A statement from LADA’s outgoing Director Ria Righteous

Dear Live Art Communities, 

It is with great pleasure that I bid you farewell as Interim Artistic Director turned Artistic Consultant for the Live Art Development Agency over the last 12 months. This last year has been an extraordinary experience for me, and an insight into what leadership can be and look like. 

I would like to firstly thank Chinasa Vivian Ezugha, who entrusted me with this role and ensured I had the provisions of care and support in place to undertake it. I also thank her for her time as Director at LADA, for her ambition in programming and intentions to shift perspectives and culture. I admire her courage and perseverance in attempting to do the impossible, being a dark skinned Black Woman in leadership, which is still underrepresented and undersupported within our predominantly white cultural sector. There still seems to be little to no awareness of the complexities and realities of the lived experience of gender racialised discrimination and the provisions needed to break down barriers in the sector. This is also true for the intersections of race, gender and disability. 

Both Chinasa Vivian Ezugha and Barak adé Soleil called on my support in late 2021, to specifically propose creative solutions from my practice ‘ecologies of care’ in collaboration with their ambitions for a ‘culture of care’. Of course I cannot speak for either of our former Directors, nor disclose our personal dialogues, however, from my perspective at that time, I witnessed what I feared may happen next.

If we look at any of the data on racial and intersectional identities in the UK published in recent years, and readily available online, there is an acknowledgement that Black leaders will experience daily barriers through microaggressions, double standards and bias, as well as more explicit behaviours, attitudes, assumptions and direct racism, sexism, ableism and bigotry. It is my belief that both Vivian and Barak were not always supported within the wider social, cultural and specific sector contexts, which was needed to empower them to succeed in their vision. I resonate with this deeply because I and many others in arts and culture share this experience also.

I feel it is important to acknowledge the work and commitment of our previous Directors, and describe what I was able to carry out within my own practice and vision following their departure from LADA. The current NPO was written by them, developed by me and much of last year’s programme was established by them. I thank them both for attempting to create something new and never seen before in Live Art and inspiring me to lead in collaboration with their core values and intentions, which were to benefit us all. 

Upon my appointment I created a very clear agenda for what was needed to be achieved for the organisation within a 12-month period. I got to work swiftly and within several months the organisation was again stable. This was implemented through the foundational work of ‘ecologies of care’ which I practice daily and take with me into every (ad)venture. I worked closely with the new LADA Board of Trustees, Arts Council England, external partners, the LADA team, our commissioned artists and my incredible Access Support worker Jodie Worton, without which I would not have been able to achieve such a turnaround. This last year was a deep insight into what team work, combined with vision, mutual respect, transparency and clear honest communication can achieve. 

This year was joyous for me. Specifically because I worked closely with Artist Development Manager, Tania Camara. Tania has made working at LADA feel flawless, progressive, grounded, engaging and collaborative. With Tania and Jodie by my side, I could undertake the challenges ahead. I look forward to our continued partnerships well into the future, and thank them both for extending their practices into LADA to ensure the organisation’s success, acknowledging that Black women achieved a great deal for LADA. 

I would also like to thank Tracy Gentles and Janet Tam for their consultancy through the award winning creative structure support organisation ‘Something to Aim For’ (STAF)  committed to supporting marginalised and underrepresented artists. Their expertise was put into place for me by Chinasa Vivian Ezugha as she left and served as an essential support to my leadership. 

I thank the current LADA Board, particularly the Chair, Robin Deacon, who despite our differences in opinions, has maintained a high level of integrity and sets a powerful example of mutually respectful communication and navigating challenges with resolve. He has worked tirelessly throughout the year to ensure the organisation and all involved could reach their highest potential. 

Finally thank you to the wider LADA team, Natalia Damigou-Papoti, Rosaleigh Harvey-Otway, Willy Amott and Kane Stonestreet, who all embraced and embodied ‘ecologies of care’ and reflected back the core intentions with each other creating a team and a working dynamic that is ‘Next World Building’. And to Ruth Holdsworth who is now Interim Director of LADA and has been a great support in these final months. I am moved to witness what can be achieved in leadership, community and collaboration when set within a collective intention. 

Some last reflections I’d like to share with you all as I depart: 

My relationship with Live Art began in 2004 with my studies and where I experienced my first live performances. I remember the feeling and excitement of witnessing that which I could not yet articulate, but could feel. I was inspired to create and learn, and this is what I’ve dedicated my adult life to, to date. I believed at that time that we, Live Artists, could have such an impact in culture and society, that we could collectively change the world for the better. Perhaps I was naive, but there has always been a flicker of hope.

