Collaborate: the projects

Collaborate: the projects

Find out more about the Collaborate research projects we supported.

Meet the people behind the projects, learn more about their aims and discover the methods they used in their work.

Fun Palaces – Creative Cafe @ The Bureau Centre for the Arts, Blackburn 2022. Photo: Scott David Jackson

The Collaborate fund supported ten research collaborations, including a pilot project.

They spanned diverse research areas including neuroscience; the value of beauty; civic activism; co-creation; power; the value of craft in the context of race and racism; migrant communities; identity; and how theatre can address societal challenges.

The projects developed a range of innovative research approaches to learn how cultural value is created and for whom.

Many of the projects used creative methods including walking interviews, audience lab books and performance.

Explore the projects

Find out more about the questions the partnerships wanted to explore, and why.

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Big Telly Theatre Company: Granny Jackson’s Dead production. Photo: Neil Harrison

Round 1

Musicians from the Manchester Camerata orchestra

Image: Manchester Camerata

Collaborate project spotlight: music and mind

Collaborate research project. A large black square structure in the centre of leeds Market. The structure has a range of screens on it, one screen has the word ‘Time Bar’ written on it, one is playing a video of a person, one has a pub quiz. A group of people are watching the screens.

Image: Public House - The Yorkshire Square by Small Acts. Photo by Lizzie Coombes for Compass Festival 2021.

Collaborate project spotlight: the impact of co-creation

Photo: Dalia James, weaver, by Joan Fernandez Blasco

Collaborate project spotlight: the cultural value of craft

A large board has text that reads: "369. Is the world how you imagined?" In the foreground people are moving cables and working on the stage.

Quarantine, 12 Last Songs at Transform Festival, October 2021 Photo: David Lindsay

Collaborate project spotlight: the beauty project

Several young people signing a large poster that reads ‘We Are Rising’ from the 2021 WhoseFuture campaign and designed by RTiiiKA

WhoseFuture 2021 Campaign by Rising Arts Agency Photo: Bryony Jade Throup

Collaborate project spotlight: equitable partnerships

Round 2

A piece of artwork. The title is our journey. Blue background with purple boarder, A diamond shape is drawn in the middle connecting two flags.

Our Journey Flag. The South North CIC

Collaborate project spotlight: routing diaspora histories

Three men sat at a table taking part in a willow weaving workshop.

Irish Linen Centre and Lisburn Museum.

Collaborate project spotlight: yours, mine and ours

Child in blue tshirt is sat a laptop making a stop motion animation film. On the table they have models and filming equipment.

Participant at animation club. Press Play Films.

Collaborate project spotlight: moving minds

Three people stood at a table talking together. One wears an aprn. On the table there are plants in pots and materials for potting plants.

Bromley by Bow Fun Palaces. Photo by Roswitha Chester.

Collaborate project spotlight: creative voices, activist voices

A production photo from Department Story. Four actors, in character, all looking towards the camera. They are say amongst some hanging rails.

Department Story - site specific performance. Big Telly Theatre Company / Zoe Seaton

Collaborate project spotlight: commemoration, mourning, performance and the digital

More about collaborative research

This photo depicts an outdoor theatre event programmed by Cauldrons and Furnaces. A crowd watches a group of people perform a fire show near castle walls.

Mabinogi at Harlech Castle. Photo: Ben Davies

Why do collaborative research?

Performance of 12 last songs. Colourful confetti in the foreground obscures the image.

Quarantine's 12 Last Songs, at HOME Manchester. Photo: Chris Payne

How to do collaborative research

A woman smiles while looking at tags that have been hung on an artificial white tree that has been made for a Fun Palaces event.

Fun Palaces 2019. Photo: Roswitha Chesher

Supporting collaborative research

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