Lowering Barriers to Cultural Participation through Larp and Larp-adjacent Practices

This report documents the activities of Work Package 4 within the Larpocracy project, focusing on the DRIFT artist residency and a public-facing programme of performance in Belém, Brazil, in the lead-up to, and during, COP30 in November 2025. Work Package 4 investigates how larp and larp-adjacent artistic methods can contribute to lowering barriers to participation in democratic and civic processes, particularly for communities who may not typically engage with formal deliberative structures. Across the DRIFT programme, local artists developed and presented a diverse range of participatory works that foregrounded relational interaction, sensory engagement, and instruction-based participation. Rather than prioritising performative modes of presentation, many of the projects created structured environments in which audience-participants were invited to negotiate proximity, trust, coordination, and care in real time. This shift from spectatorship towards facilitated relational encounter emerged as a consistent feature across the works. Audience responses indicate that participation was most accessible when clear but flexible instructional frameworks were provided. Participants reported that carefully calibrated constraints helped to scaffold confidence, particularly for those unfamiliar with immersive, or participatory art, formats. At the same time, moments of ambiguity or relational difficulty often generated productive reflection, prompting participants to adjust their behaviour in relation to others. These micro-negotiations can be understood as embodied democratic practices, including listening, compromise, and mutual attunement. The COP30 context significantly shaped the conditions of presentation and reception. In the lead-up to the conference, local audience dynamics in Belém were influenced by both heightened global attention and local concerns regarding infrastructural pressure and uneven distribution of the benefits of such an event. During COP30 itself, the density of parallel programming required a distributed engagement strategy. By working through multiple institutional and community partners including the Federal University of Pará, the British Council, UNLIMITED, Museu das Amazônias, and Gasômetro, the DRIFT programme was able to reach both local and international audiences beyond the artists’ immediate networks. Evidence from the DRIFT residency suggests that lowering barriers to participation does not require the removal of structure, but rather the careful design of accessible entry points, clear invitations, and supportive relational frameworks. The findings indicate that larp and larp-adjacent practices can create inclusive spaces for civic reflection when they balance guidance with participant agency and attend closely to the affective and sensory dimensions of engagement. These insights will inform the ongoing development of the artistic methods that are being explored within Work Package 4 and contribute to investigations throughout the Larpocracy project into how artistic practices can support more inclusive democratic participation.