London Bubble are planning a new, international theatre project and we need your help!
We are delighted to announce that London Bubble is one of the 20 shortlisted projects of the 2024 Art Explora – Académie des beaux-arts European Award! The European Award encourages new forms of audience engagement and participation in arts and culture, across all art forms and sectors.
We are competing for a €50,000 Award but also for the Audience Choice Award and we need your help to get as many votes as possible to try and win this Award of €10,000!
Votes will close on the 11th November!
Our submitted project, “Hear My Voice” will build an international community of artists, using theatre to share the voices of young women experiencing disempowerment and / or displacement.
Where did the idea come from?
Since 2022 our friends Cosmino Productions, based in Berlin, have been working virtually with eleven young women aged between 15 – 23 living in Afghanistan under Taliban rule who have been denied the right to education. Together, they created ‘Ay Kash / کاش ای / If Only’: a hybrid performance featuring live on-stage action by Rachel Karafistan of Cosmino Productions and filmed ‘interactions’ with the eleven young women who are in Afghanistan. Their true identities must remain hidden because it is simply too dangerous to do otherwise.
‘Ay Kash / کاش ای / If Only’ has already been performed in Germany, Poland and Turkey and we want to bring it to London to inspire other groups of women who have experienced disempowerment to share their stories and to feel seen and heard.
During 2025, we plan to:
- Co-produce Cosmino’s show ‘Ay Kash / کاش ای / If Only’, bringing it to London to tour cultural and community spaces
- Deliver a series of workshops with the community groups who saw it
- Create a brand new, devised show using material created in these workshops with people who took part in them and other women in our community
- Tour this new show to community spaces and public venues
- Create a blueprint pack for other companies working in other European countries, allowing them to follow a similar process with their local communities.
We are a step closer to making this a reality as we have been shortlisted for an Art Explora – Académie des beaux-arts European Award.
As a shortlisted organisation we are also eligible for the Audience Choice Award of 10,000 euros. You can help us by clicking here and voting for Hear My Voice.
Click here to see the full list of shortlisted projects.
London Bubble projects ensure more people who might not ordinarily access the arts will have the opportunity to engage with theatre, express themselves and make work of their own. We fundraise so that all our projects are free to take part in. To make a donation to London Bubble Theatre to support our work, click here.
Written by Lucy Bradshaw, Executive Director.