Kino Beat x FACT Residency 2025

Between August 2025 - January 2026, and as part of the UK/Brazil Season of Culture, this partnership led by Kino Beat and Cine Esquema Novo invited four artists (two from Brazil and two from the North West of the UK) to a curatorial laboratory and an in-person artist residency, based at FACT and within the city of Liverpool. This programme was outcome based and culminated during the 10th Kino Beat Festival in Porto Alegre, where the four selected artists presented their work in an exhibition: Portos Conectados / Connected Ports.

The UK/Brazil Year of Culture, promoted by the British Council in partnership with the Guimarães Rosa Institute (IGR), the Brazilian government’s cultural diplomacy body, is an initiative to highlight the rich cultural heritage of the United Kingdom and Brazil, and strengthen their relationship through cultural exchange.

Through its focus on both curatorial and artistic exchange, the partnership aimed to reinvigorate understandings of each city, and bring new perspectives through the lens of the visiting practitioners, to create new artistic projects that build speculative reimaginings of these places, their ecology and the stories they contain.

Porto Alegre and Liverpool have long histories as ports and places from which goods, people, and ideas embarked and were traded around the world. Both Kino Beat and FACT have a strong shared interest in immersive artistic experiences and storytelling, from cinema to music, to artistic installations and mixed reality works.

THE ARTISTS

Dongni Liang (Liverpool, UK)

"I think all the workshops were very helpful, both in theory and practice. I especially enjoyed the workshops that are hands-on, such as how to build a microphone, or the worldbuilding workshops, which introduced many digital tools that i will be using in my future practice. I also enjoyed the curatorial sessions, being able to exchange ideas, experiences and seeing the work from the curator's lens."

Henrique Fagundes (Porto Alegre, Brazil)

"I believe that, in Liverpool, the workshops were offered and organized in a way that matched our needs and our desire to expand our knowledge and integrate it into our artistic practice. The speakers’ generosity, such as the Lucid Games team, and Myra’s workshop from BRiGHTBLACK, by opening up their creative processes and explaining them in detail, were fundamental for us to understand how we could continue our production in a more organized and systematized way."

Sophie Rogers (London, UK)

"I had been wanting to work with sound for a long time, having predominantly worked more visually. The residency allowed me to experiment with hydrophones and sound design which I believe was successful in terms of showing a work that's main aspect was sound."

Trojany (Icó, Brazil)

"I believe the most useful elements were the access to distinct cultural and institutional contexts, the curatorial support, and the opportunities for direct exchange with local artists and cultural practitioners. The possibility of experiencing two cities with strong port, industrial, and cultural histories significantly expanded the range of references for my research. In addition, the infrastructure offered by FACT for research and artistic experimentation was fundamental to the development of my ideas in both stages. I made extensive use of the camera, 3D scanning, the physical spaces, and the library, taking full advantage of all the resources available."