Co-operation, conflicts and collective agency in defence of creative and cultural education and placemaking.
For our 2026 conference we will be continuing and developing the theme of co-operation and mutuality in support of fine and visual arts education. To this end we seek to focus on the relevance of place and, in response to the UK government white paper on post-16 education, those initiatives that offer opportunity and mitigate barriers to advanced and higher learning in areas of creative and cultural practice and skills acquisition. What are the realistic prospects for: regional federations of higher or advanced learning; specialist centres for fine and visual arts learning that can support good growth for regional geographies; affordable and flexible access to lifelong creative and cultural learning; value and equity for international visitors or migrant communities; agility and resilience in the face of uncertainty and rapid industrial change.
Our 2026 conference goals are to:
better understand and promote the dimensions for success in growing locally relevant post-statutory educational resources for creative and cultural lifelong learning.
enhance awareness of the evolving partnerships and co-operative practices that bridge formal, non-formal and informal learning in visual arts and culture practices.
consider models and opportunities for fine art learning and the promotion of creative and cultural skills that mitigates border and geo-political territories.
Join us:
The conference is Free for NAFAE members to attend, but booking is essential. Tickets will be available to reserve soon. If you are not a NAFAE member you can join for £30 for individual annual membership (institutional membership is also available). Please note membership prices will increase from 15th January 2026. Sign up as a member here.
Call for Papers:
A call for papers for the conference is currently open - deadline for proposals is 13 February 2026. Find out more about how to submit a proposal here.
Context
The themes of this conference follow on from those of the ‘From the Foundations’ Symposium in Sunderland-in October 2025, the ‘Moments, Spaces, and Alternatives for Art and Cultures of Learning’ NAFAE conference at Feral Art School, Hull in April 2025, and the ‘The Art of Resistance’ NAFAE conference at UCA Canterbury in 2024 and continues with the themes reflected in the recent book Cooperative Education, Politics, and Art: Creative, Critical, and Community Resistance to Corporate Higher Education (Hudson-Miles and Goodman eds 2024). Herein, educators from both mainstream and alternative art schools issued a variety of creative, political, and pedagogical challenges to the current neoliberal HE paradigm.
Art educators recognise that the arts are a force for creating engaged citizenship and civic agency. Beyond the conferment of diplomas, art schools embody this sociocultural engagement whilst also offering wider benefits to local wellbeing, regional innovation, community building, and urban regeneration (Crossick and Kaszynska 2016). Yet, incremental ‘financialisation, commodification, and marketisation’ (McGettigan 2013) of higher education has made art education into an increasingly corporate endeavour. Here, creativity, cultural value, and social justice cede to managerial realism and instrumental notions of value for money. This has made the political, artistic, and pedagogical critique of art schools more urgent. In various ways, protest has always been the substance of art education.
Our gathering in Rochdale is intentionally planned to invoke the proud history of a town that has forged a positive global legacy from the hardship and trauma of an intense industrialisation and the inevitable post-industrial collapse. The town has many reputations, however, its true legacy is embedded in self-organisation, co-operation and worker and community resilience. Rochdale’s social innovations, past and present, owe a significant debt of gratitude to the Society of Equitable Pioneers, established in 1844 and responsible for the Rochdale Principles that set the foundations of the modern co-operative movement globally.
Venue
The 2026 conference will be held at Champness Hall Rochdale, Drake Street, Rochdale, OL16 1PB. Find out more about the venue here.
Accommodation options:
Hampton by Hilton is on Bailey Street in Central Rochdale (approx. £75). Walk to venue.
Birch Hill Clock Tower offers full apartments for sharing (approx. £85). 15 minutes by bus ride from Rochdale centre.
Travelodge, Sandbrook Park Rochdale (approx. £47). Close to the Motorway junction (M62; Jn 21) and 20 minutes walk from the station and the venue.
Travelodge Manchester Central Arena (approx. £30). Short walk to Manchester Victoria Station and 20 minutes by train.