Culture And Memory

Taking Southampton Forward - a programme of co-creation and collaboration built on consultation.

Southampton Forward (SF) will facilitate a community led, culturally rich programme to transform Southampton, strengthening and uniting the city’s diverse communities who will collectively lead the change as creators, initiators, drivers and active participants. This dynamic, proactive programme addresses challenges and opportunities identified through the city-wide consultation undertaken for our City of Culture bid. The resulting co-created programme, underpinned by our Theory of Change (TOC), promotes the city’s rich built and lived heritage, fostering a profound sense of belonging and collective identity. Empowering residents, placing them at the heart of the change, working collaboratively to build trust and shape initiatives and ideas which address strategic priorities, framed by our TOC, ensuring outputs are ambitious, achievable and effectively measured. SF's work, delivered in partnership with the city, widens the understanding of lived and built heritage, increases cultural participation, address inequalities, enabling a more resilient, environmentally sustainable, inclusive future for Southampton’s people.