Why this policy is called what it is

Most equality policies describe how an organisation will avoid discriminating. This policy starts from a different question: what conditions produce harm in the first place, and what would it take to change them?

Equity, diversity and inclusion frameworks tend to treat racism and ableism as problems of representation and attitude — who is in the room, and how people behave once there. That work matters, and parts of it appear below. But representation can be achieved without power moving, and good behaviour can coexist with structures that exhaust, underpay and push out the very people they claim to include. Transformative justice asks more: it addresses harm by changing the conditions that make harm predictable, it treats accountability as repair rather than punishment, and it refuses the idea that anyone is disposable.

This policy combines three traditions that are usually kept in separate documents. Anti-racism — the active practice of identifying and dismantling racism in structures, decisions and habits, not merely the absence of prejudice. Disability justice — the framework developed by disabled queer people of colour, including the collectives Black Curators Collective CIC and Sins Invalid, which understands ableism as inseparable from racism, capitalism and other systems; centres the leadership of those most affected; and treats access as a collective responsibility rather than an individual accommodation. Environmental justice — the movement, begun by Black and Indigenous communities organising against the placement of toxic industry in their neighbourhoods, which understands environmental harm not as a universal problem evenly shared but as one routed, deliberately, toward racialised, disabled and poor communities. They are combined here because these systems co-produce exclusion in the cultural sector — in who is commissioned, who is believed, whose pace is accepted, whose communication is treated as professional, and whose air, land and futures are treated as the acceptable cost of business as usual — and because a policy that addresses one while ignoring the others will fail at all of them.

Scope

This policy governs my independent practice: consultancy and strategic work, curatorial projects and commissions, writing and editorial work, and any events or programmes I organise. It applies to how I work with artists, collaborators, clients, suppliers, participants and audiences. Where I work inside another organisation as an employee, trustee or board member, that organisation’s policies apply, though the commitments here describe the standards I bring with me and will advocate for.

The legal floor

The Equality Act 2010 prohibits direct and indirect discrimination, harassment and victimisation on the basis of the protected characteristics: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation. It requires reasonable adjustments for disabled people. I comply with the Act in full, including in any capacity as an engager of freelancers or, should it arise, an employer.

But the law is a floor, not a ceiling. It tells me what I must not do; it says almost nothing about what I should build. Everything below this line goes further than the law requires, deliberately.

Principles

Access is a condition, not a favour. Access is planned and budgeted from the beginning of every project (at least 15% of the overall project budget), not retrofitted when someone asks. A project that cannot afford access cannot afford to happen.

Leadership of those most affected. Decisions about work concerning racialised and disabled communities are made with, and wherever possible led by, people from those communities — paid for their expertise, not consulted for free.

The right to opacity. No one owes me disclosure, diagnosis, proof or explanation. Access needs are met as stated; identity is not interrogated; people are not required to translate their experience into terms comfortable for institutions.

Interdependence. Everyone has access needs; some are simply treated as default. Naming needs is normal professional practice in this work, mine included, and meeting them is shared labour rather than individual burden.

Pace is an access issue. Deadlines, response-time expectations and meeting cultures are designed rather than inherited — and they are reciprocal. I will not demand turnaround speeds from others that I do not hold myself to.

Environmental harm is a justice issue, not a carbon count. Climate breakdown and ecological damage land first and hardest on the communities this policy centres — racialised, disabled and poor people, in Britain and globally — who have contributed least to causing them. Environmental practice is therefore measured by who it protects, not only what it saves; and environmental measures must never become new access barriers, because a sustainability that excludes disabled people is neither.

Language is structural. I write in plain language, name racism and ableism specifically rather than dissolving them into "diversity", and work to remove ableist framing from my writing — including the casual sensory metaphors (of sight, hearing, mobility) that equate disability with deficiency.

Money is where values become real. Pay, payment terms, credit and budgets are treated as the primary evidence of this policy, ahead of statements.

Commitments in practice

Working with artists and collaborators. Access riders are requested, honoured and budgeted as standard; where a collaborator doesn’t have one, I offer to develop it together. Contracts and agreements are written in plain language, with key terms summarised. Fees meet or exceed recognised sector rates (a-n and Artists’ Union England guidance for artists; SfEP/CIEP and NUJ guidance for editorial work), and invoices are paid promptly — my target is fourteen days, and never longer than thirty. Credit is negotiated explicitly and honoured in all formats.

