Neuro-Inclusion in Festival-Making Panel at Shrimp Fest 2025
We are proud to share that Fish in a Tree: Center for Neurodiversity Education, Advocacy, and Activism will host a featured panel at the Second Annual Louisiana Shrimp Festival (Shrimp Fest 2025) in New Orleans.
On Sunday, October 19, at 11:30am at The Broadside in Mid-City, our panel “Neuro-Inclusion and Neuro-Accessibility in Festival-Making in the Gulf South” will bring together national leaders and community voices to explore how festivals and cultural gatherings can become truly neuro-affirming spaces. This dialogue will examine sensory access, equity in design, and the broader cultural politics of belonging in public space.
Confirmed panelists include Chiara Latimer, MFT, Director of the Center for Neurodiversity at Rowan University; Georgia Majka, interdisciplinary artist and assistant director at Rowan University; and Bridgette Hamstead, MS, Founding Director of Fish in a Tree and Chair of the Neurodiversity Coalition of America. The panel will be moderated by Seth Hamstead, Board Treasurer of Southern Food Foundation, Board Treasurer for Shrimp Aid, and Co-Founder and Board Treasurer of Fish in a Tree. Together, they will highlight strategies, lived experience, and models for inclusive festival-making in the Gulf South and beyond.
Festivals are more than celebrations. They are cultural frameworks that communicate who belongs in public life. Too often, neurodivergent communities encounter barriers that exclude us from full participation. This panel asks what it looks like to center neurodivergent leadership and access at the heart of cultural life, shifting from token inclusion to structural change.
We invite organizers, artists, advocates, and community members to join us for this essential conversation at Shrimp Fest. Together, we can reimagine vibrant public spaces where neurodivergent people are celebrated as central to the story.