Sussex Co-Lab

Sussex Co-Lab is a collaborative programme designed to improve local communities by addressing challenges and making policies more effective.

Bringing together universities, local governments and health partners with businesses, artists, researchers and residents, we use creative and participatory methods to enable more inclusive decision-making. We aim to improve outcomes for local people by testing new ways of working that can help everyone to flourish.

Based at the University of Sussex, we encourage people to share their knowledge and experiences while helping communities and organisations to connect with our research.

Working with place

Communities across our region face a range of social challenges such as poverty, inequality, and limited employment opportunities, along with housing, food and fuel insecurity - all against the backdrop of a natural environment under threat.

While traditional policymaking often neglects the insights of local residents, at Sussex Co-Lab, we encourage a more inclusive approach to solving local problems.

Working as a virtual lab, we emphasise the importance of social engagement and community input from the very beginning of our initiatives, welcoming a range of diverse insights to shape effective work.

We consider how creative and participatory approaches can:

• resolve community tensions
• address power imbalances
• improve the design and management of people, place and nature.

We explore methods and models that build resilience and create communities where everyone can thrive – helping commissioners, policymakers and decision-makers to understand the impact of working in innovative ways.

Get involved 

If you’re interested in learning more about the work of Sussex Co-Lab, or if you’d like to get involved in our work, please get in touch. We’re particularly interested in connecting with:

• local authorities
• creative practitioners
• community groups in and around our local area
• health organisations
• businesses
• organisations outside the local area who are interested in what we’re trying to achieve.

If you'd like to find out more please e-mail publicaffairs@sussex.ac.uk .

The Co-Lab in action 

• Woven landscapes, connected threads, interlacing culture, community and place

  On 29 May 2025, over 80 community groups, creative and participatory practitioners, researchers, representatives from organisations across Sussex and elected representatives celebrated working with communities to transform the places where they live and work.

  The power of using creative and participatory methods and models to bring about meaningful change was explored, highlighting their positive impact on the individuals involved and the value in helping to work across organisational boundaries to develop shared visions. The knowledge and shared learning from the day has helped craft guiding principles to working with people and place [PDF 81.62KB] to inform approaches moving forward. Dr Cara Courage, Culture, Community and Place Consultant, also comments on the thoughts and reflections on the day in the woven landscapes blog post [PDF 31.16KB].

• Co-Lab residencies - Urban Fabric 

  Urban Fabric was formed by two organisations based in Brighton’s Open Market: textiles studio, Sew Fabulous, and creative charity, Quiet Down There. Together, they collaborated with local people to develop a fabric that could represent feelings about the changing face of London Road.

  Having co-created over 60 textile artworks. Sew Fabulous digitally arranged a design that offered a visual representation of community experiences across London Road and the wider city. The resulting fabric was then used to make aprons modelled by traders across the marketplace.

  By generating a composite design, the fabric offered a visual response to a difficult set of questions around changing spaces and cultures, and represents the creativity of participants who responded to questions about their environment for the first time.

  By taking the aprons into the market, the project started to locate those creative instincts in our public space. The final artworks are powerful visuals which support the consideration of people’s thoughts, feelings and creativity in the public realm.” Lucy Jeffries and Susie Deadman
  
• Co-Lab residencies - Xr-H

  Working in collaboration with the Centre for Memory, Narrative and Histories at the University of Brighton, digital artist Judith Ricketts developed Xr-H: a first-stage, augmented reality (AR) app designed to uncover both the real and imagined threads of Brighton’s hidden past.

  As a first-generation Afro-Caribbean born in the UK, Judith grew up in a space that denied her Britishness associated with her Blackness.

  This residency aimed to develop a sustainable approach to creative placemaking influenced by both her personal experiences and the absence of records detailing Black contributions to the local Sussex region – a region which flourished with the Atlantic Slave Trade at its heart during the Georgian period.

  These hidden histories of people and place should be considered in the process of planning to prevent further erasure.” Judith RICKETTS 
  
• Co-Lab residencies - Hospitable Environment 

  Community arts organisation Hospitable Environment worked with local people in Newhaven to reimagine their town through a residency that focused on live design projects that could feed into the local planning process for Lewes District Council.

  Using their ‘soup and social’ model of shared meals and community conversations, participants were invited into a process that enabled them to explore and map their favourite places in the area.

  After imagining what their town might look like in future, 3D junk modelling was used to bring their visions to life.

  Through this residency, we’ve evidenced how working as an established and trusted community group can feed into and inform the planning and placemaking process. We’ve facilitated genuinely place-based research through socially-engaged community forums and events” Lizzie lower and Eleanor Johnson Bullock
• Using comic making to explore connection and meaning

  Dr Chris Sandom, Associate Professor in Biology, and his collaborator Daniel Locke have been using comics and comic making to enable people to talk about climate change and feelings around a sustainable future.

  Comics help people engage with a topic, enabling them to get involved in the discussion. Co-creating them as a group can make hidden emotions, attitudes, and experiences that we all hold visible, helping to challenge world views and reimagine more hopeful and positive futures.

  As a methodology, both Chris and Daniel have worked together, using comics that combine both science and art in a way that enables connection with place.

  Examples of projects

  • The Nature of the South Coast
  • 24hrs to Envision a Sustainable Future
  • Through the Bush Backwards.
• Using creativity to evaluate creative practice

  Ann Light, Professor of Design and Technology, was part of a team of researchers from across Europe who explored the use of creative practice to unlock environmental and social change, helping to transform people and places.

  As part of the Creatures programme, the team co-created a tool that enables creative practitioners, funders, policy makers and researchers to evaluate links between using creative practice and social change in an inclusive and participatory way.

  For more information, contact ann.light@sussex.ac.uk.

  Learn more.

• Pathways to inclusion in the heritage sector 

  This project explores how arts can improve access to, and enjoyment of, landscapes and heritage sites for sight impaired visitors. It invites us to think differently about landscapes and heritage. Led by Dr Karis Jade Petty, an Anthropologist at the University of Sussex and an Inclusive Arts Practitioner and Nature-Connectedness Facilitator, a pilot project was launched in summer 2024, in partnership with Wakehurst. 

  Learn more about the project.

  Get in touch with k.petty@sussex.ac.uk if you'd like to collaborate or are seeking consultancy.

  The relationships and learning gained through this partnership have shaped our landscape management plans, project design, and delivery.” harri oliver
  Participation Manager, Wakehurst

How the Sussex Co-Lab started 

Sussex Co-Lab was founded in 2023 as a pilot project funded through an ESRC Impact Acceleration Account. As a first step, we commissioned three residencies for artists using creative practice to frame conversations around sustainability.

Since then, we’ve been working with our partners to build a vision for the future that includes:

• trialling different methods and models to understand how we can best work with people and place
• co-designing evaluation approaches to better understand impact
• sharing our collective knowledge about what works with others to enhance collaborative placemaking and policy development both in and beyond our region.

A digital workbook has been created to guide creative placemaking: Sussex Co-Lab Workbook [PDF 5.54MB].

The Sussex Co-Lab

Photos of Sussex Co-Lab

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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