We, Generate launches at Brighton Festival 2026
Dreamt up by our Future Creative Leaders (FCL)
A bold, youth-led programme exploring how young people can ‘reimagine humanity, hopefully’ by actively shaping culture, inviting audiences to imagine a fairer world. Featuring workshops, live events, conversations and a youth takeover, it’s a space for experimentation, creativity and community.
The programme brings together young creatives and leading voices to explore how culture is shaped, and how we can imagine more hopeful futures.
Highlights include Create Your Dream City, a hands-on collage workshop reimagining the spaces we live in, @ Your Service, an interactive conversation on community, care and lived experience led by Jordan Stephens, alongside Brighton-based youth voices. Go Back and Get It: Exploring Sankofa with activist, author Mikaela Loach,, and campaigner for climate and racial justice; Joycelyn Longdon. And Steam Down - the genre-defying collective known for turning every room into a congregation - headline an evening of improvised, intergenerational music
The programme culminates in a Youth takeover at Brighton Dome studio theatre for a celebration of hope and humanity, reflecting on the month and what matters most to them now.
We, Generate is an open invitation to connect, create and rethink the world together.
Check out our events for We, Generate
Create your Dream City: Mixed Media Collage Workshop
What would your city look like if you got to build it from scratch? How would you move through it? Where would you rest, create, grow?
Join us for an open, creative afternoon making 2D and 3D collages from found materials — reimagining nature, transport and neighbourhood life through our hands. This workshop will be facilitated by our Future Creative Leaders, in partnership with Art in Mind.
Date: Saturday, 2 May 2026
Time: 3.30-5 PM or 5-6.30 PM or stay for both sessions.
Location: Brighton Youth Centre, 64 Edward Street, Brighton, BN2 0JR (map)
Tickets: FREE
Age: 14+ Under 16 must be accompanied by an adult.
@ Your Service
What happens when the systems meant to support us fall short — and who steps in to fill the gap? What does it mean to actually feel held by a community?
Join us for an honest, open conversation exploring lived experience, local services, and the role of community in shaping who we become. Featuring artist, author and mental health advocate Jordan Stephens, Bobby Brown and Kaia Allen-Bevan.
After the panel, the room breaks into smaller conversations — facilitated by young people from the Future Creative Leaders programme. Bring your questions, your stories, and your truth.
Date: Saturday, 9 May 2026
Times: Doors: 3PM. Event: 4-6PM
Location: Brighton Youth Centre, 64 Edward Street, Brighton, BN2 0JR (map)
Tickets: £5. Booking Required.
Age: 14+ Under 16 must be accompanied by an adult.
CTRL/ALT-ESCAPE: Building Around the Artist
A unique panel discussion bringing together Ren and the team around him. The event offers a rare behind-the-scenes look at what it really means to build an artist project outside of the traditional music industry model.
As the industry continues to accelerate, artists are expected to be everywhere at once - touring, promoting, creating, and showing up. But for some, that model simply does not fit. This conversation explores what happens when perceived limitations lead to new systems, and when the response is not to force the artist into the existing structure, but to build a new one around them.
Through honest dialogue, the artist and the team will unpack how they have built their own infrastructure across the project; from making and self-releasing music, to self-producing videos, shaping campaigns, leading social strategy, creating artwork and design, and developing a clothing line, merchandise operation, and warehouse-based fulfilment infrastructure. It is a conversation about what it takes to create a framework that allows an artist to move on their own terms.
Alongside the practical realities of running an independent creative operation, the panel will also explore how care can be embedded into the work rather than added as an afterthought, and how the industry should evolve to support artists as whole people, not just as output.
We’re inviting industry professionals, creatives, and audiences alike to rethink what support really looks like and to consider how access, care, creativity, and infrastructure can be built into the same system.
Date: Wednesday, 13 May 2026
Times: Doors: 6 PM. Event: 6.30-8 PM
Location: The Old Market, Hove, BN3 1AS (map).
Tickets: £5. Booking Required.
Age: 14+ Under 16 must be accompanied by an adult and will be allocated a wristband and/or sticker at check-in.
Go Back and Get It: Exploring Sankofa
Led by researcher and cultural strategist Fez Sibanda, this is a facilitated inquiry into what happens when a generation chooses to look back - not with nostalgia, but with purpose. What wisdom has been left behind? What tools already exist? Joining the conversation: Mikaela Loach, activist, author and campaigner, Joycelyn Longdon, environmental justice technologist; and Naiya a local storyteller and community leader.
Date: Monday, 25 May 2026
Times: Doors: 1.30 PM. Event: 2 - 3.30 PM
Location: Brighton Dome Studio Theatre, New Rd Brighton, BN1 1UG (map)
Tickets: £5. Booking Required.
Age: 14+ Under 16 must be accompanied by an adult.
Part of the Youth Takeover at Brighton Dome studio theatre.
Celebrating Humanity, Hopefully
Join us in the culmination of our Brighton Festival 2026 programme in celebration of Brighton's community music and arts scene. Headlining are Steam Down - the genre-defying collective known for turning every room into a congregation - headline an evening of improvised, intergenerational music-making alongside local artists and DJs. Expect jazz, soul, poetry, dancers, DJ sets, and an art exhibition.
Date: Monday, 25 May 2026
Times: Doors: 7 - 11 PM
Location: Brighton Dome Studio Theatre, New Rd Brighton, BN1 1UG (map)
Tickets: £5. Booking Required.
Age: 14+ Under 16 must be accompanied by an adult.
Part of the Youth Takeover at Brighton Dome studio theatre.
ABOUT FUTURE CREATIVE LEADERS
Future Creative Leaders (FCL) is a 12-month paid programme offering young creatives from underrepresented backgrounds the opportunity to work closely with Lighthouse's leadership team to explore various aspects of creative leadership. Funded and supported by Art Fund’s ‘Reimagine Grants’ and Chalk Cliff Trust, over the year, participants will co-curate programmes, select participants for mini-residencies, and recruit their successors, all while exploring alternative governance structures, accountability, and power-sharing.
FUNDERS AND PARTNERS FOR BRIGHTON FESTIVAL 2026
We're grateful to: Innovate UK, Chalk Cliff Trust, Sussex Community Foundation, Enjoolata Foundation, Brighton Festival, Brighton Youth Centre, The Old Market and Art in Mind.