Diversity

A new report published by National Museums Scotland (NMS) calls for diaspora community participants in museum projects to be valued as experts and offered fair remuneration.

The report is the first stage of the Exchange: Community-Led Collections Research initiative, funded by a £250,000 grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).

It outlines nine recommendations that also include the creation of safer spaces and co-designing participation so people can tell stories on their terms.

Seven museum partners around the UK were supported to carry out the research, with NMS and Royal Museums Greenwich acting as a support hub.

The partners worked with African, Caribbean, and South Asian diaspora heritage community members. Participatory research methodologies were used to explore experiences of empire, migration, and life in Britain.

John Giblin, keeper of global arts, cultures and design at NMS, said: “The key question at the centre of the Exchange project was how participation can be more equitable for diaspora heritage community members. 

“This report highlights the benefits of community-led participatory practice as well as the challenges and barriers to participation, and the nine recommendations are a valuable first step in finding an answer to that question."

The AHRC has announced £150,000 of funding for Exchange 2.0, which will aim to build on the findings of the first stage with a focus on knowledge sharing, sustainable legacy and impact.

African theatre company Utopia Theatre has secured dedicated new premises for its recently launched Youth Academy in Sheffield.

The Youth Academy launched earlier this year and will move from its current home in St Mary’s Church to the new venue in the coming months. 

Utopia Theatre will use the new space to host workshops and performing arts classes for young people of African and Caribbean descent, as well as those from other minority groups. It will also offer a mentoring and training programme. 

The new venue is a 171-square-metre former hairdressing shop unit, located on The Moor. It was secured with the help of Hammond Associates, a Leeds-based company that specialises in making empty commercial property available to artists, arts and community-based charities.

The new premises, which are being offered rent and service-charge free on a temporary basis by landlord NewRiver Retail, will be fitted with workshop and rehearsal spaces.

The theatre will also maintain its base at The Crucible Theatre, where it is a resident company.

“It’s important that our Youth Academy members, alongside our brilliant team at Utopia Theatre, feel a sense of belonging and ownership and I’m confident this will provide a fantastic collaborative, supportive and vibrant workshop and rehearsal space,” said Mojisola Kareem-Elufowoju, Chief Executive and Artistic Director of Utopia Theatre.

“It’s also important for us to be able to play our part in the regeneration and re-use of The Moor in Sheffield, so bringing a new lease of life to this area of the city is a real bonus. 

“We are immensely proud of our Sheffield roots and it’s brilliant to be able to play our part in shaping the future of the area by making use of commercial space which is otherwise unused.” 

An advocacy group for British East and South East Asians working in the screen and stage industries has accused the Royal Opera House (ROH) of "whitewashing" its new production of a Puccini opera.

The Beats group said the casting for the ROH's Turandot, currently running at the Covent Garden venue, was "simply unacceptable" and that it was "very concerned" at the "highly limited representation".

It said in a statement: "We fail to see why there are only two British East and South East Asians singers in a production that is set in China." 

The group has called on the ROH to "undertake a thorough review of its casting processes to ensure that its productions have much better and more appropriate representation on and off stage".

It added that the ROH's approach to casting "limits the ability of artists of colour to participate in the telling of their own stories on stage".

Responding to the criticism, the ROH said: "We are opposed to pigeonholing singers into certain roles based on ethnicity, recognising that to do so would be limiting and reductive. 

"At the same time, we do not ignore ethnicity entirely. Instead, we are committed to colour-conscious casting, an approach which considers the nuance required to authentically and respectfully portray each and every story."

It added that the new production "presents an outstanding and diverse cast".

Jerwood Arts has launched a new toolkit to help drive socio-economic inclusivity in the cultural sector.

The independent arts funder says its toolkit, (Team) Work In Practice, foregrounds the voices and experiences of early-career artists from working class backgrounds.

It offers actionable ideas organised into five sections, covering recruitment and induction, support in professional development and onward progression.

Jerwood Arts Director Lilli Geissendorfer said the suggested actions in the toolkit arise directly from Fellows and Alumni of the WJCB programme.

“Responding to the ambitions of the 2020-22 Fellows encouraged us to work with them to design a resource that could articulate in real-life detail what ‘inclusivity’ does and doesn’t look like up close, day to day, throughout their journey in an organisation,” Geissendorfer added.

“Our hope is that people working in arts organisations across the UK will dip into the toolkit and use it as a starting point for wider reflection and discussion on what inclusivity could look like within their own context.”

Arts and cultural organisations will be able to access online and in-person workshops based on the toolkit throughout 2023.