Arts Council England London, and the independent grant-making body, the EsmÈe Fairbairn Foundation, have joined forces to develop Inspire, which was launched late last year.
The fellowship programme is open to applicants with an Asian, African or Caribbean cultural heritage and is centred on a two-year work placement.
‘There are plans to roll it out across the nation, but we are going to see how the fellowships work in London first,’ said Niru Ratnam, the Inspire programme manager. ‘Positive action programmes have been done before and not really worked.’
‘There is certainly a lot of pressure from government to spread the scheme around the country,’ Ratnam added.
Sandy Nairne is the director of the National Portrait Gallery, one of the museums participating in the scheme, and the chairman of the cultural diversity working group at the National Museum Directors’ Conference.
He told Museums Journal: ‘For the past 20 years, national museums have not been sufficiently broad in the people they have tried to recruit.
They might have believed that as the population changed it would change the type of people who applied for jobs, but that has not been the case.’
London was seen as being particularly in need of Inspire as the capital’s black and minority ethnic population is currently 29 per cent and rising.
Data collected by ACE, London, from the first five partner museums involved in Inspire — the British Museum, the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, Tate and the Victoria and Albert Museum — shows that less than 6 per cent of their full-time curatorial staff were from a minority background.
Eddie Otchere, the Inspire trainee curator at the National Portrait Gallery, is hopeful that museums and galleries can become more inclusive.
‘With some museums, it is a kind of knowledge mafia, but it can’t last long as museums are starting to get a taste of success and popularity and they like it. They want people to come to their shows and they want to engage with people.’
Inspire, which is open to people with some experience in the cultural sector, is meant to complement other initiatives aimed at increasing workplace diversity. The other main schemes are the Museums Association’s Diversify initiative, and the Global Graduates programme.
The first five Inspire fellows have already started their placements and they will be followed by six others taking places in the spring. Inspire has a particular emphasis on the fellows supporting each other.
Simon Stephens
The fellowship programme is open to applicants with an Asian, African or Caribbean cultural heritage and is centred on a two-year work placement.
‘There are plans to roll it out across the nation, but we are going to see how the fellowships work in London first,’ said Niru Ratnam, the Inspire programme manager. ‘Positive action programmes have been done before and not really worked.’
‘There is certainly a lot of pressure from government to spread the scheme around the country,’ Ratnam added.
Sandy Nairne is the director of the National Portrait Gallery, one of the museums participating in the scheme, and the chairman of the cultural diversity working group at the National Museum Directors’ Conference.
He told Museums Journal: ‘For the past 20 years, national museums have not been sufficiently broad in the people they have tried to recruit.
They might have believed that as the population changed it would change the type of people who applied for jobs, but that has not been the case.’
London was seen as being particularly in need of Inspire as the capital’s black and minority ethnic population is currently 29 per cent and rising.
Data collected by ACE, London, from the first five partner museums involved in Inspire — the British Museum, the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, Tate and the Victoria and Albert Museum — shows that less than 6 per cent of their full-time curatorial staff were from a minority background.
Eddie Otchere, the Inspire trainee curator at the National Portrait Gallery, is hopeful that museums and galleries can become more inclusive.
‘With some museums, it is a kind of knowledge mafia, but it can’t last long as museums are starting to get a taste of success and popularity and they like it. They want people to come to their shows and they want to engage with people.’
Inspire, which is open to people with some experience in the cultural sector, is meant to complement other initiatives aimed at increasing workplace diversity. The other main schemes are the Museums Association’s Diversify initiative, and the Global Graduates programme.
The first five Inspire fellows have already started their placements and they will be followed by six others taking places in the spring. Inspire has a particular emphasis on the fellows supporting each other.
Simon Stephens
