Monday 18 July
 

Reflections Day 6

This morning was a beautiful and lively session to kickstart this week’s conversations. We were navigated by Régis Gautier-Cochefert. After discussing his career as an administrator and ‘gatekeeper’ of funds in the arts sector, he really dissected his stoic management. At the focus of every move he has made, he champions humanity and human centred processes. One of the many skills Régis reflected on was the art of learning to say no in both grant giving and grant seeking. Régis gave lots of great advice around how to start relationships with funders. He also spoke about the time that goes into crafting funding applications, and ensuring that your organisation and your applications are not static and breathe life into the words that grant givers are reading.  

In the afternoon, Professor Dave O’Brien spent the session relaying the demographics and origins of those who make up the creative sector and battling how people find work in the creative industries. Through deciphering the data of occupations, Prof. O’Brien dissected how each industry was affected by the pandemic, as well as the breakdown cycle of public policy and how it affects workers within the creative industries. Dave also highlighted the major issue of social inequality in the UK which is reflected in the imbalance in our creative and cultural industries. He spoke about a lack of equality and opportunity both in hiring practices and in the habits of those most creatively and culturally exposed, which both, in turn, affect and create demand in the arts sector.  

In a concluding optimistic note, Prof. O’Brien discussed the changes that individuals and organisations are making across these sectors to work innovatively in an inclusive and sustainable way.  

This week is proving to be just as exciting as  the last! We have had great sessions today and tomorrow is an unprecedented treat! We will be doing three events tomorrow! With one of our events that is a part of this year’s Borough of Culture, and we could not be more pleased! Make sure you get the full scope of tomorrow’s activities, below! 

Coming up tomorrow, we have three more incredible speakers lined up for the festival. 

Sarah Drummond

First on the schedule for tomorrow, at 11am, is Sarah Drummond who will discuss how careers take divergent turns, but the importance of values and passions create important work. She will also guide us on her journey from being a service designer to a film-maker.  

Sara Flay

At 2pm, Sara Flay will join us to share her perspective on being a serial entrepreneur, strategies and problem solving for disability inclusion. Having been told at 23 she would never work again due to disability, Sara Flay set about proving the doubters wrong and now proudly heads up a ground-breaking consultancy as the co-founder of The ANI Group.  The ANI Group is a series of companies and delivery partners who are ensuring excellence within the inclusion sector. The group is made up of not for profit, social enterprise and profit-making work.  Sara is committed to ensuring real change happens within our communities and that change is not just something we read about in paper-based strategies and policies.  

John Newbigin

Finally, at 5.30pm, John Newbigin will share his thoughts on the creative potential of high streets. John Newbigin OBE chairs the PEC International Advisory Council on the creative economy and is the London Mayor’s Ambassador for the creative economy. He was part of the team that developed the first definition of the creative industries, adopted by the UK government in 1998, and was co-founder and first Chair of Creative England. He is Chair of the British Council’s Advisory Board for Arts and Creative Economy and is a Visiting Fellow at Goldsmiths, University of London. 

As always, tickets are free to access and can be reserved by following the links below:  

11am: Don’t Say Gay: From being a Service Designer to a Filmmaker with Sarah Drummond  

2pm: Serial Entrepreneur, Strategies and Problem Solving for Disability Inclusion, disrupting the Archaic Narrative with Sara Flay  

5.30pm – 7pm: The Creative Potential of our High Streets with John Newbigin (on and offline to celebrate Lewisham business and the borough of culture) 

The Whole of Week One is Done!

It is officially the end of the first week of the SELFestival! We have had an incredible week of insightful, caring, and thought-provoking speakers. Sessions emerged throughout the week revealing themes around power and holding space for the people and community in your organisation or industry. We have discussed the importance of creating spaces of visibility, understanding that language and words are the first steps towards access and change.  

Today we welcomed Drew McOnie in the morning session and he used his creative storytelling talents to interweave powerful lessons of kindness and humility. He showed us that true leadership means leading everyone, and that translates into the capacity to understand and see each person that touches the work you do. Whether that is those directly working on the production the partner of a stagehand, or if it is the children of a colleague, understanding the space people need to live in the creative and performing arts is how to create better and more poignant, nuanced work.

This bound beautifully with our afternoon session with Jessica Allen, who spoke about what it means to lead or be a voice of authority, and the importance of taking a step back when necessary. The conversation conveyed how sometimes in leadership, the best way forward is to invite people to take ownership and responsibility of how they design the world within themselves to be responsive and responsible for everyone. It also emphasised the need for active listening and the importance of interrogating what we think we know. 

