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Art made with people, not for them.
Five years on from a lockdown Zoom call between five artists, here's what Figment has built together, in 2025 alone:
Port Studio is Figment Arts’ first permanent creative home, a working studio and community space at Lady Bee Marina, built with the artists and residents who will use it. We’ll be making art with learning disabled, autistic and neurodivergent artists, alongside children, families and older residents, using the Port itself, its history, its people, its working life, as the subject and the material.
We’re not arriving cold. We’ve spent the last 18 months working in Fishersgate, Southwick and along the coastal corridor, and residents have told us what they want: regular, trusted, locally rooted creative activity, not a project that lands for a few months and moves on. Port Studio is our answer. As the area around us changes, with new housing and new neighbours arriving, we want a permanent, accessible creative space to be part of what holds this place together.
At Port Studio, people don’t just take part, they take ownership. Our artists move from joining sessions to leading them, often into paid creative roles. Young people help shape our film and events programme. Residents help decide what gets made and shown. This is how we’ve always worked: art made with communities, not for them.
Once open, Port Studio will be a working base for our inclusive studio sessions, a home for Port Cinema screenings and events, a welcoming space for families and community groups, a place for schools, young people and local partners to make, show and share work rooted in this coastline and its stories. We’ll also be opening the space up to other cultural organisations who want to programme alongside us.
Port Studio is planned to open this Autumn. We’re grateful to Shoreham Port for confirming a studio unit for us, and to Common Ground and Make Amplify for their early support. If you’d like to get involved, as a partner, a volunteer or simply as a supporter, we’d love to hear from you.
Back the build.
Every pledge helps us reach the £6,000 we need to open the studio.
Every pledge moves the needle.
Watch the studio come to life. Each milestone unlocks as the Crowdfunder grows — these figures update live from the campaign.
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Leave your mark on the wall.
Supporters, artists and neighbours — add a thought below. Every message becomes part of a growing, colourful wall, in the spirit of the paintings we make together.
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