Reimagine This Coastal Town is an open invitation to explore Felixstowe’s multi-species future together. Through adventurous creative activities, shared experiences, and nature-connection, this public programme looks at the town’s past and present and possible futures. Through live action role-play (larp), workshops, exhibitions, meetups, a public art commission, and conversations, all town dwellers, workers, and vistors are invited to help shape a more-than-human Felixstowe that is cared for, celebrated, and thriving.

Led by Furtherfield, following their relocation from London in 2024, this cultural programme brings together artists, communities, and ideas on the Suffolk coast. It draws on decades of experience in participatory art and digital culture to create meaningful encounters between people, communities, and place.

At the heart of the programme, This Coastal Town is a 2-hour larp workshop devised by Ruth Catlow and Ann Light, an immersive experience to help small coastal settlements adjust to likely futures in the most positive way. Larps are events designed to spark imagination and action through collaboration. Role play, improvisation and critical thinking collide, enabling people to explore the “What ifs” about any situation, from the probable to the very unusual, and “rehearse” the outcomes they would like to see.

Now being developed into a playbook for other coastal towns, it encourages people in a neighbourhood to find each other and devise ways of managing issues that stem from their varied social and ecological interests and concerns. Read more about the larp

Film by Hydar Dewachi

This Coastal Town is made possible by partnership with The University of Sussex, and is part of Reimagine This Coastal Town supported by Level Two Youth Projects, Hamilton MAS, and the Felixstowe Citizen Science Group and with support from Arts Council England and the Suffolk Cultural Fund and the Arts and Humanities Research Council, grant no AH/Y003330/1.