Humanities Cultural Programme Projects 2019-2023


Over the 2021/22 academic year, Katie Melua joined the Humanities Cultural Programme as a Visiting Fellow. Katie Melua collaborated with a select group of students and faculties from Oxford University and Oxford community organisations to create an original musical story inspired by Professor Peter Frankopan’s best-selling book, The Silk Roads. The unique songs-based project was presented at Oxford’s Sheldonian Theatre on Thursday 28 April 2022

A History of Ordinary People in Africa (HOPIA) was a cultural heritage project consisting of a series of historical exhibitions. It was undertaken by members of the Oxford University Africa Society in partnership with Fusion Arts Oxford and supported by TORCH as part of the Humanities Cultural Programme, and the Oxford African Studies Centre. HOPIA emphasises the social experience of everyday life and reveals how ordinary people participate in the process of social change. It draws on oral histories, historical artefacts, and photographs to project into the past, centring on women and the underrepresented, and spotlighting their resistance, activism, preservation of traditions, innovations, creativity, and contribution towards positive change

On 24 February 2022, the full-scale Russian invasion brought war to all of Ukraine. Hooligan Art Community’s work was disassembled overnight and its artists displaced. Two months after the invasion began, the situation in Ukraine allowed women from the company to travel to a residency in Germany to work with Hooligan Art Community and Mahogany Opera (as part of British Council’s planned UK/Ukraine season) while two male members of the company remained in Ukraine, restricted by law from leaving the country. In spite of this, Danylo and Sam worked together in a bomb-shelter in Kyiv, filming sketches and songs which they sent to their colleagues outside the country. In this way they developed new scenes which would become the inspiration for BUNKER CABARET. Combining music, poetry, dance and film, this unique theatre event was a powerful exploration of love versus totalitarianism, and the personal conflicts of making art in time of war. Hooligan Art Community is an independent theatre company established in Kyiv in 2019. The group makes performances, installations and films in non-traditional spaces that explore the dynamic relationship between actor and audience. They have worked entirely outside of the state theatre system creating work that advocates for freedom of expression and equality