Shades of Noir: The Centre for Race and Practice Based Social Justice

Shades of Noir: The Centre for Race and Practice Based Social Justice.

About Shades of Noir:

In 2009 Shades of Noir (SoN) was created by Aisha Richards. Shades of Noir as of September 2020 joined the University of The Arts London as a Knowledge Exchange Center. The centre’s full title is Shades of Noir: The Centre for Race & Practice-Based Social Justice, University of the Arts London (UAL). This transition is important for sustainability of the concentrated evolving practises to support cultural change and embeddedness across this institution.

Shades of Noir’s more than a decade of delivery continues to evolve thinking, support conscious intentions and cultivate expertise within organisations or institutions.

Additionally, this centre continues to develop, deconstruct and reconstruct practices which inform policy, develop people and evolve practices towards intersectional social justice.

Shades of Noir’s approach is rooted in cultural change, which means not doing anything the way it was done before, but instead picking practises apart to support different outcomes.

The Shades of Noir recruitment drive is primarily based on 3 key components : 1. what people know, what is it that they do 3. demonstration of thoughtfulness. This nurtures and creates the conditions for building a high-performance culture of genuine change-making.

The ability to create innovative and adaptable approaches is why Shades of Noir continues to be the specialist for practice-based social justice in the UK and why our delivery is constantly described as uniquely meaningful, purposeful and transformational.

SoN is one of the few international programmes that have physical and virtual platforms dedicated to pedagogies of social justice through the lens of intersectionality (Crenshaw 1991). SoN reaches over 1 million people globally each year and continuously delivers cutting edge modes of transformation through Richard’s leadership and vision. SoN cohesively embeds identity and belonging as one of the most important aspects of creative education that is meaningful and relevant to students’ engagement, progression, and personal development. Shades of Noir has developed physical ‘safer’ spaces through trust building that offer opportunities to have critical and interdisciplinary discussions about the world around and one’s positionality as we navigate it. It should be noted that safe and safety in this context means space to build capacities to share, consider and develop understandings towards anti-racism work that can be a practice and praxis of intersectional social justice. In many ways Shades of Noir can feel unsafe in the first instance, however, through continuous dialogic engagement, the exploration of contested key terms and undertaking of problem-solving activities; inspires a level of trust which is built for the safety of all.

The interventions that SoN has developed and continues to design, inform policy, develop people, and evolve practices in the widest sense. These innovations support purposeful delivery for the SoN team of students and creative academics to learn and build on. As well as providing a variety of engagements that affect

a wider community. SoN is now established as a leading programme, which centres antiracism towards intersectional social justice. Shades of Noir has worked with institutions and organisations including Higher Education Academy, Craft Council UK, Portsmouth University, and the British Broadcast Corporation.

The work external to the University of the Arts London has included consultancy and delivering support of curriculum design, policy reviews as well as recruitment, retention and attainment processes and practices. Richards has built a recognisable brand with integrity through her impactful leadership globally and supported by the many contributors.

All Shades of Noir ‘work’ is significant and multifaceted. We centre all activities for marginalised groups to fulfil their need for safer spaces. To articulate self-determination and liberate their struggles from oppressive structures in education and society at large. Additionally, we present spaces for all communities actively working towards antiracism as a practice. Our Mission:

Shades of Noir undertakes practice-based social justice through the context of creativity in partnership with international educational and cultural institutions as well as creative practitioners and a broad spectrum of organisations. We aim to evolve behaviour, practice and cultural value to support a variety of audiences through a broad range of discursive and proactive interventions. We seek to engage and support individuals who make up the sectors through a combination of activities, commissions and resources. We centre the histories/ herstories, voices, and experiences of marginalised communities as a catalyst for the transformation of people, processes, and policies. This is all in support of our mission to:

• Centre the voices, experiences, and perspectives of marginalised communities to evolve thinking • Create platforms to engage with intersectional experience, understanding, and perspectives • Support knowledge exchange within a social justice pedagogical context • Transform behaviours through

proactive interventions within a creative educational cannon • Build social justice communities of changemakers across sectors and countries.

Our Intersections:

Shades of Noir take an inherently intersectional approach to our training packages and consultancy programmes.

Our team members can collectively offer personal narratives for all of the protected characteristics of the Equality Act 2010. This offers a unique approach to our delivery and content. Our Partners:

Shades of Noir’s unique place in Higher Education and the creative sector has enabled us to forge partnerships with leading art and design institutions around the UK.

We facilitate events, workshops and curriculum reviews around the country, as well as share our digital resources at conferences around the world.

We also pride ourselves in supporting independent collectives who provide safe spaces for People of Colour. Our partners include:

• Advanced HE • Black Blossoms • Bournemouth University • CHEAD • The Craft Council • Kingston University • Ravensbourne • University College London • The University of Portsmouth

Watch the narrative video here or scan the QR code.

Richards concluded that the root of exclusion and inequality within higher education and the creative industry was affected by raced and gendered identities, when at the time, it was mistaken as solely a socio-economic issue.

Shades of Noir, 2019

Inclusive teaching and learning unit contributions Student complaint and grievance support Student training UAL wide curriculum s upport & briefs Process Promotio n Seni or mana gement advi ce

Course teams advice and support Staf f co mpla in t & grie va nc e support co l lab or at ions Ar ts SU

data base Crea tive Digi talArte facts Even

Conference activities

Diversity & The Institution for Deco lonial Arts boar d membership Inclusion newsletters & Membershipof Governmental Diversity Inclusive committees Race Champions forum membership Staff recruitmentStaff training

Policy

advi ce HR Ex ternal co ns ul tati on an d training Depa rtmental Advi ce

GEMS support Eventcolla borations

People

History of arts education-based socialjustice project Journal Publications

Teaching Within programme

TW

UK Black female professors project

Safe Space Crits

Academic Development Fund supportAttainmentgroup membership Arts SU training Training programmes

Streams of Work.

Shades of Noir’s ‘Streams of Work’ are broad-reaching and multifaceted, supporting the purposeful transformation of people, policy and process.

As a community, we centre the voices and lived experiences of students and staff of colour within the focus of social justice. We offer accessible knowledge and visible testimonies that we hope will further inform the evolutions of cultures and practices across the sector (and beyond).

For over a decade, the programme has reached huge success thanks to our intersectional team of award-winning staff and students. This allows us to shape our proactive interventions to be purposeful, relevant and effective. As creatives, we take an inherently intersectional and holistic approach, aligning everything that we deliver within the framework of people, policy and process.

The following diagram contextualises some of our endeavours. Each line represents the intersection between activities and collective responsibilities, which support meaningful change towards antiracism as a practice that requires never-ending work