Accountability
Transform is a registered charity and a recipient of public funding. We are a festival and producing company focused on reflecting society and supporting a wide range of people from different walks of life to explore their creativity and experience performance. We are committed to critiquing our own practises and procedures and being accountable across our work.
We see this as an ongoing process which will never be ‘complete’. However, at this moment, more than ever, we think there is much value in arts organisations like Transform sharing their practise and procedures as they evolve and being transparent about their work.
Our Commitments
At Transform we are committed to:
Contributing to thinking and innovation around what a festival of the future can look like and represent, with consideration for environmental sustainability, access and inclusion
Embracing and promoting equality and inclusion as fundamental to our core ethos and activities
Taking an equity-centred and inclusive approach in the way we engage with, support and collaborate with creative people, artists and team members
Taking an intersectional approach when developing our company and our programme, with consideration of ‘protected characteristics’ such as age, gender, race, disability, sexual orientation and considering marginalised positions and their barriers
Holding ourselves accountable for representation within the organisation, our partnerships, collaborations and programme and seeking to redress imbalances of power and representation across our work
Supporting and amplifying artists and creatives from a range of backgrounds; including those who are ethnically and culturally diverse and who experience racism, who are LGBTQI+ and non-binary, and who identify as disabled or neuro-diverse
Policies
Transform has a number of active policies in place to support and guide the trustees, team and our wider collaborators in their work. All our policies are available on request but at this time we particularly want to draw attention to our Equality and Inclusion Policy and our Safe-Guarding Policy.
Anti-Racism
Transform commits to being an anti-racist organisation, working to disrupt white normative approaches and entrenched racism within theatre, the wider arts sector and society more broadly. We commit to this as a practise, taking the approach of Accomplices; working to create change, treating this work as focused and ongoing, finding ways to relinquish power. We acknowledge this work is an ongoing process and will never be ‘complete’ however at this time, we have set out a handbook for our trustees, team and collaborators which focuses on identified aspirations and actions that we will be focusing on over the next three years and which will continue to be reviewed and evolve. Read our handbook.
Accountability
Over the last year we have been considering how an arts organisation can be accountable and remain active in terms of its commitments to societal change. We want to think about accountability less as a destination, more as an ongoing practise, and make sure we are creating ongoing space for listening, reflection, transformation and renewal as a team and organisation.
We are in the process of establishing an Accountability group consisting of team members, trustees and members of our wider community to focus on developing strategic focuses for Transform such as anti-racist practice, the company’s approach to and support for trans rights, the company’s strategic objectives in regards to access and disability justice, and the company’s approach to environmentally sustainable practices in relation to the global climate emergency. More information about this will be available soon.
Listening
Anybody working with Transform or accessing Transform’s work can offer feedback, make a suggestion, raise an issue, question or provocation. We want to challenge ourselves, and actively listen and understand how we can evolve our practices for the better. Please get in touch if you’d like to speak to a member of the team or board: info@transformfestival.org
Financial Accountability & Access
Transform is a non regularly funded arts organisation, with the majority of our funding coming from grant applications to national and local government, and trust and foundations.
Following each festival, we produce and share a detailed report including a financial breakdown of our income and expenditure (which can also be accessed publicly via the Charities Commission website).
As part of our commitment to inclusion and accessibility, Transform is trialling a Pay What You Can ticket model for our festivals. Audiences can select from a range of ticket options, making a choice based on their individual financial circumstances.
We hope that this approach, inspired by some fantastic organisations in our home city and across the world, will mean that a greater number of people can have access to the performances and events we present, and that finance will be less of a barrier. We hope this approach will enable more people to take more risks on discovering extraordinary, unusual and international performance. By trialling this approach and through our next festival, we want to be able to have more of a transparent conversation around the costs that go into realising the festival and the kinds of projects Transform is known for.