Jerwood Arts has been shortlisted in the Arts, Culture and Heritage category for the Weston Jerwood Creative Bursaries programme, which supports 50 salaried jobs in arts and cultural organisations across the UK, for individuals from low socio-economic backgrounds. The programme is dedicated to supporting outstanding early-career artists, curators, producers and creatives to thrive, and working in partnership with leading arts and cultural organisations to take an inclusive, intersectional approach to recruitment, artist development and organisational change through year-long fellowships.
The Charity Awards is the sector’s most highly-regarded excellence recognition scheme. All 27 shortlisted charities this year have been judged by an independent panel of sector leaders as having demonstrated best practice in leadership and management, from which other organisations can learn.
Uniquely for 2021, the Charity Awards will also be announcing a winner in a special new category, the Rathbones Covid-19 Response Award, to celebrate the charity sector’s fantastic contribution in responding to the coronavirus pandemic.
The ten category winners, plus the recipients of the Overall Award for Excellence and the Daniel Phelan Award for Outstanding Achievement, will be announced at a live-streamed online awards ceremony on 10 June. The event will be hosted by political commentator, writer and comedian Ayesha Hazarika, who will be joined at the ceremony by a host of celebrities. All the shortlisted charities are invited to watch and be part of the live event.
Charity Awards judge Chris Michaels said the Weston Jerwood Creative Bursaries’ impact is probably best evaluated through the quality of roles that alumni have secured:
“Ten years in, you can see this portfolio of really interesting, burgeoning careers happening, and I think that in another ten years we’ll see the CEOs and artistic directors of the future, who came through this scheme.”
Awards judge Cathy Phelan-Watkins agreed that the impacts would take time to filter through, but the scheme was a great step towards real power-sharing.
“It’s absolutely necessary. The arts sector is still very white and very posh and it won’t be until we get a greater range of people curating the arts, managing arts centres, actually programming the arts, that we’ll get any real change. It’s probably the only way we’re going to have an arts sector that actually reflects this country.”
