ActionSpace leads a new research project into Inclusive Governance

Photo of a layered structure made out of wood covered in coloured dyed fabric. Behind are two people adding to the artwork.

ActionSpace steers a new project on inclusive governance

 

We are pleased to share that we are leading an exciting new research project. Working with interdisciplinary artist Jack Ky Tan and academic advisor Dr Rafie Cecilia, the project aims to create a new model of governance that will enable our learning disabled artists with complex support needs to play a meaningful role in determining the strategic direction of the organisation.

Through a series of workshops, this open-ended project will explore how to make Board and organisational decision-making processes accessible, so that our artists have a voice at all levels of the company through verbal and non-verbal exchanges. A report will be published, detailing the project’s findings as well as recommendations for changes to organisational structures, governance culture and further research.

Jack Ky Tan explains: ‘My interest from the start has been to see what would happen if we aim for the high goal of including limited verbal artists as trustees, or somehow embedding them within your formal governance structure. The deep organisational listening and transformative communication needed would be ground breaking.’

The project is supported by UCL’s Knowledge Exchange Fund.

 

About Jack Ky Tan

Jack Ky Tan (b.Singapore) is a UK based interdisciplinary artist. Working across, performance, sculpture, law and policy-making, his practice is an ongoing exploration of social justice that blurs the boundaries between, art, law, governance, and consultancy. Looking toward alternative cosmologies and knowledge systems predating Judaeo-Christian or colonial narratives, Tan interrogates the legacies of empire with a particular interest in Commonwealth and Tropical epistemologies of resistance. By questioning how embedded societal structures form our laws and guide our behaviour, Tan’s work attempts to rethink our entanglement with the human and more-than-human world, and looks towards alternative ways of living and working. [100 words]

Tan originally studied and trained in law [LL.B (Hull), MA Social Justice & Education (UCL IOE)] and worked in British civil rights NGOs before obtaining a BA(Hons) in Ceramics at Harrow/Westminster University and an MA at the Royal College of Art. Jack then completed a practice-led PhD at Roehampton University where he explored legal aesthetics and performance art through his works Karaoke Court and Voices From The Courts. He has taught MA Sculpture at the Royal College of Art and MA Politics & Art at Goldsmiths.

About Dr Rafie Cecilia

Rafie Cecilia is a Lecturer in Museum and Gallery studies in the Department of Culture Media and Creative Industries at King’s College London. Rafie’s research looks at the embodied experience of visitors with disabilities in GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) institutions and digital innovation, fostering a social justice and human rights approach. Rafie’s research focuses on experiences of disability within critical theories of identity, embodiment, and representation, from embodied cognition, situated learning to sociology of impairment and theory of practice. Rafie is particularly interested in decolonial and critical disability methodologies, fostering a co-creation and participatory research environment.

Rafie is an advocate for equality, social justice, and sustainable change. Her work is in service to the idea that cultural heritage must be open and accessible to everyone in society, and she puts these principles into practice in concrete and sustainable ways. During her academic career, Rafie has also worked as access and inclusion consultant and audience researcher for several museums and institutions, including the Wellcome Collection, the British Museum, the Science Museum Group, the Science Gallery, the Fitzwilliam Museum, and the Chau Chak Wing Museum (Sydney).

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