Shared Seas: Coastal Encounters

An interdisciplinary symposium exploring the role of art and culture in global climate action.

Shared Seas: Coastal Encounters brings together artists, curators, designers, scientists, activists, researchers, policymakers, and community leaders for a three-day programme of workshops and panels focused on coastal futures, environmental justice, and creative resilience.

Programme Overview

Day 1 | Wednesday 4 June

Day 2 | Thursday 5 June

Day 3 | Friday 6 June (Optional)

Session Details

Water Rights: A Dialogic Approach

Wednesday 4 June, 9.00 – 11.20
Sainsbury Centre, East End Gallery

Led by the Sainsbury Centre Learning Team in collaboration with community partners, this participatory session explores the transformative potential of dialogic methodologies within the museum context. Through collective conversation and co-creation, participants will examine how shared knowledge and dialogue can shape institutional responses to water rights and environmental justice.

Radical Museums: Catalysts for Climate Action

Wednesday 4 June, 11.35 – 12.20
Sainsbury Centre, East End Gallery

This public panel brings together leading voices in curatorial innovation and institutional change. Panellists Jago Cooper, Frances Morris, and Daisy Desrosiers will discuss how museums can evolve as agents of climate justice and social equity — becoming stewards not only of the past, but of transformative futures. Themes of radical pedagogy, museum innovation, and institutional accountability will guide this powerful exchange.

Climate Change and Coastal Futures

Wednesday 4 June, 14.00 – 15.30
Norwich University of the Arts, Duke Street Riverside

How do history, trade routes, and environmental shifts shape coastal futures?

Convergence of Practice: Art and the Environment Practice Research Assembly I

Wednesday 4 June, 16.00 – 17.30
Norwich University of the Arts, Duke Street Riverside

Exploring how artistic and design practices respond to ecological urgencies.

Communities in Action: Art, Nature, and Collective Resilience

Thursday 5 June, 13.30 – 14.45
Norwich University of the Arts, Duke Street Riverside

How can creative practices support community resilience in the face of ecological and mental health challenges? This panel explores the role of art, nature, and collaborative projects in fostering connection, wellbeing, and environmental stewardship.

Decolonial Practices of Care

Thursday 5 June, 15.15 – 16:45
Norwich University of the Arts, Duke Street Riverside

How can museums and cultural institutions dismantle colonial frameworks and centre care in their practices? This panel examines decolonial strategies that challenge dominant narratives, promote epistemic diversity, and reimagine institutional responsibilities.

Coastal Encounter in Great Yarmouth: Exploring an Artist-Led Campus

Friday 6 June, 10.00 – 18.30
Meet at PrimeYarc, Market Gates Shopping Centre, Great Yarmouth

originalprojects; invites you to walk together—through spaces of local heritage, creativity, and resistance—and take part in a live inquiry, exploring Great Yarmouth as a living curriculum. Through artist-led walks, conversations, and encounters with the town’s people and our creative partners, you will engage with a series of site-specific activities and interventions that reflect the town’s layered histories and coastal character. The programme includes opportunities for discussion, reflection, and performance — all grounded in place — as we consider how creative practices rooted in local context can support climate awareness, knowledge-sharing, and community resilience.

Please book each event separately with our partner organisations:

Shared Seas: Coastal Encounters is part of the public programme accompanying East Gallery Fellows Arieh Frosh and Ed Compson’s exhibition ‘The New Scroby Sands Visitor Centre’ at East Gallery and the ‘Can the Seas Survive Us?’ season at the Sainsbury Centre. The event is organised by Norwich University of the Arts, East Gallery, the Sainsbury Centre, University of East Anglia, and Norwich Green Film Festival, in collaboration with originalprojects; (Great Yarmouth) and Wolterton, with support from the Kingdom of the Netherlands Embassy, London.

Event curated by:

• Candice Alison – Development Curator, Bank Plain, Norwich University of the Arts.
• John Kenneth Paranada – John Ellerman Foundation Curator of Art and Climate Change, Sainsbury Centre; member of the AAH Curatorial Committee’s Climate Working Group; researcher at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.