Right from the outset of Culture Collective, we’ve been keen to use this time to learn together about what works, in terms of community-led participatory arts. Thanks to the care, commitment and ethos with which the network has approached its work, we’ve had this incredible opportunity to learn, share and grow together.

That won’t end as our projects do, and we’ll no doubt all take that learning with us into our next adventures. At this moment, though, it felt important to capture some of those key lessons in a Culture Collective manifesto, which has grown from all we’ve strived to create over the past 2.5 years.

These manifesto points have been drafted by and with many of the Collective – thank you to everyone who contributed their ideas, and especially to those involved in the Intersectional Day in September 2023, whose voices and experiences were key to many of these points.

We hope this manifesto, which you can read and download below, will serve as a statement of learning and action from Culture Collective, and become something that we can all look to action and advocate for in the months and years to come.