Shared Seas: Coastal Encounters
9:00 am Wednesday 4 June 2025 – 6:30 pm Friday 6 June 2025
A three-day programme of talks, panels and coastal encounters exploring how art and culture can shape global climate action.
Book your place (opens in a new window)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
| Time | Event |
|---|---|
| 09:00-12:20 | Sessions at the Sainsbury Centre include participatory workshops and panels on museum innovation and water rights. |
| 14:00-17:30 | Sessions at Norwich University of the Arts explore climate change, coastal futures, and practice-based environmental research. |
| 18:30-22:00 | North Sea, Nature Untamed film screening at Cinema City, hosted by the Norwich Green Film Festival. |
Day 2 | Thursday 5 June
| Time | Event |
|---|---|
| 13:30-16:45 | Held at Norwich University of the Arts, this day includes panels on community resilience, decolonial practices, and the intersection of art, care, and climate justice. |
Day 3 | Friday 6 June (Optional)
| Time | Event |
|---|---|
| 10:00-18:30 | A coastal encounter in Great Yarmouth, hosted by originalprojects;, invites participants to engage with the town as a living curriculum through artist-led walks, performances, and place-based dialogue. Participants are responsible for their own travel. |
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.
