April 2020

In view of the current global pandemic and the profoundly uncertain toll it is taking on all aspects of life, Portsmouth Creates has made the sad, but very necessary decision to postpone ‘We Shine -Portsmouth’ street art and light festival until 2021. Collaboration is at the heart of our ethos and is key to producing a successful and impactful ‘We Shine - Portsmouth’ event for the city.  To be the truly community centric festival we had planned we need to be able to engage meaningfully and effectively with local creatives and community groups, or to collaborate with schools through interpersonal workshops, that would be so vital in building this light festival together.

In late December 2019 we supported the Portsmouth Culture Education Partnership (CEP) in a bid to the Better Lives Through Culture programme administered by Artswork. Working with the Portsmouth CEP & PCC Libraries and Archives Services, a bid was devised to unlock the opportunity to collaboratively deliver a variety of activity programmes for children and young people, especially those in hard to reach areas across the city, that would then feed into ‘We Shine- Portsmouth’ light festival.