SEAS is an international travelling cultural/arts festival which involves nine countries from around the Black and North Sea regions, including the UK, Netherlands, Turkey, Romania and the Ukraine. It kicked off earlier this year in Odessa with performances from, among others, Leicester-based experimental theatre/art company Metro-Boulot-Dodo.

SEAS is centrally funded by the EC’s Culture Fund alongside contributions from other national funding bodies. There is a likelihood that this event will be developed into a longer term initiative on the Lincolnshire, UK coast, (perhaps as a biennial event) centring on the iconic Victorian seaside town of Skegness. Along with Skegness, the Lincoln Performing Arts Centre will host performances from the artists in October 2009 when the SEAS tour comes to Lincolnshire for its final performance.

Black Sea Oracle by SIGNA – one of the productions in SEAS

The Lincolnshire coast experiences significant deprivation as a result of geographic location, low wages and aspiration and high levels of poor health. Many of the negative social and economic factors affecting Lincolnshire are common to rural coastal areas across Europe.

The University of Lincoln is a partner with East Lindsey District Council and Arts Council England in delivering the SEAS initiative. All three partners seek to undertake a research project that develops and tests a methodology for demonstrating cross-cutting benefits from investing in an initiative such as SEAS. The project will capture and analyse data in the lead up to, during and post the UK SEAS event.

Going forward, the project is interested in assessing the impact of SEAS and related cultural/arts events on the social and economic development of coastal regions across Europe. This includes issues such as levels of voluntary activity; social cohesion; levels of aspiration and participation among young people; health and wellbeing; seasonality of employment; and low skills and wages of the local workforce.

If you are interested in finding out more about SEAS, or the research surrounding it, please get in touch with LPAC or East Lindsey District Council’s Arts Team.