Before Sydney Lockdown 2.0 hit, CuriousWorks staff and the new Emerging Artistic Directorate for 2021-2022 went on a listening and leadership retreat to Katoomba. The directorate (from left to right, Amira Halabi, Zoe Tomaras, Saarah Hanif and Sandra May), were led in a gentle leadership workshop process, facilitated by artist Rajni Shah. Across the weekend, we held space for listening, learning and reflecting.
The Emerging Artistic Directorate will be shaping a new artistic direction for CuriousWorks in 2021-2022. They’ll be guided through the mentorship of our Creative Director, Andrea Lim. The directorate program is designed to foster personal and creative growth, mentor participants in a facilitation practice that aligns with their values and topics they care about, share knowledge about the nitty-gritty operational and management aspects of running a small/medium arts organisation, and generally nurture the capacity of the directorate as artistic cultural leaders.
As Andrea Lim describes it:
The directorate is a space for curiosity, growth and sharing. It is a space where we bring ourselves, speak our truths, break taboos and make space for both outrage and joy. It is a where we are mentored to find our own power, and develop a courage (quiet or otherwise) to create spaces we’d like to see in our communities through dialogue, collaboration and artistic practice.
We are so grateful we were able to carve out this time just before lockdown to lean in, learn and listen together.
A special thank you to Rajni Shah for facilitating this gentle, nurturing space for us, and to Ellen O’Brien for facilitating a Listening and Leadership sharing circle and conversation during the retreat.
We’ll be sharing more about this year’s first Emerging Artistic Directorate and the work they’ll be doing over the next few months.
We first announced the Emerging Artistic Directorate in our quarterly newsletter. As a reminder, we update Curious Folks on what we’ve done during each season. We only send out about four newsletters a year, and it’s an easy way to keep up to date with what we’re up. Try it instead of constantly refreshing our newsfeed (and our website). If you haven’t yet, subscribe in the homepage footer!