In this participatory workshop, Naomi Alexander (artistic director of Brighton Peoples Theatre) shares key insights from her UK Arts and Humanities Research Council funded research into leadership in community arts practice. Drawing on findings from her research and workshops with youth and community arts practitioners, she invites participants into a shared space of reflection, dialogue and embodied exploration.
Rather than positioning herself as an expert, Naomi works as a peer, creating an open process in which everyone’s experience and perspective can be brought into the room. Through experiential exercises, participants explore what it means to lead and to be led in co-creative artistic processes. Role-play scenarios introduce ethical dilemmas commonly encountered in community arts, prompting reflection on responsibility, care, power and decision-making.
The workshop focuses on the role of the professional artist as a leader in community arts and responds to the lack of evidence-based research into how leadership functions within culturally democratic practices. This session both recognises the complex, often invisible skills artists already employ and opens up a conversation about how these forms of leadership can be better understood, supported and developed.
Naomi Alexander | Participatory workshop | United Kingdom