free monthly e-newsletter, help-sheets, targeted briefings and the latest advice through print, web and face to face meetings
• Establish and foster opportunities for ground-breaking artist exchanges, and contribute to some of the world’s biggest and most innovative festivals
• Organise and run training programmes, in-country workshops, overseas country-visits, networking events, work placements, residencies and collaborations

From Afghanistan to Zanzibar, we work with the most exciting next generation of artists and cultural players, inviting them to the UK, linking them with UK artists and organisations expanding knowledge and horizons and championing intercultural working.

Our recent consultation with the sector showed us that, on average, arts professionals and artists need: international intelligence, particularly on funding sources and visa information, opportunities for travel and research, and networking opportunities in order to enable their international working. These are areas of development core to our work.

With increasing migration across the world, globalised trade and issues related to cross-cultural, religious and national conflict entering into our consciousness on a daily basis, it is clear that society needs more intercultural dialogue, not less. We are acutely aware that our work needs to reflect the issues facing us in the 21st century while building on the good practice that VA has evolved over the last 30 years.

The context in which this dialogue takes place is important; in the face of a global economic downturn and the pressures of climate change to minimise our carbon footprint, we must regulate our emissions and make sure that our programmes are as environmentally and economically sustainable as possible.

We work with our partners to avoid duplication and maximise the value and impact of our activity across the UK arts sectors, and we strive to capture the inspiration, the learning and the good practice of our programmes to share widely.

We test all of our programmes against these principles and we are constantly devising new ways of delivering high quality, effective programmes, and to challenge traditional models of international working.

What people say about us?

"Visiting Arts through my career has picked me up and given me wonderful insigfhts to artists and cultures round the world, most recently in an unforgettable trip to Iran. They have changed my world and I am very excited by their plans to change their role which I know will provide more inspiration in the years to come." Ruth Mackenzie, Director, Cultural Olympiad for London 2010

Who we are

Visiting Arts is an independent registered charity set up in 1977, which is funded, by Arts Council England, the Scottish Arts Council, the Arts Council of Wales, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and works with a range of partners including the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, British Council, Gulbenkian Foundation and Ministries of Culture across the globe. The Board is chaired by Robert Palmer. Other Board Members include Ajay Chhabra, Romesh Gunesekera, Sue Cambridge, Ann Harrison, Guto Hari and Nero Ughwujabo. We have a wide and growing group of associates with whom we work on one-off contracts. These associates represent some of the most experienced and diverse cultural operators in the UK (and beyond).

© Visiting Arts 2010

Registered in England No. 4162404 Charity No. 1085506. Auditors : Sayer Vincent 

• Article tags:

• mission