Our statement, our commitment to Black Lives Matter and Anti Racism.
WTM stands in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter and Anti Racism movement and we hear the demands for change. But making a statement isn’t enough. Beyond expressing solidarity, we want to use this moment to tangibly be present for people of colour within our team, Black artists we work with and our audiences.
We will start by publishing the breakdown of our workforce, board and leadership team.
Our mission is to enable everyone to encounter arts and heritage creating shared experiences that inspire our community. We want to tell great stories, in all their complexity and diversity. In the last five years we have made some progress in better representing black artists and artists of colour on our stages, within exhibitions and in artistic development but that work must go much further and include the makeup of our organisation.
We hold ourselves accountable to action on diversifying our workforce.
We will seek external guidance on how we can better our recruitment processes, what programmes we can put in place to enable more people of colour to join WTM.
We have clear aims to become a more inclusive organisation that reflects everyone. But progress has not been fast or significant, so we are taking a number of actions in response. Our first step will be to do some internal training.
We commit to being an anti-racist organisation.
We will identify, acknowledge and work to eradicate systemic racism within our organisation. Members of our team will establish a diversity committee; sharing resources, ensuring we can do this work.
We do not expect artists and audiences to educate us, we must do that work, but we want to open a channel of communication so anyone who might have felt ignored can now be heard. You can make direct contact with a member of our HR team: HR@wtam.uk
The intention of this statement is to ensure that we are held accountable for the protection and empowerment of Black people and People of Colour who enter WTM. This is only the beginning and our first steps; continual education and assessment will be an ongoing commitment and journey.
We say emphatically Black Lives Matter.
Amanda O’Reilly
CEO
WTM
