Utopia writing and film collaboration

Partners: Stellar Quines Ltd (Fife, Scotland) and MPower (Berlin)

Image © Mpower, Pauline Henze

“MPower and Stellar Quines are over the moon to have this support to continue our partnership. Our time together has already been transformational for us as practitioners and as organisations and we are so excited to extend this working with more participants. In the current global climate this collaboration is a vital opportunity for young women to use film and theatre to explore the connections between feminism and migrant justice and to share their experience across borders.”

Stellar Quines Ltd and MPower

Utopia writing and film collaboration is a Tier Two partnership previously supported by Cultural Bridge. Find out about their Tier One partnership.

About the partners

Stellar Quines is an intersectional feminist theatre company for Scotland. Our vision is for an equitable world where the lives, needs and dreams of all women and people of other marginalised genders are valued and celebrated. Our company is fuelled by artists and communities who want to create this change. We create an environment for transformative theatre-making to thrive and we share what we do widely. We make original theatre productions, lead engagement project with communities, host a podcast, support artist development and run campaigns. Our theatre seeks to welcome everyone to share in diverse stories, think critically and understand who we are. We present our work in a variety of ways and aim to reach audiences who will be most transformed by the experience. We take theatre to places where audiences already are so they can enjoy it in the places they feel most comfortable. We also present our work in theatres, and we take steps to make those spaces more comfortable for audiences too. Our work explores oppression and is made by and for those experiencing oppression. We approach this with extra care for the people making it and watching it. We aim to be experts at this. Joy is essential. We know the collective approach is the only way to achieve our vision.

In our work, Mpower (pronounced: Empower) means the strength – the power – that is released through migration. Since 2015 - Mpower has been a self-organized collective of girls and (young) women with migration and refugee backgrounds that develops and implements projects for political and cultural (film) education. Girls and (young) women are given the opportunity to exploit their own artistic potential and self-confidently achieve transcultural artistic expression. We facilitate safe spaces for girls to explore their identities, connect with other girls, and access the resources they need.

The working principle is to never work anywhere only once. Recently they have started a partnership with Meppen based Förderverein für Kunst und Kultur which they plan to expand over the coming years.