Exploring cultural continuity amid displacement and change

Teesside University and University of Glasgow recently partnered to host an International UNESCO Spring School on Migration, Care, and the Arts.

Academics from the two institutions worked together to deliver the UNESCO RIELA Spring School 2026, an international gathering exploring the role of arts, language, and intergenerational care in contexts of forced migration.

Developed in collaboration with Teesside University’s Institute for Collective Place Leadership, the three-day event was held in Glasgow in May, bringing together artists, researchers, educators, and community practitioners from across the world.

Now in its ninth year, the Spring School is recognised as a leading global platform for advancing creative, multilingual, and community-led approaches to refugee integration.

This year’s theme, The Arts of Integrating (Caring & Sharing), focused on how cultural knowledge, language, and practices are sustained and transmitted across generations in situations shaped by displacement and disruption.

The programme explored urgent global questions around migration and cultural continuity, including how elders pass on knowledge across fractured communities, how care is organised in conditions of forced movement, and how heritage can be sustained and reimagined in new contexts.

Through a curated programme of workshops, performances, and critical dialogue, the Spring School put creative practice at the centre of integration, healing, and collective knowledge-making.

The partnership between Teesside University and the University of Glasgow reflects a shared commitment to participatory, place-based, and socially engaged research.

Professor Azadeh Fatehrad, co-Director at Teesside University’s Institute for Collective Place Leadership, said: “This collaboration brought together two institutions committed to socially engaged research and creative practice. The Spring School offered a powerful space to connect local, community-based work with international conversations on migration, care, and cultural continuity.

“Through this partnership, we are not only sharing knowledge but actively shaping new ways of working- grounded in participation, creativity, and lived experience.”

The programme has been supported by the National Library of Scotland Moving Image Archive and Multilingual Matters, strengthening its interdisciplinary and international reach.

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