Imagine 2037 | call for proposals from migrant artists

The British Council is inviting artists who are migrants, living anywhere in the world, to dream about the future in Imagine 2037. Join us to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the British Council's Edinburgh Showcase in this new project exploring place and migration.

We’re excited to announce a new opportunity open to artists who are migrants, based anywhere in the world. To celebrate the 20^th anniversary of the British Council’s Edinburgh Showcase, we invite practitioners to dream about the future with us in Imagine 2037, a festival of imaginary performances. If you’re interested, apply before the deadline on 18 May 2017.

Who is eligible to apply?
Artists who are migrants: who live in a country that’s not where they were born. We’re interested in hearing from artists based anywhere in the world. You should have some experience of working with performance.

Artists are not eligible to apply if we’re presenting you in a live performance as part of Edinburgh Showcase 2017, or if we’re giving you an individual platform in one of this year’s Showcase wraparound events. However, artists who have taken part in previous Edinburgh Showcase events are welcome to apply.

We will commission six artists to write a short text describing an imaginary performance to take place on Arthur’s Seat, overlooking Edinburgh in 20 years’ time. Together, these texts will form an imaginary festival. We will publish them on beautiful cards, each with a bespoke illustration, and distribute them at events throughout the Edinburgh Showcase, which takes place on 21–26 August 2017 alongside the Edinburgh Festivals. We’ll also share them online.

For artists, this is an opportunity to reach international theatre audiences and a chance to take part in a shared experience with other practitioners who you might otherwise be unable to work with. The imaginary performances are never intended to happen in real life, but to exist in our imaginations through the artists' words.

Why are we doing this? While we celebrate our birthday, we want to think about three things that are important to us: Edinburgh, artist mobility and the future. The founding principles of the Edinburgh Festivals are about providing a meeting point for people from different places to understand each other. With the projects that have been booked through the Edinburgh Showcase over the years, we’ve seen the value of artists exploring new cultures and new places. And as well as remembering the past 20 years, we want to look forwards.

Image: Arthur's Seat overlooks Edinburgh. Photograph: Sing-yue Wu