We Connect 2025 - Inclusion in the Arts conference
25 March 2025
Portsmouth Guildhall
We Connect 2025 - Inclusion in the Arts Conference was the first event of its kind in Portsmouth, co-produced and programmed by This New Ground in partnership with Portsmouth Creates. The one-day conference brought together a wide range of learning-disabled and disabled artists, inclusive arts organisations, and practitioners from Portsmouth and across the UK for a day of talks, workshops, and skills-sharing focused on leadership, access, and inclusive practice.
This New Ground led the curation of the artists, speakers, and organisations involved, drawing on our long-term work with learning-disabled artists to shape a programme rooted in lived experience. We worked closely with our artists to design accessible resources for the day, including clear maps showing what to expect, room signage, and communication stickers that supported choice and consent around interaction. We also led an inclusive evaluation session, creating space for reflection and feedback in accessible formats, and supported our artists to share a manifesto for the future of arts and culture in Portsmouth, setting out their collective vision for a more inclusive city.
The structure of the conference was intentionally designed to offer multiple ways to engage, through listening and discussion in panel talks, hands-on making in creative workshops, peer learning in skills-sharing sessions, as well as space for observation and rest. Contributors included artists and companies working across visual arts, dance, digital practice, poetry, governance, and international collaboration, including the This New Ground Collective, Heart n Soul, Head Over Wheels, Access All Areas and Stopgap Dance Company, creating a space for shared learning and reflection on how inclusive arts can be meaningfully led by disabled and learning-disabled people.
