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Festival legacies and impact

Read about some of the ongoing success stories, legacies and long term impacts of Being Human Festival projects and activities.

Festival Legacies and Impact

Being Human Festival was founded in 2014 with the aim of highlighting an alternative vision of the humanities. Since then, the festival has drawn together the most exciting and inspiring work in the humanities research field to present thousands of creative and collaborative public events that inspire, inform and extend our contemporary thinking and imagination. Legacies and impacts of the festival have been wide and varied, ranging from unlocking additional funding grants, to commemorative blue plaques. Read more about some of the impacts and stories of our work below.

Two people performing, reading from folders of paper

Against Prejudice: Ira Aldridge in Coventry 1828

Celebrating the life and legacy of the first person of colour to manage a British theatre

Bass in the Attic

Empowering communities to research and record themselves

Being Human in and around Swansea

Embedding and showcasing the humanities in the local community as part of a wider civic mission

A group of young people sitting around a table looking at archival materials

Black British Civil Rights: Revealing the Hidden Story

Bringing Black British history to life through creative approaches to archival material

A black woman speaks into a microphone reading from a piece of paper

His House to Our Home

Exploring ideas of race and home through literature and visual art

Two male wrestlers look at eachother

Live British Wrestling: History and Resurgence

Supporting, championing and promoting diversity and inclusivity within the wrestling community

Queer and the State

Revealing, recreating and reinterpreting archival records about the criminalisation of LGBTQ+ lives and spaces

Group of school children with their arms in the air

Recollecting Popular Music Memories in Merthyr Tydfil

Gathering and sharing cultural memory in the local community

A photograph of a fictional 'alien autopsy'. A man and a woman in white lab coats are holding and dissecting a large, fake brain. They are lit by a bright green light.

Science Fiction and Dundee

Revealing the actual and fantastical literary history of Dundee

A group of people wearing face masks leaning over a railing at the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow watching something

The Dear Green Bothy

Exploring creative and critical responses to the climate emergency

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Festival evaluations

Take a look at how the festival has grown since it began in 2014

Past festivals

Take a look back at our previous programmes