Communication. Written communication is treated as fully professional participation, never a lesser substitute for meetings. Materials are shared in advance as standard. Interpretation — including BSL and other signed and spoken languages — communication support, and translation are budgeted where needed, and interpreters, translators and communication support workers are booked and credited as skilled professionals. I state my own response-time expectations honestly and extend the same flexibility I ask for.

Events and programmes. Every event budget includes an access line from the first draft. Formats include relaxed options where possible; documentation is produced with captions, alt text and, where feasible, audio description; venues are assessed for physical, sensory and financial access before confirmation, and barriers that cannot be removed are stated publicly in advance so no one discovers them on arrival.

Commissioning and procurement. Where I commission or recommend suppliers, photographers, writers, designers, facilitators and technicians, I actively seek out and prioritise Black practitioners, disabled practitioners, and others structurally excluded from sector pipelines — treating this as building the sector’s future workforce, not as exception-making.

Environmental practice. Projects are planned with their environmental cost on the table from the first budget, alongside access. In practice: rail before air for my own travel, with flights reserved for journeys where no workable alternative exists and consolidated so one trip serves several purposes; sea freight over air freight for artworks wherever timelines allow, with hire, reuse and local fabrication preferred to shipping and building new; exhibition builds designed for an afterlife — reused, passed on or returned, not skipped; and suppliers chosen with environmental practice as a criterion, favouring those aligned with Gallery Climate Coalition targets. Where environmental and access considerations pull against each other — and they will, because slow travel, reused materials and reduced provision are not equally available to every body — access takes precedence over symbolic carbon savings, and the harder work of finding a route that serves both is done rather than declared impossible. I do not purchase offsets as a substitute for reduction, and I will not describe this practice as more than it is: public claims will match what actually happened.

Digital practice. This website and the documents I produce work toward WCAG 2.2 AA: alt text, meaningful heading structure, sufficient contrast, captioned media, and formats compatible with assistive technology. Accessibility problems reported to me are treated as defects to fix, not feedback to file.

Data, disclosure and confidentiality. Access information shared with me is held confidentially, used only for the purpose it was shared, and deleted when no longer needed, as set out in my privacy notice. I never require diagnosis or documentation to meet a stated need.

When harm happens

Harm will sometimes happen, including by me. What distinguishes a transformative approach is not the absence of harm but the response to it.

If you experience or witness racism, ableism, environmental harm or other harm in work connected to my practice, you can raise it with me directly, in writing or in conversation, in whatever format is accessible to you — including through an advocate or third party. I commit to: acknowledging what you raise without defensiveness; taking seriously your account of the harm’s impact rather than adjudicating intent; acting to stop ongoing harm first, before anything else; working out what repair looks like with the person harmed, rather than deciding it for them; and identifying what condition — a process, a budget, an assumption, a habit — allowed the harm, and changing it, so that the response outlives the incident.

Where I have caused harm, the same process applies to me, and I will seek an appropriate third party to hold it in ways that adhere to my own access needs if the person affected prefers.

Transformative justice is not the absence of consequences. Where behaviour is harmful and unaccounted for, I will end working relationships. And nothing in this policy restricts anyone’s right to pursue formal routes — contractual remedies, Acas, legal action, or complaint to any relevant body — instead of or alongside this process. This policy adds options; it removes none.

Accountability and review

This policy is reviewed annually, and the review is not private: I will publish what changed and why, including where I fell short. I invite challenge on it at any time through the contact form on this site, and I treat that challenge as contribution rather than complaint. Where the practice grows — collaborators, employees, organisational form — this policy will be renegotiated with the people it then covers, because a policy about power written by one person can only ever be a starting offer.

Lineage

This policy is informed by, and in dialogue with, the disability justice principles articulated by Black Curators Collective CIC and their publication Voice ≠ Speech; Sins Invalid; the access-centred practice developed by Unlimited; the transformative justice organising of adrienne maree brown, Mia Mingus and Mariame Kaba; the Principles of Environmental Justice adopted at the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit (1991) and the sector work of the Gallery Climate Coalition and Julie’s Bicycle; Édouard Glissant’s right to opacity; and the institutional EDI work of organisations including Nottingham Contemporary, whose published action plan models the honesty of showing your working. It goes further than compliance because compliance was never the point.