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Arts Council South West seeks Diversity Officer

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Arts Council England, South West is recruiting for a Diversity Officer to work on a range of projects to help build Black Minority Ethnic audiences for the arts and to help bring the work of Black Minority Ethnic artists to a greater audience.

Arts Council England, South West Executive Director Nick Capaldi said:
'We currently support a number of organisations and projects which bring new cultural experiences to a range of audiences. We are also keen to make sure that audiences for arts events include people from a range of cultural backgrounds. This is one of the ways in which we are developing audiences so that as many people as possible can benefit from the art which we fund.'

Amongst the thousands of projects that receive The Arts Council funding, some are currently aimed at providing opportunities for Black Minority Ethnic artists and audiences. These include:

In Plymouth, the AviD project promotes high quality youth and community arts projects for audiences across the city and beyond. AviD is currently a partnership between Plymouth and District Racial Equality Council, Theatre Royal Plymouth and Plymouth Arts Centre.

One of AviD's projects involves an annual international exchange between ten young people from Plymouth and ten from Ghana, culminating in a performance in Plymouth Theatre Royal's Drum Theatre. This year the project will mark Abolition 200 and Ghana's 50 years of independence.

Another AviD project, Between a Rock and a Hard Place 2 was a public art installation by Kamini Gupta. Hundreds of unfired clay figures were made by Kamini and people from many communities in Plymouth. The project explored the vulnerability and fragility of displaced lives. The figures were displayed in venues across the city before being brought together to mark the Plymouth Respect Festival 2007.

Artists and film makers will be taking part in War and Peace 2007, a series of events in Stroud, Somerset and Bristol. Artists and film makers are invited to show video shorts on the war and peace theme, and the events will provide a forum for discussion about freedom, justice, conflict and the role of artists in interpreting these issues.

The project is coordinated by Gloucestershire based artist Fiona Meadley and is inspired by her film 'Postcard from Liberia' in which a father tries to answer his son's question 'why do people fight?' Fiona is trying to gather as many different voices as possible to get a wide viewpoint of the issues.

In Bristol, the Asian Arts Agency is running a range of events starting in the spring. These include comedians, music performances and workshops in drumming and creative writing. The Agency is currently planning the first national Banghra project which will take place in Bristol next year. Major venues in the city will be hosting performances and opportunities to take part in bhangra music, dance, media, DJ-ing and visual arts.

Further information about the Diversity Officer post is available from Arts Council England 0845 300 6200 or www.artscouncil.org.uk

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