The GLA, Lewisham Council and the Albany put together a panel discussion on 21 March to hear insights from London Borough of Culture’s unsung heroes – the producers. Scroll down to watch the discussion or explore artist Somang Lee’s illustration.
Taking to the Albany stage were Vicki Amedume and Mimi Findlay from the Albany and Kellie Blake and Nancy Stridgen, from Lewisham Council’s Culture Team.
Guided by Beki Bateson, who was the Executive Director of LIFT for almost ten years, the panel went through the nuts and bolts of bringing large scale arts projects to life including engaging audiences, bringing people together in the time of Covid, fundraising and working with partners and communities.
This sparked a generous and informative discussion Kellie sharing that a big inspiration for her growing up was living on the estate overlooking The Albany (and on one occasion sneaking in and being discovered hiding in the toilets by Lenny Henry) Nancy talked about the prestige of being able to talk about being able to drop the ‘London Borough of Culture’ title to partners, Mimi let us know the wildly ambitious spread of the programme and Vicki grappled with her anxiety with being identified as a producer and the tension between being a ‘producer’ and being an ‘artist’ or ‘creator’.
Whether it was Entelechy's radio station, JR’s portraits in Deptford, Lewisham’s Freelancers Grants, the visit of Little Amal these inspirational women and their organisations build structures and partnerships to bring great culture to the people of London.
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An infographic with the 'We Are Lewisham' flag next to the words 'Our producers deliver joyful, rich + diverse programme to the public'. Next to this are various illustrations of the five women in the panel: Beki, Mimi, Vicki, Nancy and Kellie speaking a speech bubble daying 'Let's Enjoy Ourselves with it!'.
Underneath portraits of Mimi and Kellie point at art works with the words 'Encourage your team to go and see the work' and 'Celebrate your work!', next to this a cartoon of Nancy weighs up emotional intelligence and spreadsheets, Vicki shows us a producers' life with tick boxes flying from her computer with the wording 'Lots of admin' and 'Scoping out sites takes a lot of time'. Next to this a road leads to Mimi's hand and along it says 'We are building infastructure and deliver programmes at the same time'. Next to this Nancy appears from a computer to shout 'Expect great things this year!'.
Finally in the corner Mimi says in a speech bubble 'We do the best we can with what we've been given let's remember to be kind to ourselves'.
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