Creative Organisation Change Labs
The Creative Organisation Change Lab was the pilot for a scheme designed to offer a group of creatives money, time and space to learn about different approaches to creative work and business. The ambition was to help co-produce a vision for a fairer creative sector while giving creatives time to realise changes in the way that they worked, from changing their business structure to adopting new processes or policies. Along the way, we also wanted to co-create a new vision for a fairer creative economy.
The Lab was structured around a three-month scheme of collective learning, workshops, networking, and peer-support, coupled with a grant of up to £4k. Participants heard from experts in alternative business practices, social action, and creative work. They had a chance to meet others on a similar journey of change and have time and space to explore their own questions. The process was designed to equip creatives with the frameworks and questions to ask themselves as they continue their creative work beyond the workshops.
We designed the scheme because we know that many creatives want to change the way they work. They want to move away from models motivated by profit and towards structures and processes that put people and planet first. The problem is, it’s hard to know where to start.
Our Lab participants
Ngaio Anyia
Ngaio is an inclusion, diversity and equality trainer, facilitator and consultant specialising in working with festivals and events looking at unconscious bias, intersectionality and anti-racism. She is the Industry lead for YSWN; training audio and sound organisations to become gender-equitable through Volume Up, our Audio Equity standard. She founded Booty Bass, a queer, women of colour DJ collective 7 years ago at the Plough in Bristol. She has since run takeovers at Glastonbury, We Out Here, Boomtown Festival, and Shambala, and runs events focused on uplifting marginalised communities within the night-time industry, collaborating with like-minded collectives.
Art Business Ltd
Art Business Ltd is an art business, project and performance by the Bristol-based artist [formerly known as Sole Trader] Rachael Clerke. It is part of their ten-year series Businesses 2019-29: an irreverent yet earnest attempt to understand, expose and co-opt systems of money, trade and exchange through the creation of real life businesses. Art Business Ltd sees the formation of a company limited by guarantee (company number 14785673) to operate as a transparent translucent container for the back-end of Rachael Clerke’s artistic practice. Through the Lab, Rachael is exploring how formal company necessities like a constitution, legal structure & board can be done differently. What is a constitution that can also be performed on stage? How can these structures shine light on how art operates under capitalism, for both Rachael and other artists?
Rachel Aspinwall
Rachel trained as a theatre maker at Ecole Internationale Jacques Lecoq in Paris, going on to work as actor, director, founding company member, workshop leader, visiting lecturer and creative consultant, both in the UK and mainland Europe. She co-founded and is current artistic director of PECO theatre (www.partexchangeco.org.uk), which makes multidisciplinary, site specific, participatory and socially engaged work that connects people and place with the power of the imagination. After a Masters in Sustainable Development in Practice at UWE, Rachel is committed to the transformation to regenerative, nature rich, socially just, zero carbon societies, looking into the role her creative organisation can play beyond content that engages, inspires and empowers people around those agendas, to how the constitution, systems and processes of the organisation embody those values and that commitment, and are inherent in how it operates.
Film Strike for Climate (FSFC)
Film Strike for Climate (FSFC) is a grassroots organisation aiming to facilitate the film and television industry to address social and ecological crises. FSFC was founded in Bristol in 2019 by Alfie Warren-Knight who is a filmmaker and activist. Over the last five years, FSFC have worked with their expanding network to carry out direct action, present at industry events, organise panel talks, campaign within the industry and co-create media to share their story. FWSFC is currently using The Creative Organisation Change Labs as an opportunity to explore their role in the Film and Television industry’s ecology and to develop their formal structure.
HALF LIGHT PROJECTS
Half Light Projects is visually impaired choreographer & creative access practitioner, Holly Thomas (hollythomasdance.co.uk) and producer Katy Noakes (westaged.com). Drawing on their dance specialism, they develop projects & productions that decentre the visual and re-frame blindness & visual impairment as a creative asset. Their work in the Lab is to explore how they can invest in sustainable inclusion, risk and equity, as a small company without core funding. Bringing the sector with them, and building a supportive sector network is key to their approach. A strand of their work will focus on creating inclusive performance production design blueprints, to address the tension between venues’ need for ticket sales, and our ambitions to make immersive performance that is accessible for Blind and Visually Impaired artists and audiences.
LIGHTS! LIGHTS! LIGHTS! CIC
LIGHTS! LIGHTS! LIGHTS! CIC (L!L!L!) is a collective of Knowle West residents, artists, and directors Megan Clark-Bagnall and Claudia Collins. As neurodiverse social artists with 20+ years of experience, we champion hands-on, accessible creativity. Founded in 2023, L!L!L! builds on years of community collaboration, celebrating joy and connection through art. L!L!L! creates playful, place-based projects that respond to community needs. Without a fixed venue, L!L!L! remain mobile, responsive, and shaped by the communities they serve. Their core values are accessibility, playfulness, and sustainability. The Lab offers them the chance to develop an organisational model that aligns with their values; traditional structures don’t always fit a neurodiverse-led CIC, so they are seeking alternative approaches to support creativity and community care.