Lighthouse’s ongoing commitment to anti-racist action

Latest update: March 2022
(you can view the past version here: August 2020 plan)

We do not tolerate racism or discrimination in any form and we expect the people we work with, alongside and for, in every way, also to maintain and uphold these values. We recognise the need to do more, to make real, permanent change in our organisation.

The Lighthouse Board of Trustees and team are committed to dismantling systemic inequality. This document outlines the changes we will be making in our organisation and how we will work in an attempt to drive enduring change in our industry. This is a working plan that we will update and publicly share regularly. We hope this will influence other cultural organisations to make changes too.

As a team, Lighthouse will work more proactively in the South East independently, with our partners and with local community and statutory groups to fight racism and to ensure our actions are complementary to those in the wider region. We want to build a fairer cultural sector for the future, and we recognise the urgent need to align this work locally, nationally and internationally.

Language

We will change the acronyms and address the language we use at Lighthouse. Language is vital within structural adjustment, and we will work to get it right - not just as an organisation, but individually too.

By 2021 we will have new diversity and accessibility policy documents. We will collaborate and pay those that the policy documents are for to update and revise. We believe the best policies come from the heart of the organisation because we truly and genuinely believe in those principles.

Addressing our policy documents will be combined and worked through ongoing critique sessions as a team in open discussion sessions (see below in Further Action).

For example, from recent reading and conversations with our Black[1] peers and collaborators, we understand that the use of ‘BAME’ is a catch-all acronym, a hiding place and offensive to some people; therefore we will no longer be using it. We recognise that terminology can be deeply complex so we will continue to engage proactive consultations with communities and groups to ensure we are aligned.

The Lighthouse building(²⁾

When writing this plan in 2020, Lighthouse stated we would make our public space available for a Black-owned business to occupy, specifically noting that there were no Black-owned bookshops in Brighton and the whole of Sussex, and this is something we wanted to change. In October 2021, Afrori Books bought their online bookshop into our building following a successful crowdfunding campaign. Read more about this partnership here.

As we try to rebuild our venue hire package following the challenges we face in the pandemic, we welcome artists or groups with protected characteristics to use our space for regular meetups and we will work together to further opportunities to access our building.

The Lighthouse team

We will do the work; we will not expect Black artists, filmmakers, curators or creatives to carry us through this process. We acknowledge that there is ongoing work we need to do in the form of reading and research, unlearning and relearning, making space, stepping aside and listening.

We recognise the cultural nuances of communication and will assess and revise our methods of connection appropriately.

We do not participate in panels that do not represent the cities, towns and industries the events take place in.[3] If this is not addressed, we will not accept the invitation to participate and we will make recommendations for other people to take our place. The team and Board of Trustees will attend courses regularly and refresh on an annual basis. In 2021, Lighthouse attended course with the Diversity Trust and also completed Rachel Cargle’s Do The Work course [4] which addressed the following areas:

• Unpacking privilege.

• Radical justice and equity in practise.

• Breaking down the systems that continue to oppress and disenfranchise the Black community within the creative and cultural sector.

• Equipping ourselves with the tools needed to speak out against racism as individuals, a team and an organisation.
  

We continue to ensure our training in the team is an ongoing process and continue to research and explore courses that support our quest to dismantle systemic inequality.

Recruitment

The representation in the Lighthouse team should exceed the proportion of those demographics in the South East region[5]. In addition to ethnicity, we will take account of other protected characteristics[6] in the group. We will continue to work to diversify our Board of Trustees and team.

Our priority at Lighthouse is to promote art and digital culture through training, education, commissions and networking, and to bring together new developments in the arts, creative technologies and society. We are committed to artistic excellence and ambition, and aim to offer life and career-defining experiences for our audiences, artists and other creatives. To do this, we will challenge the dominant narratives of digital culture which are almost exclusively white, western, male, cisgender, able-bodied, upper/middle class and heteronormative. In 2022, we are building our resources to support further recruitment within the team to create opportunities for Black creatives and thinkers, and we committed to make way for this.

If funding support continues to be challenging to support permanent change, we will address our internal structure to make space in the team. We recognise this is about redistribution of equity and power, therefore we are actively exploring ways in which we can readdress executive roles to carve out space in all areas of our team.

• We will ensure our recruitment process is inclusive and accessible, we will follow the Disability Confident guidelines.(8)

• We hire Black people, LGBTQIA+ and people with protected characteristics for projects that are not just associated with their identities.

• We will release our gender pay gap data and race pay gap data. These will be published on our website, our business plan and updated annually.

• We pay the people we work with.

• We are a Real Living Wage Employer, the salaries we pay our team always align with other arts charity organisations.

• We pay our interns.
  

Our Board of Trustees provide their time, specialisms and support in a voluntary capacity and are committing their time to support our work as a charity.

We welcome formal work placements for school pupils, these are in partnership with local secondary schools and are part of the national curriculum for one week only. This is voluntary on all parts.

We welcome services that are offered to our charity on a pro bono basis from companies and organisations who wish to support us in this way.

Lighthouse programme

We will continue to source funding for our programme and residencies which are aimed to increase the diversity of arts leaders and programming by supporting artists, producers and curators to develop their practise embedded within our organisation and our city[8].

We will continue to programme Black artists as part of the main programme and not tokenistically.

We will ensure each pedagogical project will drive change for our cultural landscape and support Black creators in Sussex.

We will continue to actively research and engage with the work of Black artists, filmmakers, curators and makers through reading, studio visits, and broadening our partnerships to continue our mission as an organisation.

Further action

• We will evaluate and publish our performance on our website.

• We will hold ourselves accountable for this action.

• We ask that people who use our building and interact with our programme also to continue to do the work and to read, learn, listen and respond.

• We will keep talking and sharing and learning. The team are working to educate ourselves, and open to discussions and feedback. Alli Beddoes, CEO & Artistic Director is contactable on: alli@lighthouse.org.uk

• The Lighthouse team will meet monthly to discuss development.

• These conversations will be open to the public and will be hosted online at points through the year.