Lightbear Lane: Building Culture and Community Across Exeter's Streets and Stories

Dr Sarah Spencer and Dr Judith Morgane, the partnership behind arts and heritage organisation Lightbear Lane, share how they are using community film, creative mapping, Shakespeare and asset-based development to help Exeter find its identity, neighbourhood by neighbourhood.

Founded in 2023, Lightbear Lane takes a deliberately inside-out approach: rather than parachuting in with solutions, they ask communities what they already have. That philosophy produced the Proud to Be film project in Mincinglake and Whipton: a co-created portrait of a neighbourhood that generated a wassail song still sung every January, film-making skills workshops, and a set of resources now available for other communities to use.

From those roots, the organisation has grown with work ranging from heritage consultancy at St Nicholas Priory to touring theatre across the South West. Now they are launching the South West Shakespeare Festival, a three-day programme across Exeter's historic venues that draws in the Cathedral Archives, the Devon and Exeter Institution, the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum and a Young Poets competition, to prove, as Judith puts it, that you do not need to go to London for world-class culture.

They also discuss Lit Lab, their monthly creative gathering for professionals and curious minds, and an as-yet-unannounced publishing venture illustrated by Sarah and written by Judith.

Get Involved

• Lightbear Lane website – https://lightbearlane.org
• South West Shakespeare Festival – full programme and tickets
• Proud to Be — film and community resources
• Lightbear Lane on TicketSource — book events
• Sign up to the Lightbear Lane newsletter via the website to hear about Lit Lab and upcoming workshops