Born out of the COVID-19 pandemic, DISRUPT will reimagine the role of the arts in our society.

DISRUPT is a new digital arts festival co-ordinated by Guildhall School of Music & Drama and Barbican in partnership with, Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance, Culture Mile, Lived Experience Network, Maya Productions, and Slung Low.

The festival has been created in response to the global pandemic, and aims to explore the ways in which COVID-19 has intensified socio-economic inequalities, deprivation, and isolation. With a programme of discussions, panels and workshops across two days, DISRUPT will lift the lid on the ways the performing arts can support communities during this time and how a year of uncertainty and change has encouraged new and radical ways of working.

The programme has been created entirely from open submissions and selected by a panel of 14 community members and artists. The festival brings together creatives, artists, communities, cultural and community organisations, researchers, charities, schools, and members of the general public, harnessing collective learnings from a difficult year and to reimagine the role of the arts in our societies.

For more information and to purchase tickets on a pay-what-you-can basis, please visit: disruptfestival.org