Counterpoints Arts’ 2026 Pop Culture and Social Change Retreat
Delivered in collaboration with the Power of Pop Fund — will bring together 50 change-making producers, content creators, cultural innovators, activists and philanthropists at Dartington Hall, Devon, from 7-9th October.
At a moment when digital platforms are concentrating power in fewer and fewer hands, and far-right narratives are being amplified and funded across the media landscape, this year’s retreat turned its focus to digital storytelling for social justice.
Over two and a half days, we explored how digital cultural content can drive social change, disrupt power structures, and build long-term narrative power. This retreat was framed by a new piece of research, commissioned in collaboration with the AKO Storytelling Institute at UAL, that shows the urgency and relevance of this subject in this highly polarised time.
Background
Since the first Counterpoints Art’s Pop Culture & Social Change Retreat in 2018, more creative teams are collaborating, producing and supporting narrative change initiatives. The 2022 retreat drew inspiration from these pop culture case studies, and the shared knowledge and experience of a fast growing network of creative practitioners and change-makers. Recent examples of successful films focusing on lived experience of migration and displacement include, multi-award winning films such as All That’s Left of You (2025) by Cherein Dabis and A Fox Under a Pink Moon (2025), directed by Mehrdad Oskouei and Soraya Akhlaghi, highlighting the power of film to drive social change. Or Netflix’s Peabody Winner Mo and Apple TV’s Pachinko highlighting the experiences of an undocumented migrant from Palestine and South Korea (respectively). The 2024 retreat brought together an extraordinary community of practitioners to develop cultural interventions at the nexus of climate and migrant justice — forging connections, building collective imagination, and planting the seeds for what this network will do next.
Setting
The programme included inspiring work by a range of content creators, platforms and cultural producers with short inspirations, provocations and workshops. We held a programme of events featuring workshops, talks, film and performance, and space for informal networking including shared meals featuring locally sourced food. The retreat was supported by Unbound Philanthropy, and The Power of Pop Fund with all of the activities set in the beautiful Grade-II listed Dartington Hall, near Totnes, Devon.
Read more about our PopChange initiative here.
