Introducing the beneficiaries of our Impact Grants 2024
The Supporting Act Foundation
Our Impact Grant is all about helping socially driven arts organizations, particularly those working with emerging artists from under-recognized backgrounds. The grants are unrestricted—enabling them to do their vital work, with no strings attached.
From a collective for Black women, to a platform for art activism, LGBTQ theater, a cultural space in Buenos Aires and so much more, 2024 saw us support more organizations than ever before. You can read more about each recipient below.
AfroDiaspora 2.0 is a collective of Black women dedicated to empowering Black and other communities in Munich, Germany and surrounding areas. Within the city they create spaces to connect and heal through various socially engaged art and cultural projects, happenings, and get togethers—all of these united by a focus on highlighting black voices, black perspectives, and black knowledge.
Black Girls Glow is a feminist non-profit that seeks to increase the active participation and leadership presence of women and girls in their communities. The organization brings visibility to women's issues and explores ways in which art can be used to solve them, providing innovative programs that foster collaboration, community and leadership development.
Bosla Arts is a platform focused on sharing and supporting art-activists worldwide, while drawing on their work to raise awareness among the public. They do this through an art residency, events, magazine, and podcast - bringing together artists, activists, and social change makers from all over the world.
Las Pibas Producen is a community-driven arts organization dedicated to promoting and recognizing the work of women and people of diverse sexual and gender identities in the cultural industries, with a specific focus on music. By using art as a tool, the organization challenges and dismantles everyday patterns of gender inequality, while fostering inclusive environments for leisure, knowledge exchange, and work. Las Pibas strives to create equitable, safe spaces that are free from harassment and sexist violence across all cultural fields and seeks to influence public policies for broader systemic change.
lowercase theatre is dedicated to sharing and celebrating North East Lincolnshire's unique identity and history—honoring its heritage, showcasing its present, and inspiring its future. Through theater, events, and creative collaboration with the community, the group challenges the ‘end of the line’ narrative often associated with the region’s post-industrial coastal towns. lowercase theatre strives to rearticulate the area’s roots; amplifying emerging voices, and highlighting the arts' ability to connect and unite people.
Making Things Up uses improv comedy and theater to empower people experiencing homelessness. The organization offers a space for confidence-building and connection-making, encouraging people to break free from social isolation. Within less than a year Making Things Up grew from a project into a registered non-profit, and was shortlisted at the inaugural Arts & Homelessness International (AHI) Awards in the category 'Arts and Homelessness Project of the Year'. In weekly workshops participants learn improv comedy skills and share laughter in a safe space. For most, it’s their first experience of theater, but the impact goes beyond creativity and inspires people to believe in their own ideas and creating a community.
“My migrant mama is much cooler than yours”. That was the sentence that started it all for the community group, Much cooler than yours, which has the mission of empowering female, lesbian, intersex, trans, agender and non-binary migrants to conceive and execute celebratory creative campaigns. Much cooler than yours fosters connection and authentic conversations about love, vulnerability, and other socially relevant topics between women with migrant backgrounds from different generations. It has created a space for empathetic dialogues from the migrant perspective. In doing so, the company has provided tools that are relevant in the digital age, setting new standards for self-empowerment.
Other Cinemas is a London-based organization established by the filmmaking duo Turab Shah and Arwa Aburawa who agreed upon the need for better and more equitable ways of film-making and sharing, and educating around cinema. Seeing these three strands as inseparable, our work attempts to create a vital and holistic alternative to the industry which addresses its racial and class biases. Other Cinemas’ work is rooted in the diverse North West London neighborhoods its founders come from, which are some of the most racially diverse in the UK, yet remain chronically underserved in terms of cultural provisions.
Planta Inclán is a social and cultural space located in the neighborhood of Parque Patricios, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It functions as a production house, theater, cinema, bar, training and education center, as well as a music venue. It also provides a space for arts-focused meetings and project development. Planta Inclán hosts national and international residencies and offers a free online platform. Planta, in the words of its founders, is a house that changes shape, but keeps a spirit: a place to live, think and create culture in common.
SAMAR provides a safe platform where Arabic-speaking refugee and migrant women in France can express themselves. Established in 2023, SAMAR encourages these women to exchange experiences of the challenges and conflicts they face as they engage with a new political, social, cultural, and economic system imposed on them by their exile. The organization’s aim is to amplify the voices of migrant and refugee women, making them visible, improving their realities, and promoting equality and justice in the context of asylum and integration.
Solomiya Collective is a platform for both emerging and established Ukrainian creatives showcasing a wide range of forms of expression that draw upon varied personal experiences, emotional observations and intellectual discourses. Through its magazine, Solomiya offers its readers diverse perspectives on present day life and complex social issues in Ukraine, as well as beyond its borders.
Untitled Tbilisi unites artists and art activists from the South Caucasus in order to support marginalized groups' rights through art projects in the region and beyond. Established in 2019 in Tbilisi, Georgia, the organization aims to drive social change by uniting diverse voices within the South Caucasus in the belief that art represents one of the most powerful means of fostering peace and socio-political change, on a regional as well as international level. Untitled Tbilisi organizes festivals, exhibitions, performances, screenings, artist talks, and networking events alongside educational and cultural activities promoting human rights in the region.
Curious to learn more? Read about the 2024 announcement or our Creative Bursary grantees.
