For 30 years, Furtherfield has pioneered the critical imagination of art, technology, and networked cultures. In this time dominant global actors have created and imposed systems that support contemporary life for some at the same time as poisoning our planetary-wide environment and societies at an escalating rate. There is an urgent need to adopt the principles of less, again and differently, in a fair and equitable way. Seeking to cause less harm. Acting again on the knowledge that has been available (if ignored or downplayed) for decades. Acting differently in response to emerging knowledge, ways of knowing, being and feeling. Understanding our work in this way, how it exists within a living system, is one way of accepting how we are all material beings situated within vast chains of consequence, enmeshed within larger ones. This requires a different standard of responsibilities, a way to be responsive and accountable in a changing world working to address the uneven impacts on people, creatures, and places that may be geographically remote from us, but which nevertheless bear the cost of our actions.
In 2025 we shift the main focus of our work from our long-standing gallery in Finsbury Park, North London to a mid-sized town on Suffolk’s East coast. With a population of 24,000, Felixstowe town is our new home, where we will join existing communities, cultural partners, ecosystems, and species. This transition is a modal shift for the organisation and means we are doing things differently. In Felixstowe, we begin a new journey of becoming an embedded and community-needs-led art organisation focused on art, technology, and eco-social change. Eco-social change is systemic transformation, integrating social justice and ecology— to create fairer, more resilient futures for all.
With this move we commit to being in relation to communities, contexts, and biodiverse regions that are entirely new to us. In creating this policy we hope not only to “move to” but to “move with” our new location, developing different relationships with ourselves, each other, and the land, at the same time composting and letting go of existing practices and connections that harm. This environmental action plan therefore refers to listening, learning, flexibility, agility, stamina, synchronisation, and interpersonal mobility that will be required.
Our first environment action is to sign up to Culture Declares Emergency. Our second has been to develop an environmental policy for the next three years. Our third will be to make two climate pledges by the end of year one.
“We declare that the Earth’s life-supporting systems are in collapse, threatening biodiversity and human societies everywhere.
Alive to the beauty of our planet, we unite to challenge the dominant global power structures that fail to protect us as they disregard scientific consensus, silence marginalised voices and perpetuate ecocide.
As Declarers, we take action to harness the power of arts and culture to express heartfelt truths and address deep-rooted injustices, to care for and create adaptive, resilient and joyful communities, and to influence the urgent and necessary transformation of harmful global systems.”
On creating this policy, we :
In this new phase, we are committed to
In September 2024, people of all ages—residents, workers, visitors, holidaymakers, and passionate fans of Felixstowe in East Suffolk—came together to time-travel into the future of this coastal town with their friends and neighbours.
This small-scale event to explore community needs and aspirations was a key step in shaping Furtherfield’s future in the town, as we plan our relocation from London to Felistowe. Film-maker Hydar Dwatchi created a film about the event.
It’s important to use our imaginations to create the futures we want
“It just reminds us that we have to bring our creative imaginations to the future that we want. – It’s playful, it’s going to make a lot of people think, it’s going to surprise a lot of people” – Adrian
This experience made it more fun and less worrying to exploring the future
“It brings up serious issues while you are allowed to have a bit of fun with them. But also in a way allowing you to disassociate so your prime self doesn’t have to worry about them, because it’s this future self” – Mark
It’s important to respect ideas and feelings of young people in this town
“It’s great to involve younger people who don’t always get involved in these conversations because we feel a bit disenfranchised, and we feel a little bit pushed out by the older generation sometimes. In Felixstowe, it seems to be an older population…we are trying to get a place for younger people to be collectively together and work with you guys so we can make something we are ALL proud of. It’s just great to have a platform to be able to share ideas and feelings about Felixstowe and have them listened to and respected by everybody.” – Courtney
🚢The port was founded in 1875. Looking back 150 years, we can see the changes it made in this town.
During this event we asked ourselves how, in 50 years, we will we look back on this time with all the changes we know are coming, including new developments and shifts in climate?
🌞Felixstowe is a place that radiates healthful living and wellbeing. The land and sea support livelihoods, leisure and blooming biodiversity. The port, the largest in England, provides crucial national infrastructure and contributes to a healthy local economy. In the summer holidaymakers flock here.
🌬️But things are always changing here and in the wider world. In May, Furtherfield invited local residents to chat about the futures we want. In July, we shared what we discovered with three creative practitioners from the region: Mimi Doncaster and Frazer Merrick, and Kirsty Tallent. Together we created an immersive future fiction that formed the basis of a public event to work on the future together!
⏰We created a timeline of Felixstowe since the port was founded in 1875 and added events of historic or personal significance.
