2026 Creative Catalysts Exhibition: The Lens of Literature

Cross-Pollinate with Us!

Join us this fall at Groundwork in New Bedford for Creative Catalysts: The Lens of Literature. This multidisciplinary exhibition brings together artists working across visual art, literary arts, music, multimedia, and other creative mediums to explore how literature can inspire new ways of seeing and creating.

Now in its second year, Creative Catalysts celebrates collaboration across artistic disciplines, pairing artists who respond to a shared work of literature through conversation, experimentation, and creative exchange. The result is an exciting cross-pollination of ideas, perspectives, and artistic practices.

Exhibition Description:

Creative Catalysts: The Lens of Literature explores what can happen when artists from different disciplines come together around a shared source of inspiration.

For this year's exhibition, each artist pair selects a work of literature—whether a novel, short story, poem, play, or other literary work—as a source, inspiration, or framework for their collaboration. Throughout the summer and early fall, partners meet, talk, brainstorm, and exchange ideas, allowing the literature to spark new questions and creative possibilities.

Each artist then creates their own original work in response to that shared literary inspiration. The resulting works are presented together in a shared exhibition space, inviting visitors to discover the connections, contrasts, and unexpected conversations between the artists and their chosen text.

Through visual art, writing, music, multimedia, and mediums we haven't even predicted yet, The Lens of Literature celebrates the possibilities that emerge when artists inspire one another across creative boundaries.

Come discover what happens when literature sparks collaboration—and collaboration sparks something entirely new.