In 2024 we continued supporting organisations to produce projects and events based in Newhaven. We supported five awardees of the BN9 Arts Growth Fund, to supportive community engaged creatives projects. We brought some outdoors fun with Summer at The Sidings, produced by Firestory Events.
We also began managing arts spaces at Marine Workshops: BN9 Studio and the Atrium, hosting shows and events from: Newhaven Open Call, Hospitable Environment’s ‘The People’s Plan’, Sussex Contemporary, Newhaven Art Club, ‘A Land Within’ at part of Photo Fringe, Culture Connect, Edgeland Modern, Culture Shift, Brasspoint Collective, Play On Productions, Ignite Theatre (workshop), Haven Young Creatives- Harbour Lights workshops & Sophie Wright’s Meditation Pods.
Explore the projects the BN9 Arts Growth Fund supported in 2024.
Funded by Newhaven Enterprise Zone and supported by Towner Eastbourne.
BN9 Arts Growth Fund 2025
Ignite Theatre
The Twits
Ignite Theatre returned to Meeching Hall in December 2024 for a festive retelling of the beloved Roald Dahl classic, The Twits, with support from the BN9 Growth Fund.
Ignite teamed up with celebrated local artists Daisy Jordan and Orlando Black to run puppet making workshops to create characters to inhabit the show’s immersive theatre space.
Haven Young Creatives
Harbour Lights — Spirit of the Cormorant
Harbour Lights- Spirit of the Cormorant lantern procession returned in January 2025 for it’s second year, bigger and better with a beautiful cormorant lantern flying alongside the procession, drummers leading the way and song illuminate the long winter nights. The community got a chance to be involved by taking part in lantern making, drumming or singing workshops which formed the procession.
Littleford+Adams
Ebb and Flow
Ebb and Flow is an experimental film project by artists Littleford+Adams of Edgeland Modern, a Newhaven based art collective.
The film features the River Ouse and people of Newhaven. Exploring connections between the river, industry, history, folklore and climate change told through local voices.
Play On Productions
One Summer Day
Play On Productions is a young people’s theatre cooperative which creates accessible, inspiring and empowering opportunities for young people and new audiences to connect with classical plays, through the lens of contemporary social issues.
The grant helped to support One Summer Day, an evening of music and monologues from Newhaven teenagers taking on Shakespeare’s most famous young people to the live soundtrack of Dockside Barrel Scrapers.
KP Projects
The BN9 Growth Fund brought KP Projects’ Sussex Blazing Saddles to Newhaven in 2024. The Sussex-wide, two-year National Lottery Heritage Funded project, uncovers the revolutionary impact of the emergence of the bicycle on women and society.