About Us
Background
Kalwant Ajimal is the Founder and Executive Director of Mirador Culture a Guildford based arts development agency and cultural consulting company, soon to establish an office in one of the East London boroughs following a review of Asian Arts Access, a national networking organisation that he set up in 1990.
The Arts Support Network (ASN) is another agency in the group of support services providers. It has been extensively involved in mainstream arts consulting.
Asian Arts Access has received project and programme funding from the Arts Council of England from 1995 to 2003/04 working through its former regional arts boards. Local authorities have also been key development partners and have participated extensively our work programmes. Asian Arts Access and one of its projects known as the Fillum Screen Agency has also won substantial funding for the Arts Council’s new audience programme.
Kalwant’s pride and passion in arts creativity lies ‘A Festival of Ephemeral Arts’, a festival of timebased culture that he created in 1999. It has been a success and over 8,000 people have attended it on its various presentations. A new web log now provides guidance to new and emerging practitioners in timebased culture. Please see http://ephemeral-arts.blogspot.com
Principal Services
- Direct arts and cultural development, resulting in creation of new artistic productions aimed at communities and mixed audiences
- Production support schemes for artists seeking access to creative management and network support.
- Strategic development projects based on investment in cultural diversity, working mainly with local authorities to develop strategic arts programmes.
Consultancy
We have completed business planning and consultancy assignments for clients of the arts funders, carried out several major assessments of capital projects for Arts Council Capital Services, and supported arts organisations and local authority clients in the UK. Details are available on request.
Joint Ventures
- Fillum Festival partnerships with the BBC, NTL, British Film Institute, Movie magazine , London, Eastern Eye newspaper, ‘g’ magazine, Bombay, Cineblitz, the UK film magazine and The Asian Age newspaper, London.
- A major production includes A Festival of Ephemeral Arts. Our role includes festival design, management and local audience research and development in conjunction with local authority partnerships from Hillingdon, Hounslow, Barnet, Merton, Kingston-upon-Thames, Croydon, Bexley and Association of London Government (ALG)
- The India and Pakistan Independence Festival, exhibitions and celebrations of this key event with Slough Borough Council, 1997
- The Fillum Festival in conjunction with Luton Borough Council, Cambridge City Council and the former Eastern Arts Board.
- A Drama production in conjunction with London Borough of Hounslow, Glasgow City Council. Directed by the late Balwant Gargi of India.
- Development and launch of The Millan Ensemble in conjunction with TAPS, Traditional Arts Productions.
Kalwant Ajimal is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He has published professional papers and is now authoring several web logs on a regular basis. His production of ‘Sanskaraz’ won a Millennium Festival Award in 2000. He is a regular speaker at cultural conferences in the UK and has also been invited to speak in India, USA and Zambia.
In February 2003, Tessa Jowell, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport appointed him Chair of Culture South East, the cultural consortium for the South East England. This is a Public Appointment. The work of the consortium can be seen at its website www.culturesoutheast.org.uk A major Cultural Portal, the Observatory is under development.
Kalwant has also been working in management consulting and interim management. He was worked with the Audit Commission, local authorities, private companies and voluntary sector organisations. Two of his major assignments have led to publication of professional artciles in respected journals. He is also a extensive ‘blogger’ and currently writes five blogs on various areas that interest him.