From both speakers today and throughout the week, the lessons and learning of our contributors have us thinking about how to embrace and take hold of the  

More Next Week 

Next week’s sessions will have just as many, incredible speakers and timely conversations.  

We have a different array of speakers from a myriad of industries. Some will be speaking about switching industries, like the infamous Sarah Drummond, who created Snook. She is now a filmmaker, who’s project ‘Don’t Say Gay’ focuses on Section 28.  

We cannot wait to hear about what that journey has been like, and the inspiration for her to take on this project.  

We are also excited to speak with John Newbigin from London’s Borough of Culture, discussing the change in high streets of Lewisham. In addition, there will be the Régis Cochefert, the previous Managing director of the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, who will speak on what it means to manage funds for the innovation and creative arts sectors.  

Other exciting names include Sara Flay, serial entrepreneur who can walk anyone through starting, owning and selling a business. Her real specialty is around creating inclusive spaces and companies for those with disabilities.

These are just some of the multi-faceted speakers we have coming to join us the final week of the SELFestival!

See the full programme of events and speakers here. 

As we approach the end of the first week of the festival, we are delighted to welcome back director and choreographer Drew McOnie at 11am. Drew will share his insight and experience of developing an inclusive leadership style in theatre and performing arts.  

Drew is the Artistic Director of The McOnie Company and a proud Associate Artist at The Old Vic theatre, London and Birmingham Rep Theatre. In 2016, Drew won the Olivier Award for Best Theatre Choreography for In the Heights and he was nominated for the same award in 2017 for the ground-breaking production of Jesus Christ Superstar at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre. Recently, Drew created MERLIN for Northern Ballet, choreographed Carousel at Regents Park Open Air Theatre and has been the choreographer on the Greatest Days movie. 

Staying with the performing arts, in the afternoon at 2pm we’ll be joined by Jessica Allen  who will share Perspectives on developing a trans-inclusive environment. Jessica trained at the Arts Educational School, Tring Park (now Tring Park School for the Performing Arts) and graduated in 2010.  Jessica went on to dance for major ballet companies as a soloist and a principal, as well as performing in musical theatre productions around the world such as ‘Cats’. 

In 2021, Jessica made history as the first transgender dancer to perform, in classical styles, at both extremes of the gender binary. The show, CTC’s ‘iNk’D’, was a critical success.  Now Jessica is focused on consulting with theatre institutions and schools to foster a new and more trans friendly theatre world.  

As the Festival progresses, the process of curation is bearing fruit, with themes developing and speakers unknowingly deepening or extending thoughts from one another.  

Today we were given different perspectives on working in performing arts. on the ways people of colour are represented, or not on stage. David Blake enforced the place of mentoring and an approach to holistic performing arts education, including wellbeing and life-management skills. He spoke with integrity and humility – values that guide these ways of working.  

Translation and sharing of language, collaboration and interpretation were strong themes that developed in Uzma Hameed’s conversation. She shared insights into her processes of collaboration and working cross-form, and how art can be a tool to help shape our identities. Uzma spoke honestly about seeing and voicing the issues women face in balancing the many contradictory but complementary roles of motherhood, career and self and how these roles have many transferable skills which are not always recognised or valued. 

These issues of the systemic barriers faced by women, and Black, Asian and other members of the global majority have been raised in a provocative and thoughtful way, with new ideas for ameliorating them emerging.  

13 July  

Reflections Day 3 

Another day down in the festival and there are certain themes that continue to emerge through these conversations. Discussions around power, and shifts in power, shifts in potential, and what it means to do something well. The importance of the work that is created around and audience- and the responsibility of those community relationships.    

We are inspired by Karl from Purple Door and his approach to building new ways of leading, supporting and creating work. His focus was around building trust with people who have not been served that well by the arts and other parts of society. Later in the afternoon Susan from Homes for Good picked up this same thread, in a different approach, that was both joyous and inspiring.

We thank both Susan and Karl for giving us such reasons to be optimistic. With each noting the difficulties and nuances of certain societal positions. Through both conversations, each speaker created a poignant magnitude of inspiration, leading the charge of possibility when it comes to change. They both, in their own humble manners showcased their keen resourcefulness in understanding that with what they have there can be change beyond themselves and beyond their organisations.

