Northeast Creative Network:
Summer 2026 Update, Megan Nicholson
The Northeast Creative Network was created to help emerging creatives gain experience, build connections and become part of the wider creative community while they are still developing their practice. For us, this is about more than providing individual opportunities. It is about giving people the time and space to learn alongside others, experience different areas of the creative sector and gradually discover where their own skills and interests might take them.
Over summer 2026, co-founder and current student Megan Nicholson has been able to build on her involvement with the Network through Vane and Orbis Community. The summer has given her experience across exhibitions, events, community projects, workshops and education partnerships, working alongside artists, creative practitioners, organisations and students of different ages. Being involved across such a varied programme has meant seeing different sides of creative practice, from developing ideas and planning projects through to installation, public engagement and delivery.
This kind of experience is an important part of how we want the Network to develop. Studying provides one part of a creative education, but working alongside people already delivering projects provides another. It creates opportunities to ask questions, make connections, try things out and understand how different roles and organisations work together. It also allows us to share some of the knowledge and experience we have built up over the years while learning from the fresh ideas and perspectives that emerging creatives bring with them.
That is already beginning to work both ways. Through our growing relationship with Gateshead College and work experience placements from local schools, she has also been able to support younger students coming into Orbis Community, helping them become involved in projects and sharing some of her own experience of finding a way into the creative sector. It is a natural progression from being given opportunities to beginning to help create those opportunities for others.
For Vane, Orbis Community and the Northeast Creative Network, this is part of investing in the future of the creative community around us. We want talented students and graduates to feel that there are reasons to stay, develop their practice and build their careers here in the North East. That means giving emerging creatives meaningful experience before they graduate, introducing them to people and organisations they might work with in the future, and importantly giving them opportunities to contribute their own ideas.
As Megan continues her studies, the experience gained over this summer will hopefully provide a strong foundation for what comes next. Equally, having emerging creatives actively involved in our work brings the fresh energy, ideas and different perspectives that established creative organisations need if they are going to continue to grow, change and remain relevant. That exchange is at the heart of what we want the Northeast Creative Network to be.
“A huge part of what we try to do at Orbis Community is simply open the door. Let people in, listen to their ideas, share what we know and give them the space to show what they can bring. Talent and potential can come from anywhere, and sometimes it is found in people who might never have seen themselves as part of the creative sector in the first place. We need to stop deciding what talent should look like before we’ve even met it. For me, it’s about making room for people, passing knowledge on and then seeing what they do with it. That fresh thinking isn’t only important for them, it’s important for us too.”
Jonpaul Kirvan, Orbis Community
