Twilight—the time between day and night—becomes a tool for mapping who gets left out of cultural life in two coastal towns. The project works in Morecambe and Barrow, where deprivation, poor transport, and safety concerns after dark keep low-income residents, women, disabled people, and children from accessing arts and heritage. National data shows these seaside towns have some of the lowest arts engagement in the country, despite rich local heritage and community energy. The research fills a gap: most cultural planning ignores how time of day and perceptions of safety shape who participates. The team co-designs twilight sensory walks with residents to document real barriers, then uses artist commissions and immersive policy workshops to turn that evidence into new strategies for local government and cultural organisations. If successful, the project could change how coastal towns plan cultural programming—making it time-sensitive and place-specific rather than generic. It builds a digital toolkit for other coastal urban planners, and establishes a permanent research network across Morecambe Bay. The work also supports the development of a future triennial festival along the 100-mile coastline, designed to model accessible, ecologically engaged cultural tourism.
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Twilight Commons is a cultural research initiative addressing persistent barriers to participation in Morecambe and Barrow—two coastal towns undergoing regeneration, yet marked by high deprivation, limited transport, and restricted access to culture after dark. As highlighted in Key Cities: On the Waterfront (2025), seaside urban areas report “some of the lowest levels of arts engagement in the country,” while also holding “rich heritage, identity, community energy and environmental distinctiveness.” Twilight Commons responds to this dual condition by using twilight—a time of ecological and perceptual transition—as both method and metaphor. It produces tangible data and visual evidence of how marginalised groups experience night-time spaces and uses art to reimagine twilight as a time of connection, experimentation, and belonging. The project brings together Lancaster University and six grassroots cultural partners to co-design access routes into culture and influence regional strategy. It focuses on the specific challenges of access, safety, and perception that these partners have identified—particularly for low-income residents, women, disabled people, and children. Together, the partnership will: Co-design twilight sensory walks to map and challenge lived barriers to cultural participation after dark Support artist-led commissions exploring how people live in relation to nature and place in their waterfront towns Deliver immersive policy workshops using those creative outputs, connecting strategic bodies with community imaginaries using high-tech environments -- turning them into new policy and strategy recommendations Create a digital toolkit and launch the MB_CultureResearch network to sustain collaboration, shared learning, and cultural planning across the Bay By involving local stakeholders at every stage, the project builds the capacity of cultural organisations to develop place-specific, time-sensitive programming grounded in lived experience. Cross-town insight and research expertise support partners—including the university itself—to embed inclusive cultural planning into long-term strategies for the Bay, aligning with Key Cities’ call for deeper collaboration across public, private, and community sectors. As a legacy of this shared approach, the project supports the development of the Morecambe Bay Triennial—a future-facing festival designed to model accessible, ecologically engaged cultural tourism along the 100-mile stretch from Fleetwood to Barrow. Its final stages will establish the MB_CultureResearch network as a formal commitment to cultural innovation in this unique region. Twilight Commons is led by Lancaster University through three specialist research centres: Dark Design Lab (light and sensory urbanism), CeMoRe (more-than-human and mobile methods), and Security Lancaster (urban safety and public space), and is embedded in the Morecambe Bay Curriculum’s schools networks with event access for teachers in early years, primary, secondary, and further education. Cultural delivery is led by Deco Publique, with key partners Art Gene (Barrow), Good Things Collective (Morecambe), Full of Noises (Barrow), More Music (Morecambe), and Julie Brown (Chair, Lancaster and District Arts Partnership). Together, this team offers deep expertise in place-based practice, experimental programming, and cultural strategy. Outputs include: A new Morecambe Bay cultural research network Twilight mapping methodologies and ecological-social experience artworks Policy tools and co-designed cultural strategy frameworks A replicable digital toolkit for cultural planners on coastal urban spaces
Jen Southern (Co-Investigator)Mark Levine (Co-Investigator)Martin Quinn (Co-Investigator)Nathan Jones (Principal Investigator)Nick Dunn (Co-Investigator)
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