Here is what to expect tomorrow! 

https://www.blakearts.org/

Starting the day at 11am we are delighted to welcome David Blake to the festival for the first time.  David will talk about holistic artist development, featuring opportunities and new ways of supporting Black dance artists. David Blake is an international performer, director, choreographer, educator and producer. He is the founder and creator for Blake Arts, an arts collective that offers holistic artistic development and training as well as content creation, focused on the stories of artists from the Afro Caribbean Diaspora. David is a 2020 Black British Theatre Awards (BBTA) recipient for “Best Teacher for Performing Arts as a Subject” and is currently playing the role of “Banzai” in Disney’s The Lion King in London’s West End. 

https://mobile.twitter.com/uzmahameedrexha

At 2pm, we have another speaker making her debut at the festival, director, dramaturg and writer Uzma Hameed. Uzma will share her perspectives of collaboration and working across different art forms. 

British director and writer Uzma Hameed made her Royal Ballet debut in 2015 as dramaturg for Wayne McGregor’s Woolf Works, and has since returned as dramaturg for McGregor’s ballets Obsidian Tear and Multiverse. She has also worked as dramaturg on Autobiography for Company Wayne McGregor. She graduated from the University of Cambridge with a first in modern and medieval languages, and went on to train in classical Indian music and dance. In 1997 she founded the Big Picture Company, an innovative theatre company combining new writing with choreography and film. Hameed’s credits with the Big Picture Company included writing and directing A Dark River, Taj and Prophetess, all of which were toured extensively around the UK. Hameed was Associate Director at Derby Playhouse 2002–5, where her directing credits included Shirley Valentine, Dracula, Frankenstein and her own controversial adaptation of Schiller’s Mary Stuart, which drew parallels between the danger to Elizabethan England from Catholic Rome and the modern threat of Islamist terrorism. She has directed for Kali Theatre, led projects at the National Theatre Studio and taught on workshops and courses for a variety of organizations, including the International Institute of Performing Arts in Paris, BBC Radio for Schools and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. She was also the dramaturg for Cathy Marston’s Victoria for Northern Ballet. 

As a writer, Hameed’s current projects include the novel The Kinship of Djinns (co-written with her sister Ambreen) and an English translation of Siegfried Lenz’s Time of the Innocents. Her reviews have appeared in such journals as Dance Theatre Journal, Dance Now, East, Animated and The Big Issue 

Most recently Hameed has released a novel called Undying, the stories of two sisters, written by two sisters. 

Thursday 14 July

11 AM: Holistic Artist development – opportunities and new ways of supporting Black dance artists with David Blake 

2PM: Stories, Collaboration and working cross-form with Director, Dramaturg and Writer Uzma Hameed     

See the full programme of events and speakers here. 

Tuesday 12 July

Reflections- Day Two  

Today’s morning session was brought to us by Angelique Golding and Florian Stadtler, having insightful conversations around Wasafiri Magazine, the literature and  culture of the writers and curators who make it, and as well as the audience who devours it and the important voices it reflects. Angelique who discussed her journey of reading and enjoying Wasafiri Magazine, to now being a researcher in to the Wasafir archives, via an MA in Black British Writing.

The work of those publishing Wasafiri and their process in developing literature really speaks to the time. Florian discussed the processes around how the organisation of the Wasafiri Magazine runs, from keeping the structure of ensuring each writer gets paid, to realising when it is time to work, and when it is time to pass this work to the next generation. Both Angelique and Florian spoke with their passion for the magazine over recent publications, and how each new release lifts another voice across, not just Black British communities, but wider, transnational voices, including Asia, South East Asia and Africa and looks at intersectional issues, with Queer and White themed publications.
 

In the afternoon, Georga Gachara opened up with some of his experiences as a managing partner for HEVA investment fund in Kenya. George brought a wealth of generous insight into how he builds trust with the people and institutions he funds and shared some of the methods he uses to bring a human and planet – centred approach to investment.  

His passion and curiosity for the creative industries shone through and he discussed a variety of projects he’s been involved in across East Africa and the continent. He shared his different methods of investing in enterprises, for example taking a profit share of enterprises, rather than relying solely on a loan model and thus avoiding debt financing. He spoke about the importance of seeing perseverance as strategic as well as emotional, and stark reminder that resilience comes from a privileged place.  

The SELFestival continues tomorrow with two more thought-provoking, innovative speakers. 

At 11am we are delighted to welcome Karl Falconer who will talk to us about Innovations and Adventures in Audience Development and Inclusion. 

