ACTIONS

Organisational Culture & Practices

We will examine our working practices and organisational cultures to ensure they are inclusive and welcoming for people from the Global Majority. We will listen to all communities acting with humility and openness in order to dismantle institutional barriers to employment, participation and engagement. We will educate ourselves and leverage white privilege to act in alliance with those who experience discrimination and racism. As anti-racist, pro-equality organisations, we will enforce a zero tolerance attitude to racism and discriminatory behaviour and language. We will address the historic under-representation of people from the Global Majority within our organisations and in our audiences, and we will increase support for existing and emerging leaders from the Global Majority in our sector.

Education & Training

We commit to a process of ongoing education and learning as individual organisations and as a sector, acknowledging Britain’s colonial past and reeducating ourselves as part of anti-racism training for all cultural organisations in the city. We will embed this as an ongoing working practice and ensure that anti-racism training is an integral part of staff and Board induction and ongoing personnel development. We will do this through sharing resources and learning as peers, and through the creation of an anti-racism toolkit, developed in partnership with local communities.

Language

We understand that the language we use is a powerful act of solidarity or ‘allyship’ with people who experience racial discrimination and that it is important to learn from how individuals and communities identify themselves. Accordingly, we will no longer use reductive and disrespectful abbreviations and collective terms (e.g. BAME) that are centred on whiteness and do not recognise the rich complexity of individual self-identification. We commit to continue to listen and learn with sensitivity and respect in what is an evolving discourse. Currently we take our lead from the Inc Arts Statement and we will be specific in the language we use and remain open and receptive, actively contributing to the national debate taking place.

Data & Reporting

In order to ensure our efficacy and transparency in reporting on progress to our stakeholders, we will introduce a shared methodology for data collection and undertake data research to establish a baseline from which we can set meaningful targets around programming, career pathways into senior management, leadership positions and board recruitment. We commit to annually review and publicly publish our progress with relevant data. For this purpose, we will work towards using the same Equal Opportunities Form across organisations for staff and artists and adopting the same audience data collation.

Recruitment

Addressing the lack of representation of people from the Global Majority within our organisations is an essential feature of becoming a more inclusive, anti-racist sector. Therefore, we will change our recruitment processes to reduce barriers due to race, socio-economic background and other discrimination and commit to take positive action in order to diversify our teams and Boards.

Artistic Development & Leadership

In order to ensure that we are harnessing the widest creative potential and appealing to the widest possible audience, we commit to increasing the presence and influence of artists from the Global Majority within our programming and in leadership roles. In order to do this, we will form a paid working group of artists of the Global Majority from different art forms to work with us to drive new initiatives. We will also create a new rolling scheme of Associate Creatives, for practitioners who would benefit from leadership experience, networks and visibility. These roles will be hosted by different venues and will include several new curator and producer roles, as well as a resident company scheme. As we develop this new initiative, we will explore how these practitioners can connect to national and international networks.

Audiences & Spaces

We will ensure that our public spaces are welcoming places for people of the Global Majority and that our programming celebrates a wealth of histories and cultures relevant to a diverse audience. Widening our audiences is a priority for all arts organisations in Oxford. In order to increase the diversity of our audiences and participants, we will develop a new paid Community Connectors’ Scheme to consult our communities and inform our programming and initiatives.

This is the time. The time for change.

All of us who have signed this manifesto commit to act in relation to racism and discrimination, working to support and challenge each other, and to make the radical change necessary to achieve our vision of an Oxford free of racism and discrimination through the leadership of its arts and cultural sector.