LUX Scotland acknowledges the structural racism that prevails in society and we recognise our part in this. We regularly review our work from an anti-racist perspective to identify areas for improvement.
In 2020 we made a public commitment to address anti-racism within our work which included:
- Addressing the lack of diversity across our organisation
- Addressing what it means to be an anti-racist institution
- Questioning how structural racism affects our work, including employment, governance, recruitment, training, programming and commissioning, and how we work with artists and audiences.
At the same time we started meeting on a monthly basis to discuss anti-racism and understand where we hold power. This has involved a critical analysis of all the systems and processes that perpetuate racism across the organisation. We now meet quarterly and our meetings focus on reviewing the programme and planning changes. Recent meetings have focused on:
- Addressing unconscious bias in selection and recruitment processes
- Collecting demographic data in a meaningful way
- Agreeing appropriate targets for representation across our programme
Each meeting generates detailed action plans and our current activities include:
- Incorporating anti-racism into our mission statement
- Defining what an anti-racist organisation looks like
- Publishing our guidelines for an anti-racist approach to managing selection panels
- Agreeing appropriate ways to measure our anti-racism work
We undertake paid studio visits with artists of colour working in Scotland to address any unconscious bias within the team’s existing research interests/channels.