Centre for Cultural Ecologies in Art, Design and Architecture

Welcome to CEADA

The wider cultural and creative industries as an ecosystem provides a context for exploring the mixed ecologies of exchange, co-creation and co-production at work in all kinds of creative and cultural practices.

Our ambition as a research centre is to provide a space for collaboration, knowledge and cultural exchange between academics, students (postgraduate and undergraduate), creative communities and cultural organisations.

We encourage collaborations that will develop new ecologies of thinking and making across a broad range of themes and topics. We support opportunities for interdisciplinary working across the arts and humanities and encourage participation and engagement in our public realm programmes.

We aim to:

• Foster ways for arts and humanities researchers to collaborate with the creative and cultural industries for research, knowledge exchange, creative innovation and enterprise.
• Establish partnerships aligned to place-based cultural strategy building and development.
• Develop new approaches for cross-collaborative public realm working and public engagement with communities.
• Create opportunities to foster local, regional, national and international collaborations.
• Develop high quality research using co-creation and co-production processes.
• Develop creative evaluation mechanisms to capture different forms and values of cultural impact in places.
• Render visible place-based approaches to arts and humanities research at the university.
• Create opportunities for collaborations with universities, external partners and organisations. 

Place-based cultural development

Cultures of … is a place-based public realm programme which runs out this research centre but serves as a School-wide initiative. We curate exhibitions, installations, performances, workshops, podcasts, talks and discussion on a variety of different themes across the arts and humanities. 
Different creative and cultural practices are represented in this programme: art, architecture, creative writing, cultural studies, design, English literature, fashion, film, history, media, music, performance and textiles. We provide opportunities for collaborative engagements with local arts and cultural organisations, community groups, cultural institutions in West Yorkshire and existing place-based initiatives (Temporary Contemporary, Year of Music 2023, WOVEN in Kirklees, Huddersfield Literature Festival, Children’s Biennale, Sangam Festival). 

Each academic year we introduce a new theme for us to collectively curate into a public programme. This involves the development of live projects in the public realm in collaboration with different communities. We also embed these themes into our postgraduate and undergraduate curriculum. This provides opportunities for us to work across all subject specialisms and to generate synergies between the histories, theories and practices of cultural production.

This work is part of a larger project, funded by the University of Huddersfield, called ‘Arts and Humanities: Place-based Cultural Development and Delivery through knowledge exchange, public engagement and international collaborations (2022-2026). To find out more about our projects, follow the links below. 

The research centre also hosts Temporary Contemporary; a live action research project working in collaboration and partnership with Kirklees Council to broaden the reach and experience of culture in Huddersfield and beyond. Temporary Contemporary provides meanwhile spaces on the high street. Cultural ecologies underpin the drive and focus of this project. Temporary Contemporary is linked to an events programme of workshops and activities. Its exhibition programme is focused on ‘research-curation’ to facilitate ways of engaging the public arts and visual culture. Temporary Contemporary is a networked partnership initiative for a growing arts and visual culture ecology in Kirklees. The project began in 2018 and has formed the basis of a REF impact case study for UoA32 Art and Design in the School of Arts and Humanities. 

Contact Us

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If you are interested in collaborating with us please contact the Centre Director, Dr Rowan Bailey – r.bailey@hud.ac.uk