(top) Bourgeois & Maurice – Norfolk & Norwich Festival 2014. Photo: Chris Taylor. (bottom) City Textures, Abby McFaul and Stef Kalife, 2015. Photo: Gorm Ashurst
What Next? is a free-to-access national movement. With chapters all over the UK, we bring together freelancers and small and large arts organisations to inform, debate and shape the future of the arts and culture.
Our Vision: Arts and Culture play a vital role in creating a more equitable society.
This will be achieved when:
Our Mission: With chapters all over the country we bring together freelancers and small and large arts organisations to inform, debate and shape the future of the arts and culture.
Our Values:
How we Work:
We are comprised of 30 chapters operating across the UK, who each meet regularly in their own local community and together at monthly meetings. All are supported by a small core team working a total of 5.5 days a week and a Steering Group of sector leaders.
Everyone is encouraged to get involved with What Next? by joining your local chapter, setting up a new chapter or following the movement on social media.
The arts and culture enhance every aspect of our lives: the vibrancy of our cities, the identity of our rural communities, the future prospects of our children, the quality of our democracy, the sustainability of our environment, the employability of our workforce, our ability to make sense of our own experience and to empathise with others.
We need to make the connections between these apparently diverse experiences through new kinds of campaigning, of advocacy and of collaboration.
We argue for the contribution that the arts and culture make in strengthening every aspect of the national economy, as we do for the contribution to our social wellbeing and cohesion.
We all speak for ourselves but, as a national movement, we coalesce around the highest common denominator of ideas and needs that we can act on. We believe that if we act together, we can maximise the effectiveness of our resources, our arguments, our ideas.
Turning a Little Further community production. Photo: Helen Murray