Being Human is the UK’s largest festival of the Humanities. 

In November 2024, Bath Spa University, Bathscape and the Bath Royal and Literary Scientific Institution (BRLSI) hosted a Being Human festival hub in Bath, inspired by the festival theme of “landmarks”. We celebrated imagination, intergenerational knowledge and people’s experience of place (through collective memory, imagination, literature and lived experience). More than 50 stakeholders worked together to deliver the programme of free, interactive activities for the public:

• artists
• audio describers
• authors
• BSL interpreters
• curators
• educators
• environmentalists
• heritage managers
• historians
• researchers
• students
• librarians, and
• technicians.

We were joined by more than a hundred people for collective – 

• dancing
• debating
• drawing
• future-shaping
• imagining
• making
• reading, and
• walking

– with themes and activities underpinned by humanities research across –

• creative writing
• English literature
• history
• philosophy
• publishing
• environmental humanities

“Debating human behaviours around food, studying trees up close and making collages with strangers-come-friends was mood-shifting and mind-bending” (participant – Trees, Food and You!)

Events were held in several indoor and outdoor venues across Bath’s city centre including – 

• Bath Central Library
• BRLSI
• Burdall’s Yard
• Fairfield House
• The Jane Austen Centre
• Queen Square
• Pulteney Bridge
• Bath Locks, and
• Widcombe Hill view

The Being Human Bath Hub 2024 programme of events can be found here: https://www.beinghumanfestival.org/2024/hubs/bath-spa

If you are interested in working with us to design and deliver engaging humanities-inspired activities and events for the public (in any location), please get in touch.