In response to the Black Lives Matter movement we have reviewed our equality action plan. The plan will remain on our website and be available for scrutiny and comment. It focuses on race, socio-economic status and disability as three key areas where inequality manifests – whilst also recognising the intersection between these and other protected characteristics.

Our goal is to be practical, specific and nuanced. We’ve set targets that we can deliver, and we will review progress regularly to make sure we hit them. If not, we will adjust our approach.

We have focused our work on social equality for some time, seeking to increase representation from lower socio-economic groups (groups C, D and E) in all areas of our work and organisation. This comes from the artists’ own backgrounds and experiences accessing culture when they were growing up, and a recognition that socio-economic status often intersects with race, disability and other protected characteristics to heighten inequality.

We have set four concrete objectives with associated actions that we can track over time:

• Career development and paid opportunities: we will support more people from our target groups into paid work in the arts, and we will work to make sure that our paid opportunities (for instance as a freelance developer, producer or cast member) attract a diverse range of talent. We will ensure that vacancies to join Blast Theory are more attractive and accessible to a wider range of candidates.
• Talent development and skills sharing: opportunities to access Blast Theory’s 30-year experience of successful practice will be available to artists from our target groups. This will benefit our practice and contribute to a wider range of talent being able to flourish in the sector.
• Leadership and governance: we will make sure that the Blast Theory Board of Trustees contains a wide range of backgrounds, ages, and perspectives, and that they and the Blast Theory team have the skills and confidence to engage in our work around inequality. This will help to provide a healthy level of critical challenge for our work.
• Blast Theory’s work: the work we make is about interaction, engagement and dialogue with the public. It’s important that the participants and co-creators in our work bring different voices and perspectives to the table and that a wide range of people access, experience and enjoy our work. We will make sure that there are no unnecessary barriers in place for this to happen.

We’ll publish an update every year to share how we’re doing. By making this action plan available publicly, we are not asking you what we should do or how we should do it – but we are inviting you to hold us to account; to scrutinise our progress; and to comment on any part of this plan. If you want to get in touch with us, please email our Director Matt Adams at [email protected].

Click here to download the plan in PDF.