Made Here
— Making, Belonging and Creative Futures in Lancashire
University of Lancashire, Preston
Monday, November 23 • 10:00 AM - 3:00 PM
HOST
University of Lancashire
HOST LOCATION
The Harris, Preston
Join us in Lancashire to explore how making sparks belonging and opens up creative futures for everyone.
Join artists, students, educators and cultural partners to explore how more people can make, belong and build a creative future in Lancashire.
What helps creative people thrive in Lancashire? What gets in the way, and what could we change together?
Made Here is a day of conversation, collaboration and practical activities exploring a shared question:
How can the spaces, institutions and creative people of Lancashire work together so that more people can make, belong and build their future here?
Starting with people’s experiences of making and belonging, we’ll explore access to creative spaces, the role of education and shared knowledge, opportunities for sustainable creative futures, and whose voices shape our cultural landscape.
We’ll also ask:
Who is currently able to say “I was made here” and whose creative future are we still failing to support?
Schedule
What to expect
Short provocations from people working across Lancashire’s creative and cultural landscape.
Collaborative workshops to identify strengths, barriers and opportunities.
A practical activity imagining what Lancashire’s creative future could look like in 2030.
Time to meet others, exchange ideas and identify possible next steps.
You don’t need to prepare anything or have experience of workshops. Come ready to share, listen and contribute. Activities will offer opportunities to write, draw or talk through your ideas.
Who is it for?
Artists, creative practitioners, students, young people, educators, community organisations, cultural partners and anyone interested in Lancashire’s creative future.
Students will document the day through photography, illustration and workshop contributions. Selected material will inform a zine sharing participants’ experiences, ideas and emerging priorities. Information about documentation and participation choices will be provided on the day.
Book your place and help shape what happens next.
Hosted by the University of Lancashire, with The Harris and Creative Lancashire. Supported by the Group for Learning in Art and Design in Higher Education (GLAD), with funding from the Council for Higher Education in Art and Design (CHEAD).
The GLAD Regional Series 2026–27: PLACE is delivered in partnership with CHEAD (Council for Higher Education in Art and Design). We gratefully acknowledge CHEAD’s support in making the series possible.Our GLAD events since 2023, have increasingly highlighted that creative education is essential civic infrastructure, not peripheral to society, but central to cultural, economic and community development. Participants have challenged deficit narratives about art and design education and emphasised how creative practice can advance equity, sustainability, collaboration and future-ready skills. In response, GLAD are doing something a little different in 2026/27!
Instead of a one-off event, GLAD will present a UK-wide series of regional half-day gatherings at HEIs. The series will create a distributed platform for exploration and co-creation under the broad theme of PLACE. By situating these conversations across the UK, the series will recognise diverse regional strengths and local contexts, elevating collective narratives that demonstrate how art schools lead through, for, and with their communities.
