Creative Freelancers: Shaping London’s Recovery is a scheme in which 50 freelancers in the performing arts will collaborate with cultural organisations on how to improve working practice. Since March 2020, up to 60% of the city’s freelancers have lost all their income. This scheme is designed to improve future working conditions as well as provide employment now.
Today, the £325,000 programme has announced four freelance recruits who will facilitate the scheme, a panel of advisors and a list of partner organisations.
- Jessica Antwi-Boasiako will take up the role of Facilitator, Charlotte Mafham will perform the role of Communication and Administration Coordinator, Marie Wilson will act as Bookkeeper and Miranda Yates will be the Access Manager.
- An advisory group has also been announced, made up of Jamie Beddard, Lily Einhorn, Lilli Geissendorfer, Ameena Hamid, James Hodgson, Tarek Iskander, Jeanefer Jean-Charles, Jennifer Jackson Chi-chi Nwanoku and Jo Tyabji.
This group will issue a call out on 5 May to recruit 50 freelancers who will form the cohort which will undertake the project over the next 6 months working with the following organisations:
A New Direction, Actors Touring Company, Akademi, artsdepot Ltd, Barbican, Battersea Arts Centre, Boundless Theatre, Bush Theatre, Camden People’s Theatre, Chisenhale Dance Space, English Touring Opera, Fitzrovia Noir CIC, Grand Union, Headlong Theatre Company, LIFT, Little Angel Theatre, Lyric Hammersmith Theatre, Music Halls Project, National Theatre, National Youth Theatre of Great Britain, Paddington Development Trust, Parents and Carers in Performing Arts, Polka Theatre, Rambert, Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, Roundhouse, Royal Opera House, Sadler’s Wells, Serious, Serpentine Gallery, Siobhan Davies Dance, Sound and Music, Spare Tyre, Stratford Circus, Studio Wayne McGregor, Talawa Theatre Company, Tamasha Theatre Company, The Old Vic, The Place, The Yard Theatre, Theatre Centre, Theatre Royal Stratford East, Tiata Fahodzi, Turtle Key Arts, UK Music, VAULT Festival, Vital Xposure, We Make Events, Young Vic Theatre.
This programme will enable a diverse group of freelancers in the culture sector to come together to explore and make recommendations on the future of freelancing. It will support ambitions to improve working conditions and training, as well as advocating for the statutory changes needed for freelancers.
Creative Freelancers: Shaping London’s Recovery will amplify the voices of the self-employed in the culture sector, giving space for freelancers to shape and demonstrate their role in the recovery of London’s creative and cultural industries, as well as in wider civic spaces.
The programme builds on the first national Freelance Task Force initiated by Fuel as a pilot in April 2020, in which 150 organisations sponsored 169 freelancers across the country.
