An insight into the ITER 4 Change Maker Cohort and a kickstart in ReArtica’s work
This autumn, I had the pleasure of taking part in ITER 4 – International Touring and Environmental Responsibility as part of the Change Maker Cohort. ITER is an international programme developed by Julie’s Bicycle in collaboration with Arts Council England, Arts Council Norway, and the Danish Arts Foundation.
The programme brings together artists and organisations from England, Norway, and Denmark to explore how international touring can align with core values of environmental responsibility, inclusion, and equity.
Through gatherings, conversations, and exchange of experience, we have explored how these perspectives can be integrated into practice – both artistically and strategically – and how they can inspire new, more sustainable models within the performing arts.
The seminars covered topics such as Creative Climate Action for Touring, Climate and Environmental Justice and Touring, Systems Change, Understanding and Analysing the System You Work Within, Changemaking, and Communication and Advocacy for Innovative Touring. The next phase of the programme offers participants the opportunity to apply for project support to continue this work.
Through ITER, I have explored how international collaboration and touring can be understood as relational practice – not only as structure, but as a space for exchange and change. I have gained a clearer language and new insight into how ecological and artistic perspectives connect.
This experience continues to inform the development of ReArtica, through artistic processes, advisory work, and new ways of collaborating within the performing arts.
I also had the opportunity to present Imagining New Touring Practices for the Beginners Cohort: a reflection on touring as a living practice – an ecosystem of relationships, rhythms, and reciprocity. In continuation of this, I have written an essay that will soon be published on Julie’s Bicycle’s resource pages.
The themes in this text form the foundation for my ongoing work on regenerative models for touring, collaboration, and knowledge sharing in the performing arts. They also point towards a larger question I wish to keep exploring:
How can the movements of art – human, structural, and geographical – contribute to regenerative ecologies that sustain both the art and the world it acts within? Stay tuned.
Many thanks to Julie’s Bicycle, in collaboration with Arts Council England, Arts Council Norway, and the Danish Arts Foundation, for the opportunity to be part of the ITER 4 Change Maker Cohort – and for the trust to share my reflections from what marks the beginning of ReArtica’s work: exploring how art can move with the world, not just through it.
