Event Session - Panel: Take it from the top

Day 2 - Wednesday 27th, 9:30am - 10:45am AEDT

The Wheeler Centre - performance space

Jeremy Smith (Participating chair), Director of Community, Emerging and Experimental Arts, Australia Council for the Arts

Professor James Arvanitakis, Chair, Diversity Arts and Pro Vice-Chancellor, WSU

Michael Williams, Director, the Wheeler Centre

Jane Crawley, Director, Arts Investment, Creative Victoria

Jodie Sizer, Co-CEO, PricewaterhouseCoopers Indigenous Consulting and Board Member of Collingwood FC

Katrina Sedgwick, CEO, Australian Centre for the Moving Image

Paola Balla, artist, curator, educator and Indigenous Advisory Group, FCAC

Let’s talk leadership. What’s happening at the top? What will it take to diversify leadership in creative industries and why does that matter so much? This session looks at the current leadership composition of creative industries and cultural institutions, and tangible pathways for change.

Panel (45 min) followed by Q&A (30 min) facilitated by chair.

Media Contributions

Key Points

  • disc
    Michael Williams: I am really over hearing leadership saying that it is hard to have better practices in the inclusion and diversity space.
  • disc
    Jane Crawley: Creative Victoria's work on the Fair Play Program is to acknowledge and bring forward the multiplicity of identities.
  • disc
    Koraly Dimitriadis: There is a lot of fear about being honest. There's a fear of being honest with organisations that hold power because they may close doors.
  • disc
    Katrina Sedgwick: The ACMI, like most institutions, has a mainly white audience. And we need to do more to address our own workforce. Inclusion requires a holistic approach.
  • disc
    Jodie Sizer: Commitment to inclusion must be active. We have to 'do' to make change happen. We need space to fail safe.
  • disc
    Jodie Sizer: 'Fear of getting it wrong' can lead to action paralysis.
  • disc
    James Arvanitakis: It is about balancing the need to hold to account and allow people to make mistakes.

We would like to acknowledge that we are meeting today on the traditional lands of the Kulin Nation, to pay our respects to their Elders, past, present, and emerging, and to honour their long lineage of creative practice.