GALA partners from Stockholm University, the University of Adelaide, Bath Spa University and many other international artists and academics gathered at the Transnational Creatives Mini-Festival.

The event was launched with a welcome by Professor Christina Slade, Vice-Chancellor and the Transnational Creatives team, building a Research Community Brain-storm and launching collaboration with Wales Arts Review.

A Chain Reaction talk and exhibition then followed with TRIP (Theory and Research in Practice members). TRIP members have each created an artefact in response to a well-known saying, however; only the originator of the first artefact knows what that saying is.  The exhibition and talk traced the development of the artefacts and discover if the original provocation is recognisable at any stage of the relay. Theory and Research In Practice is a South West and Wales Doctoral Training Partnership funded research cluster.  Participants are doctoral researchers from a wide range of disciplines within the SWW DTP.

Suman Ghosh led ‘Cultural Fences: Transnational Movements and Contemporary Indian Film’ to explore the extent to which a cultural crossover has redefined the ‘national’ identity of Indian film  because the new Indian film is now also at times Canadian, German, Australian or American. Omar Yousaf (University of Bath) and Seemab Gill then delighted the group with Classical Indian Music.

In the afternoon Stephen Moss led the Transnational Bird Walk: Birds Without Boundaries, which included a walk around the grounds of Newton Park, looking for and listening to birds from Africa and those that stay closer to home.

Joy Menesiotis from the University of Redlands read an excerpt from ‘A Short History of Anger’ followed by a talk by Maggie Gee on ‘Writing Fiction Across Borders: ‘Becoming’ Ugandan, learning from Ugandan writers’.

Nicholas Jose and students led a Creative Writing Masterclass – Translating creativity – looking at how transnational experience can be explored in language.

Transitions: music and dance to mark the summer solstice then followed with Mbira Music by Mbira featuring Chartwell Dutiro and Denise Rowe and Shorai Dutiro. Leandro Maia (music director), Maria Falkembach (choreographer), Chloe Tyghe (musician and dancer), Charlotte Gallop, Jody Wheeler, Madeleine Woolgar and Rebecca Menzies. (dancers) performed the ‘Land of Many Arrivals: Cross-Cultural Brazil-UK Dance Theatre’, followed by ‘Acapulco Space Station’ – Latin American electronic dance music by Pablo Perezzarate.