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Five arts organisations in England will receive almost £3million from our Ambition for Excellence programme to develop artistic and cultural talent and leadership in the regions and give an international dimension to excellent work.

The fund is aimed at stimulating and supporting ambition, talent and excellence across the arts sector in England. It also aims to support the development of strong cultural places and create the highest quality new work, including for outdoor and festival contexts.

Alison Clark, National Director, Combined Arts & Programme Lead, Ambition for Excellence, Arts Council England, yesterday said:

One of the most important roles that Ambition for Excellence takes is to support a long-term, international-facing approach to talent development.

"The successful projects we have announced today will create new opportunities for a wide range of artists, producers and arts leaders to substantially develop their work and longer-term careers. The new work and content developed through the projects will stand as some of the very best in terms of quality and wider engagement and continue to enhance the UK’s international reputation as a place of creative and democratic innovation.”

The projects:

• In the south west, Dorset based Activate will receive £367,103 to work with And Now: andLandscapes for Life exploring the ancient 400 mile Icknield Way as inspiration for an artistic programme of work.

Life Cycles and Landscapes will culminate in an ambitious new large-scale artistic work The Way in 2018. There will be a programme of professional development in 2016 and 2017 focused on the landscape and a national strategic agreement made between outdoor arts and Areas of Outstanding National Beauty (AONB) as a result of the project.

Kate Wood, Executive Director at Activate says: “Activate is absolutely delighted to be working with all our partners in the UK, Netherlands and France to realise the artistic work of And Now:. Through Life Cycles and Landscapes, we will develop the artistic practice of making work in the landscape in England and open up new opportunities with our colleagues at the AONBs.  The investment from Arts Council’s Ambition for Excellence programme is a real endorsement of work made to animate our very special landscapes."

• The New North and South, a three-year programme between a network of three Northern cities and five South Asian biennials, has been awarded £730,000. The Whitworth, Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester Museum, Liverpool Biennial, and the Tetley in Leeds, will work with the Lahore, Kochi, Colombo, and Karachi biennials and the Dhaka Art Summit on a series of co-commissioned exhibitions, performances, critical dialogues and professional development activities.
   
• The Future Arts Centres network, a partnership of nine founding organisations which supports a wider network of 90 arts centres, has been awarded £398,000 for a number of initiatives to develop European collaboration. Led by ARC Stockton and the Albany, London, the initiatives include forging new international creative partnerships across Europe, developing international collaborative projects including six co-productions between UK and European partner venues and opening up access to European funding opportunities for arts centres in the UK.
   
• Creative agency ArtReach will receive £655,000. This funding will help transform its Leicester-based Journeys Festival into a national event. Over the next two years, ArtReach will produce festivals in Leicester, Manchester and Portsmouth. These will create a platform for the art, music, theatre, and culture that refugee artists bring to England. The festivals will celebrate our country’s rich artistic and cultural diversity. Local cultural partners and community groups will work with ArtReach to connect artists and audiences. A talent development programme in each city will also help to support the next generation of creative producers. 

David Hill, Director, ArtReach, said: "Ambition for Excellence funding will mean ArtReach can embark on an extraordinary new three year initiative, Journeys Festival International, to celebrate the talents of refugee artists and to share the experiences of refugees, through exceptional art, at this critical time in European history. This is a major partnership project, led from Leicester, with twenty-five collaborating organisations from the public, cultural, community and voluntary sectors. Partners include innovative refugee artists Belarus Free Theatre, and the project will facilitate exciting and stimulating activity and audience engagement and development in the South, Midlands and North. We're so pleased to have secured this Arts Council support that will enable platforms for talented refugee artists.”

Kinde, ArtReach Journeys Festival 2015. Photo © ArtReach.jpgn

Ambition for Excellence funding of £750,000 will support the delivery of outdoor spectacle and site specific work as part of Hull UK City of Culture 2017. Focusing on the creation and delivery of major world-class commissions, this work will help to increase the quality and ambition of the outdoor arts sector, particularly across the north, building local, regional and UK-wide capacity and skills.

The fund aims to support the creation of work for major national moments that build on the legacy of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad, enabling organisations to reach international and national audiences.

Our expectation is that 80-90 per cent of this fund will be committed outside London, to support our target that a minimum of 75 per cent of Lottery funding is committed outside the capital by 2018.

Find out more about Ambition for Excellence and other successful applicants here.