People’s Palace Projects are delighted to be part of British Council Transform, launched on 1 October 2012. It is a new programme running from 2012 to 2016 and currently PPP are contributing five of the 29 projects involved: the five projects are: Rio Occupation London; Points of Contact; Transforming Lives; Shakespeare Forum; LapaLondres. Transform aims to develop the artistic dialogue between the UK and Brazil, enabling artists and arts professionals to share experiences and collaborate to bring about significant creative and social change for institutions, individuals and communities.

Already this year PPP have three projects running as part of Transform. The Rio Occupation London, funded by the Rio de Janeiro State Culture Secretariat, brought 30 artists to London for 30 days and created work that reached 37 000 people. Points of Contact is our ongoing cultural knowledge-transfer programme for policy makers and arts leaders. The most recent visit took place at the end of November with a UK delegation visiting Rio and Salvador on a week long trip, focused on the training and employment routes for young people in the creative industries. Finally Transforming Lives has just finished a digital training phase in São Paulo, which will be continued in September 2013. The fourth Transform project, Shakespeare Forum had a launch event on 1 December to encourage applications in advance of the 2013 Forum. And last, but by no means least, LapaLondres is coming… but not until April 2013.

For more news on any of these projects, please click to view the project page.