Karl Falconer

Karl Falconer is a director and educator and Managing Director of PurpleDoor. His work has been staged and screened across the UK and Ireland, and has been supported by Arts Council England and the Paul Hamlyn Foundation. He is developing work for the Shakespeare North Playhouse. As a graduate of the Shakespeare Institute and a researcher with Royal Holloway, Karl’s research interests surround the working-class experience of arts and culture, alternative methods of teaching outside the traditional classroom, and the way architecture shapes performance. Karl has spent the last five years working as a Course Leader at one of London’s largest FE colleges. He works with UAL developing the next generation of vocational qualifications and he currently serves on the Arts Squad for Northern Broadsides.  

In the afternoon, Goldsmiths Entrepreneurial Fellow Susan Aktemel will join the festival to give her insight into enabling as many people as possible to have a good place to live in Homes for Good – investment, expansion and motivation 

Susan Aktemel

Susan combined her property experience with her commitment to improving people’s lives to create Scotland’s first social enterprise letting agency, with the aim of changing the private rented sector for people who need homes most. Since 2014 she has raised over £12.5 million in social investment for Homes for Good. In 2017 she received an Honorary Doctorate from Strathclyde University for achievements in Social Enterprise, and in 2019 was inducted into the Strathclyde Academy of Distinguished Entrepreneurs. She was then awarded the inaugural Trinity College Social Innovation Prize at Judge Business School Cambridge. She was appointed as Visiting Professor in Social Entrepreneurship at the Hunter Centre, Strathclyde Business School in February 2020, and became a Senior Enterprise Fellow in January 21 at Strathclyde. Susan is a board and investment committee member of SIS Ventures, and a commissioner on the Adebolwale Commission on social investment. 

SELF is free to access and open to all but please follow the links below to reserve your place on either session.  

Wednesday 13 July

11 AM: Innovations and Adventures in Audience Development and Inclusion in Theatre with Karl Falconer
2PM: Enabling as many people as possible to have a good place to live: Homes for Good – investment, expansion and motivation with Susan Aktemel
   

See the full programme of events and speakers here. 

Sunday 10 July 

For the third year running, the annual sustainable enterprise celebration opens its doors to explore what it means to run enterprises, organisations and businesses in a welcoming, innovative, inclusive and sustainable way. The theme of this year’s festival is Motivation and Perseverance and it will open with a welcome session from the festival’s co-hosts and co-curators Siân Prime and Adrian De La Court, from Goldsmiths’ Institute of Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship. 

Ashley Evenson

The first speaker of the festival is Ashley Evenson who will lead a session on Creating the Story of your Future at 11.30am. Ashley is the Founder of Oval Productions, a storytelling agency which she founded as a platform to engage communities to tell their stories. She has over 20 years of experience in writing, directing and producing theatre, film and live events. Ashley currently lectures on the Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship programme at Goldsmiths College and she works across many platforms that seek to engage local communities to build entrepreneurial skills and tell their stories. These works include, Inspire Lewisham, Stride, London Borough of Culture, UK Community Renewal Fund, Greater London Authority. Ashley is also is the Producer and co-host of the Curious About Creativity Podcast.  

The afternoon session at 2pm will be a conversation between Catherine Greig and Ivy Aubyn on Sharing Power When It Feels Scarce.  

Catherine Greig

Catherine is the founding director of make:good which has been devising and delivering community engagement, involving local people in local change in a way that is both meaningful and genuine, since 2009. Catherine’s multidisciplinary team brings together architects, urban and graphic designers, researchers and event planners to think about new ways of talking about, influencing and animating our neighbourhoods and shared public spaces.  

Ivy Aubynn

Ivy Aubynn is a painter, printmaker and sculptor, a mixed-media artist passionate about sharing the joy of painting, creating conceptual and emotive art within her local community. She runs art workshop sessions with her community in Stratford where she puts on a demonstration, showcasing her knowledge and expertise in her field to share with her neighbours. These sessions are inclusive and open to everybody. 

Catherine and  Ivy met on a MakeGood project, and will be reflecting on what has kept them motivated when their working conditions shifted hugely and  how to enable others to develop and reach potential.    

SELF is free and open to all but please follow the links below to reserve your place on either session.  

Monday 11 July 

11am: Welcome session with Siân Prime and Adrian De La Court 

11.30am: Creating The Story Of Your Future with Ashley Evenson 

2pm: Sharing Power When It Feels Scarce with Catherine Greig and Ivy Aubyn 

See the full programme of events and speakers here.