The Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts, Biennial Rex Nettleford Arts Conference seeks to provide an opportunity for local, regional and global voices of artists, performers, art educators, policymakers, researchers and Arts practitioners to raise awareness, share experiences and examine the terrain of historical erasure, social and institutional responsibility and the multiple ways in which people compose, or fail to do so, outward and interior realities.

The purpose of the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts, Rex Nettleford Arts Conference is to create a platform for discourse with arts practitioners, writers, researchers and educators, policymakers in the creative and cultural industries. The conference further seeks to create an interdisciplinary dialogue on the role of these industries in transforming society, generate discourse around the cultural industries being a viable medium for wealth creation and create a space for a critical exchange of ideas that make the connection with the Arts.