LADA seeks new leadership for a new era of Live Art

The Live Art Development Agency (LADA) is inviting proposals for new leadership to create new, transformative visions for the future of LADA and for Live Art.

For the first time in our 21-year history, LADA is seeking new leadership to build on the legacy of our outgoing Director and Co-Founder, Lois Keidan. In the spirit of LADA and Live Art, we are seeking proposals from those who wish to do things differently. We are looking for bold and inspiring leaders who can generate radical new ideas and ways of working; who can advocate for those artists and practices historically underrepresented within Live Art; who can advance Live Art’s expanding frames of reference and parameters of practice; and who are committed to developing structures and processes to ensure that the agency of artists is central to LADA’s operations and programmes.

We are interested in applications that bring knowledge and expertise from a broad range of artistic disciplines alongside a passion for Live Art.

We would like to hear from applicants who have the vision, the energy, the expertise and the resourcefulness to lead our organisation into the next phase in its history, to champion the future of Live Art following the upheavals of the Covid-19 pandemic, and to act upon the urgent calls for racial justice across the cultural industries.

We welcome applications from groups, partnerships, or individuals, including proposals for job shares, collectives, and collaborations between artists and arts workers. We are especially encouraging proposals for new leadership from applicants from ethnically diverse backgrounds.

In 2019, LADA celebrated its 20^th anniversary and began a process of organisational review to consider its role and responsibilities for the next 20 years. In Summer 2020, in response to renewed calls for anti-racist action, Lois Keidan announced that she was accelerating these plans for organisational change and stepping aside to make space for new leadership. The intention was to address how the whiteness of LADA’s current team perpetuates racial inequalities, and attend to issues of equity and representation within LADA, Live Art and the wider cultural sector.

Since then, Lois, LADA’s outgoing Chair Dr Cecilia Wee, and LADA’s Board of Trustees have led the organisation through an ongoing process of external consultation. This has included conversations with artists and arts workers from ethnically diverse backgrounds, a comprehensive review of LADA’s portfolio of activities, and internal reflections to imagine new ways of working and new models of leadership.

This extensive process of transition is leading to a shift in the focus of our activities, prioritising artist development programmes and resources, while revisiting our approaches to publishing and curatorial projects. Meanwhile, LADA’s small team is reorganising to better embody our values by embedding principles of pay and work parity. Acknowledging how cultural production needs to centre the care of artists and arts workers, we imagine the LADA of the future will do less, better.

We believe the organisational structure and leadership opportunity we have developed through this process of review and reflection will support LADA’s new leadership to develop their own programmes and activities, and their own distinct vision for LADA, for Live Art, and for the next phase of our history.

We imagine that LADA’s new leadership will spend their first six months developing their vision and mission for our organisation, including rethinking and refreshing the Board, and leading our team and Board through a collective process of review and awareness in relation to organisational values, policies, and ethics. Alongside this, they will actively prepare for our next application to ACE’s National Portfolio early in 2022.

To submit your application to LADA’s Leadership vacancy, first read our recruitment pack where you will find background and context on our process of change, full details of the opportunity and its terms, and guidance on how to apply.

The deadline for applications is 12 noon, Monday 26^th April. Interviews will be on the 11^th and/or 12^th May, with a second round during the week commencing 24^th May. We expect our new leadership will start work over the summer.