Creators connect : Finding a shared language across Birmingham’s Creative Disciplines

Attention turns between the contributors, and the distinction between the speaker and audience becomes temporary. To an event concerned with connecting creative practitioners, that is a fitting arrangement: everyone has something to contribute, and everyone has a reason to listen to others.

Presented by Exceptional Pathways at Birmingham’s 99Brum Studios on 19 September 2026, the gathering is a mixture of discussion, performance and informal networking. Its invitation covers music, photography, filmmaking, design and content creation. Such a breadth presents a curatorial challenge: a shared room is not itself enough for people to share a language. The programme must instead be something around which meaningful exchange can develop.

The inclusion of spoken word offers one route towards that exchange. Abayomi Olusunle’s performance is a place where an artistic contribution is placed within a programme of discussion and introduction. This matters because explanations of a creative practice and the presentation of it produce different encounters. An introduction defines what someone does; a performance gives others a work to consider and discuss.

Poetry has particular relevance to this setting: its material is language, which is already the medium through which participants are introducing themselves, but its form asks for another. Rhythm, imagery and the relationship between speech and silence turn expression into a composed experience. Within Creator’s Connect, that is a connection between the event’s conversational purpose and its artistic contribution.

Other creatives were also given opportunities to perform, talk about their work and contribute to the discussion. This openness extended the programme beyond its featured contributions, allowing attendees to help shape the gathering. Moving between presenting work, sharing experience and responding to others gave participants several ways into the exchange: a useful approach in a room of different disciplines and experience levels.

The intimate setting supported this relationship. Contributors remained close to the seated attendees, making faces and gestures visible, minus the distance of a raised platform. Nicholas Uwechue’s visual and stage design can be thought of within this relationship between visibility and proximity. The room’s design kept the person speaking in view of those listening, giving public contributions some of the scale of a personal exchange.

Uwechue also displayed pieces from his Crowned by Culture project, introducing his photographic practice and its exploration of identity through the lens. This added a visual counterpoint to the spoken contributions, opening up another route into questions of self-expression and representation. Photography is a work to encounter, and a starting point for discussion of how identity is created and communicated.

That proximity is a useful choice for a gathering across disciplines. It makes the individual behind a practice visible and opens up opportunities for direct response. It also places demands on the programme: performance requires sustained focus, while networking encourages movement. The design must accommodate both without letting either lose its purpose.

Sound engineering belongs to the same negotiation of attention. Samuel Adu’s role connected the spoken contributions and performance to the listening environment. At an event where voice is a focal point, it is the medium by which participation becomes possible. Amplification allows people to easily hear the different contributors, and for performers to have space to vary their expression.

Spoken word makes this responsibility particularly significant: a quieter phrase or a pause may carry meaning, and changes in intensity are part of delivery. Assessing the engineering consequently involves paying attention to how these details were picked up by the audience, and the consistency of speech across the wider programme. Its contribution is deeply related to the artistic and social intentions of the event.

These relationships give Creator’s Connect a more coherent proposition than a series of introductions. Performance provides a shared experience, while spatial design sets the relationship between contributor and audience, and sound supports the act of listening. Each contributes to the conditions under which people can encounter one another’s work.

The informal conversations surrounding the programme extend this encounter. Attendees can move from an idea raised publicly to asking about a practice or exploring a collaboration in a smaller exchange. Holding the event in a working studio also ties these discussions to the practical circumstances of production. Creative resources are placed within the same environment as the people who might use them.

The event’s ambition nevertheless calls for a longer-term test. A welcoming gathering can initiate relationships, but continued collaboration takes time and commitment. Future editions would benefit from showing what develops from these exchanges, and bringing resulting work back before the community.

Creator’s Connect’s strongest organising idea is its treatment of creative practice as something to be encountered through both work and conversation. Its intimate scale gives that idea a clear expression. The opportunity now is to carry the attention generated within the room into relationships and projects beyond it.

Creator’s Connect was presented by Exceptional Pathways at 99Brum Studios. The programme featured spoken word by Abayomi Olusunle, plus visual and stage design and photography by Crowned by Culture by Nicholas Uwechue, and sound engineering by Samuel Adu, alongside performances, talks and contributions from other participating creatives.

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