✨Then we chose our time-travelling characters. Starting as a young person, or an elder we decided what our character cares about?
We travelled all the way to 2075, the year the Multispecies Port of Felixstowe opens.
This event was co-devised by Ruth Catlow (Furtherfield), Mimi Doncaster, Ann Light (University of Sussex), Frazer Merrick, and Kirsty Tallent. Thanks to Hamilton MAS for hosting the co-creation workshop and to Cuppa for hosting the community conversation that inspired and informed our work. Thanks to Courtney Hessey for guidance on youth empowerment
In an 18 month project Reimagine This Coastal Town in Felixstowe over Summer 2025 and 2026 we are going to host a programme of events, workshops, and an exhibition, culminating in an eco-social Live Action Role Play (LARP), co-produced by 18+ young adults and eight creative practitioners from the region.
A proven way of generating visionary new worlds, we aim to inspire community-led environmental and social transformation in Felixstowe, enabling residents to collectively reimagine its future in the context of eco-social change, with a particular focus on youth empowerment and reaching marginalised communities in the town.
This project will be realised in partnership with The University of Sussex, Level Two Youth Projects, Hamilton MAS, and the Felixstowe Citizen Science Group and with support from Arts Council England and the Suffolk Cultural Fund.
Research shows that young people worldwide are deeply concerned about the climate crisis and biodiversity loss. As the generation that will be most affected, they have the power to drive change—spreading new habits, attitudes, and technologies. However, they also face significant barriers to meaningful action.
What is Felixstowe Youth VOICE?
Felixstowe Youth VOICE is a series of creative workshops co-produced by Furtherfield and young people (18-30 years) from the Felixstowe Peninsula. Through art, storytelling, and collaboration, we explore how creative practices can empower young people to lead positive eco-social change and contribute to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
In these workshops, we:
🐝 Step into the worlds of local species through experimental role-play, discovering what truly matters to them.
⚖️ Unpack the justice issues behind the Earth crisis, from climate collapse to species extinction.
🌾 Turn insight into action, exploring meaningful ways to create change—for ourselves and the ecosystems we depend on.
Together, we aim to
🧭 Explore artistic methods and creative ways of taking environmental action.
🤝 Come together as a community to shape a better future.
📣 Make sure young voices are heard and take an active role in decisions that impact our planet.
💡 Empower young people to improve and create real change in the places they love.
We have been exploring how artistic methods developed by artists in Furtherfield’s community can support environmental actoin:
Multispecies role-play was developed with artists, biodiversity experts and park lovers as part of the 5 year project, The Treaty of Finsbury Park. The Hologram, is a feminist peer-to-peer healthcare system, that was initially developed by artist Cassie Thornton at Furtherfield and is now practiced by thousands of people around the world.
Organising Team: Courtney Hessey, James Garden, Lauren Bruen, and Ruth Catlow
Co-production Team: Alexander Fotheringham, Cameron Sawyer, Jamie Lea , Katie Clark, Luke Winston, and Mark Richards
Film, animation and illustration by James Garden
Photography by Chris Clayton
Part of a European Research Initiative
Felixstowe Youth VOICE is part of VOICE a European research project examining how artist-led innovation and citizen engagement can help achieve the UN SDGs. In Summer 2025, the team will showcase creative media, tools, and learnings in an exhibition in Felixstowe.
Partners & Support
Special thanks to Laura Locke at the Felixstowe Wellbeing Hub, and Level 2 Youth Projects, Felixstowe for their partnership.
This work was realised within the framework of the VOICE project at Waag Futurelab with support from the Horizon Programme of the European Union.
The Hologram is a mythoreal viral four-person health monitoring and diagnostic system practiced by people from couches all over the world. Three non-expert participants create a three-dimensional or “holographic” map of a fourth participant’s physical, psychological and social health, and each becomes, the focus of three other people’s care in an expanding network.
The premise is simple:
The Hologram was incubated at Furtherfield as part of CreaTures, Cassie Thornton during her artist residency in 2020, just as the Covid pandemic was taking hold. Artistic Direction, workshop design and facilitation by Cassie Thornton. Workshop design and facilitation by Lita Wallis.
Workshop 1 Is this the end or the beginning? (a course for collective health) Asking for help as a New World – Spring 2020
Workshop 2 We must begin again: Asking for help as a new world – Autumn 2020, supported by CreaTures
Hologram LARP Live Action Role-Play We were made for this // 2050 Fugitive Planning – 2021, supported by CreaTures.
The Hologram was incubated at Furtherfield in 2020 and is now practiced in many different languages by thousands of people around the world. Find out how to get involved here.
The CreaTures project received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 870759. The content presented represents the views of the authors, and the European Commission has no liability in respect of the content.
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