4 November 2025, Manchester
University of Manchester
Call for papers
Re:locating the Arts is a one-day symposium at the University of Manchester’s Martin Harris Centre for Music and Drama, hosted in collaboration with Manchester Camerata.
For the majority of UK-based arts organisations, ‘community’ activity plays a key role in strategy as well as meeting the requirements of increasingly place-focused funding obligations. Additionally, the current trend within the sector for organisations to relocate, often to areas that sit outside of creative clusters (Gilmore and Burnill-Maier 2025), amplifies the importance of developing strategies to understand the needs of the community/ies within which they operate. To effectively engage with these groups requires a considered approach, not least as a community ‘can hold a polyphony of voices and contested meanings’ (Eagle 2025). The necessity of these strategies reflects recent findings from the Centre for Cultural Value, which signify the importance of ‘an understanding of power dynamics both within and between groups, particularly as top-down approaches can become exploitative and risk alienating the very communities they seek to engage’ (Wright 2024, Arts Professional).
The symposium therefore addresses these developments by focusing on the re-location of arts organisations, questioning and re-imagining the value and meaning of place in their output and activities.
We welcome participation from academics, students, and professionals working in the creative industries.
We are seeking proposals for presentations from a range of disciplines and approaches on related topics, as well as case studies from arts organisations.
Areas of focus could include (but are not limited to):
The role of arts-based placemaking in community regeneration, including the development of reciprocal relationships.
The ways in which relocation can impact the strategic direction of an arts organisation.
Arts activity in unlikely places: who is it for?
Ethics and practices of co-production.
Creating accessible, welcoming, and inclusive spaces/events for different audiences/participants.
Timescales: understanding and working with different timescales with partners and communities.
Effective feedback and evaluation.
Please send a proposal of up to 200 words to Rebecca Parnell by Fri 12 September 2025. Registration information will be available in due course.
Organisers: Dr Roddy Hawkins (University of Manchester), Max Thomas (Manchester Camerata, Creative Manchester), Rebecca Parnell (PhD student, University of Manchester),
This event is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, Northwest Consortium Doctoral Training Partnership’s Targeted Funding Programme.
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Mercredi 3 Septembre, 2025