Partner South East Asia: Arts and Culture Matters

Join our event that will take you on a journey exploring the arts and cultural sectors of South East Asia.

Date: 22–25 November 2021
Every day from 09.00 (UK time) 

The arts and culture sector in South East Asia is rich and diverse. The region is home to a fast-growing population that is young and digitally savvy. The median age is 30 and the digital economy in South East Asia has expanded threefold between 2015-2019 and represents 7 percent of the regions US$2.8 trillion GDP. This presents tremendous opportunities for collaboration in the arts and creative industries in terms of influencing policy, international market development and knowledge exchange.

Partner South East Asia is a series of online forums presented by the British Council that aims to provide participants with a better understanding and knowledge of the arts and culture ecosystems of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Who is the event for?

The event is aimed at UK and SEA arts and cultural professionals, academics, funders and government officials who are interested in connecting and collaborating with their respective counterparts. 

We expect participants attending the event:

• To increase their knowledge of SEA arts and culture through SEA country briefings and thematic sessions
• To develop new connections between SEA and UK arts and culture stakeholders through networking opportunities
• To understand better the role of the British Council in facilitating UK-SEA relationships for the Arts and Culture sector and learn about future opportunities

The four-day online event will be in English with live captioning in the South East Asian languages and will include the following sessions: 

• Opening session including a keynote speech on the potential of South East Asia’s creative economy followed by an artist panel discussion (75 mins)
• Five dedicated country briefing sessions (90 mins each)
• Three thematic sessions covering the creative economy, arts and inclusion and climate change and cultural rights (60 mins each)
• Dedicated networking functions to meet counterparts for future collaborations (ongoing during the event)
• Watch our showreels and discover artistic collaborations between artists and creative professionals from the UK and South East Asia
• Over 70 inspiring speakers from the UK and South East Asia

Overview of the Programme 

Matchmaking and Digital Showcasing will be ongoing throughout event. Please click on this link to download the Partner South East Asia: Arts and Culture Matters event programme. 

The event will feature The Việt Nam Connections – a country briefing session for Việt Nam live on 24 November from 16.00–17.30 (Viet Nam time). This session will shine a spotlight on three UK–Việt Nam collaborations spanning music, festival, theatre, arts and disability, and sustainable thinking, design and making. We invite you to join us discovering how these connections were built, nurtured (throughout the Covid-19 pandemic), and are flourishing and bringing arts to life in Hà Nội, Brighton, London and Cardiff. We will also walk you through the cultural landscape of Việt Nam from north to south, sharing about the magical attractions of Vietnamese cities and the young dynamic audience who are incredibly receptive to new arts and cultural products. This one hour and a half session will let you in on how we do it at the British Council in creating that bridge from the UK to Việt Nam – to quote The Great Escape Festival’s Head of Music Adam Ryan – “so we can lean on each other’s knowledge of our local scenes and networks” to make arts and a cultural life across borders. Click on this link and find out more about our speakers at The Việt Nam Connections.