This hope was strengthened for me when I met LADA’s Founding Director Lois Keidan at the end of my MA during her visit to Dartington College of Arts (2010). Lois personally invited us, calling us into the LADA community, letting us know there was a home for us. In my early years of professional practice I faced some huge barriers while navigating my intersectional experience of race, class, gender, disability and sexual orientation within arts and culture, often feeling exploited, betrayed and abused by people in positions of power. This left me feeling harmed and traumatised. Sadly this is a reality I know many artists and arts workers have faced and still do.

For me LADA was an exception to this and an example in the ways artists like myself could be supported and be in complex, nuanced and difficult yet necessary dialogues. Where venues and organisations shut me down, Lois called me in, often offering a platform for me to speak uncensored, unchecked, unapologetically, with complete trust in my ability and integrity. This made LADA my home, this made you my community, this is what gave me strength and hope for the future. The last few years have been difficult. The pandemic, Brexit, war, inflation, have affected us all in different ways and at different times. These contexts have also impacted the pressure on leadership across the sector and I have seen a decline in capacity to hold space for intersectional experiences in the ways that are needed. 

I’m not in support of a call out culture, but I do seek accountability, responsibility and resolution within difficult circumstances. In my practice this is essential to care and wellness. Things that linger or go unresolved turn into ‘dis’ ‘ease’. I believe we can approach anything with love, care and respect, even in our wildest rages and feelings of anger, sadness and injustice. This is something I am currently working on as a part of the ecologies of care framework. 

We discuss many topics in our field, but we leave out the crucial dialogues surrounding the core of our work ‘relationships’. My needs for relationships with others are deeply rooted in love, trust, care, reciprocity, respect, safety and loyalties. Any relationship that shows me otherwise remains transactional and boundaried, but is shown the same level of respect. Relationship building is integral to our successes in the field in which we work, and we have to recognise within our relationships the realities of each individual, and the inequalities and barriers they may face as opposed to our privileges. I vote for collaboration over competition, calling in as opposed to calling out, commitment instead of negligence, empathy over vindictiveness, active listening over inattentiveness, defensiveness and fragility.  

These are all choices we have the personal power to opt in or out of. Yet it does take some personal work and a good level of mental wellness to undertake. I think we all need some time out in order to develop this, don’t you agree? I had a good period of time out in a psychiatric ward late in 2022 and it did me the world of good, six months later I became a Director, go figure! 

I now move forward with healthy relationships. I choose whom I would like to work and collaborate with based on my core values and principles. I believe we can do better at relationship building, at caring, loving, trusting, and allyship. ‘Love has never been a popular movement’ (James Baldwin), but it is the foundation to the changes we so desperately need to see in our world. If we cannot love, then there is no hope, and I cannot participate nor function anymore outside of love. I don’t live my life for ‘popularity’, many of my choices are not ‘popular’, but they are authentic, and that’s where I hang out and who I hang out with.  

‘Make a career of humanity. Commit yourself to the noble struggle for equal rights. You will make a better person of yourself, a greater nation of your country, and a finer world to live in.’ (Martin Luther King Jr.) 

Is my belief in the potential of love with integrity in Live Art naive? Personally I find this to be radical, innovative and revolutionary practice. This is the beauty of the freedoms we own as artists, to dream and imagine that which is within us to manifest into reality, and to do this despite all odds, opinions and others’ choices, judgements and actions. I cannot convince you to do the same, but I can inspire you to at least consider this. 

Issues surrounding race, disability, class, queerness, intersectionality, inequality etc. are not going to resolve themselves. Maybe each of us need to ask ourselves, what is my role within all of this? How can I lean in, learn, make accessible spaces for others? How can I approach what I do with care, integrity, openness and clear communication? How might I collaborate with others with similar visions to me? Am I ready to lead? (The answer is always YES!) 

There is so much space for the next generations to create something new in (Gen Z’s step up, Gen Alpha we’re awaiting you). I advocate and celebrate for all generations existing within our field, for I would not be here without you all, and I am endlessly grateful and inspired by too many of you to name. But I feel particularly inspired by those younger than me, even in my son’s generation, who are currently toddlers and children. I see so much potential and spirit, it’s exciting to witness the future in progress. 

As we well know ‘The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House’ (Audre Lorde). And therefore it is time for ‘us’ to continue to build our own houses, our own organisations, our own places to practice, learn, and share visions. This is my next endeavour, I call on those of you who read this and feel the call to connect with me, this includes allies of all identities. 

I wish you all the best, I truly do – I will be around, somewhere between love and care, parenting and friendships come family. I will be making art about the (Next) world I want to live in and be a part of building and creating, generating resources for myself and others. But you won’t see it in a theatre, or studio or gallery space, you will see it out in the world in daily life, in many different countries around the Global Majority. Hopefully, I will see some of you there too.

Take Care
All my love x
Ria Righteous

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