NPN 2025 Conference

As we kick off NPN’s 40th anniversary, we gather together to reaffirm the power of art and culture in social movements, meaning-making, civic engagement, and liberation. Our conference theme – Stormshaping: Adaptation, Resistance, Reimagination – is a call to action in tumultuous times, to not simply weather the storms but to reshape our world through collective strength, imagination, and solidarity.

NPN’s convening is a space for exchange, learning, and practice at the intersection of art, culture, justice, and power-building. It is an opportunity to turn toward each other in the face of systems designed to divide and destabilize, and to build connection, capacity, strategy, and care.

With the conference taking place alongside the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, it will also connect attendees with the complex and vibrant histories and cultures of New Orleans and the Gulf South.

All are welcome!

For more information, please visit the conference website at https://npnweb.org/ac2025

NPN strives to center the health, safety, and wellbeing of all conference attendees, and we ask registrants to commit to each other’s wellbeing in this spirit of collective care.

Attendees are asked to monitor their health before traveling to the event and test for COVID, RSV, flu, or other conditions that may harm attendees. Self-administered COVID tests will be available at registration.

Masking will be optional at the conference, and masks will be available at registration. NPN may designate specific areas and/or sessions where masking is required.

These procedures will be reviewed in September 2025, as we monitor current conditions. Please reach out with any questions or clarifications.

In alignment with our organizational commitment to creating an arts sector rooted in justice, we are committed to ensuring a space that is free of racism, transphobia, homophobia, ableism, misogyny, classism, or other bias. Likewise, NPN supports the creation and presentation of diverse original work and we encourage artists to show that work without compromise. We expect any programs hosted by NPN, as well as any hosts and partners in our convenings and other activities, to honor these ethics.

Info: Open to NPN National Partners only

Info: Botanica: Gardens, Landscapes, and Plant Medicines in South Louisiana, an NPN-supported exhibition, guided by co-curator Monique Verdin – Separate Registration Required

Info: Reception at Ashé Cultural Arts Center, with exhibitions commemorating the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina

Info: Welcome, grounding, and opening: “Take Me To The River”, guided by Houma Nation artists Monique Verdin and Hali Dardar, and Bvlbancha Public Access

Info: In today’s world—shaped by political upheaval, attacks on human rights, rising costs of living and doing business, decreased funding, and environmental disasters—artist mobility feels increasingly untenable. NPN is partnering with the Design Studio for Social Intervention (DS4SI) to ask: What else is possible? Guided by DS4SI’s Ideas, Arrangements, and Effects framework, DS4SI will host a visioning session to reimagine what artist mobility could look like in this shifting landscape.

Info: Cultural Movement Assembly, case studies, roundtables, and more

Info: NPN’s conference will include several affinity spaces for attendees to gather in community together.

Info: Choose from arts events, performances, dine-arounds, and excursions, including Mondo Bizarro Presents—live excerpts of new performance work by NPN-supported artists, at Catapult Theater, a gathering place for experimentation and creative collision

Info: Around the world and throughout history, the arts are among the first targets of authoritarianism. Dissent calls on us to not only reaffirm the vital role of artists as disruptors and risk-takers, but to build and invest in safety and solidarity for artists and cultural spaces that speak truth to power. As The Theater Offensive offered in its rules for fellowship in this era: “No blame. No hatred. Love. Unity. Liberation. Abundance.” Keynote conversation with Giselle Byrd, The Theater Offensive; and Julie Trébault, Artists at Risk Connection.

Info: Cultural Movement Assembly, ArtistsU, case studies, roundtables, and more

Info: Choose from arts events, dine-arounds, and excursions, including Mondo Bizarro Presents—live excerpts of new performance work by NPN-supported artists, at Catapult Theater, a gathering place for experimentation and creative collision

Info: Cultural Movement Assembly, case studies, roundtables, and more

Info: NPN’s conference will include several affinity spaces for attendees to gather in community together.

Info: Join us to close out the conference! We’ll gather for music, dancing, and a little friendly competition at our community dance-off. Come as you are, bring your best moves, and help us end the week with energy, laughter, and connection.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

The Royal Sonesta New Orleans, 300 Bourbon Street, New Orleans, United States