SAFEDI project image

Research: SAFEDI

Improving equality, diversity and inclusion in partnership with social artists, audiences and policy makers.

Research summary

Research summary

  • February 2021 to April 2022

SAFEDI is a research partnership between Manchester Met, Axis and the Social Art Network. It supports social artists, together with audiences and commissioning organisations, to champion equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI)  through artistic practice and lived experience.

The project features six artists and artist collectives working with participants from under-represented communities in EDI policy making.

The project is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council as one of ten pilot EDI Engagement Fellowships.

Current research by the Arts Council of England shows that the arts are failing to reach people who are:

  • part of the global majority
  • disabled
  • excluded by gender or sexuality
  • from lower socio-economic backgrounds
  • intersections of the above characteristics

This research reveals that visual arts could accommodate more diverse talent in the UK, and that artists who work with under-represented communities need to be fully supported.

SAFEDI builds on previous research (Validation beyond the gallery and From network to meshwork) into the lack of support for social artists carried out by Prof Ravetz and Axis. It aims to strengthen EDI in the visual arts, and to improve the offer to under-represented communities. This project will develop support for social artists and share this learning with the arts and culture sector.

The artists and groups commissioned as part of SAFEDI have partnered with a wide range of community and arts organisations — from local to national.

SAFEDI has also benefitted from the critical friendship the Director of Research at Arts Council England, and an Independent Evaluator.

Research outputs

An independent evaluation report will be available in summer 2022.

Gallery

Photograph of a fire-making kit: a box containing wooden sticks tied together, some written instructions on paper and some matches laid out on some brown cloth.
Photograph of a fire-making kit by Lily Lavorato
Five performers, one out of frame, stand on and to the side of an empty wooden plinth creating a carefully balanced configuration of bodies. Situated in a workshop theatre rehearsal space and lit by white stripe lights and a pink neon spotlight.
"The Human Memorial" by Yuen Fong Ling (2021). Photographic documentation of workshop at Theatre Deli, Sheffield.
Installation which includes creating a partitioned space using 11 meter by 2.75 meter sheets of bright pink and purple, recycled paper and a series of moulded sculptural works including hill-like structures, appearing to drip from the window, or pour out of the walls. Bright pink and purple sheets of scrumpled paper are piled up hight against the window in layers - they look a bit like sedimentary rock formations.
SAFEDI enSHRINE exhibition. Photos: Julian Lister.
Within these large, paper forms are hidden tiny, intricately sculpted, 3D objects. Throughout the installation you can find shapes cut from large sheets of ply wood and painted bright colours, these represent shapes drawn by co-authors as part of visual score making workshops. The exhibition also includes paintings, drawings, text art, sound pieces and video work made by co-authors.
SAFEDI enSHRINE exhibition. Photos: Julian Lister.
A phone camera image showing the hand of a brown person handling a stem of a Rosehip bush.
Screenshot from Rasheeqa Ahmad's 'Plant Medicine for the City: A Seasonal Diary' for Queer Diasporic Futurity by Flatness.
Three people standing in front of 'The Origin of the Milky Way' by Tintoretto, on display in the National Gallery, London on a large red wall. Their backs face the camera and the walls. They are examining the painting.
Three people standing in front of 'The Origin of the Milky Way' by Tintoretto, on display in the National Gallery, London. Photo credit: Catherine Harder.
Two men, seated at a table, are helping with JarSquad prep. The man in the pink shirt is smiling broadly, surrounded by bowls of crabapples. The other man in a black hoodie is focussed on peeling a large rhubarb stalk. Image Credit: JarSquad
Two men, seated at a table, are helping with JarSquad prep. Image Credit: JarSquad
Photograph of a fire-making kit: a box containing wooden sticks tied together, some written instructions on paper and some matches laid out on some brown cloth.
Five performers, one out of frame, stand on and to the side of an empty wooden plinth creating a carefully balanced configuration of bodies. Situated in a workshop theatre rehearsal space and lit by white stripe lights and a pink neon spotlight.
Installation which includes creating a partitioned space using 11 meter by 2.75 meter sheets of bright pink and purple, recycled paper and a series of moulded sculptural works including hill-like structures, appearing to drip from the window, or pour out of the walls. Bright pink and purple sheets of scrumpled paper are piled up hight against the window in layers - they look a bit like sedimentary rock formations.
Within these large, paper forms are hidden tiny, intricately sculpted, 3D objects. Throughout the installation you can find shapes cut from large sheets of ply wood and painted bright colours, these represent shapes drawn by co-authors as part of visual score making workshops. The exhibition also includes paintings, drawings, text art, sound pieces and video work made by co-authors.
A phone camera image showing the hand of a brown person handling a stem of a Rosehip bush.
Three people standing in front of 'The Origin of the Milky Way' by Tintoretto, on display in the National Gallery, London on a large red wall. Their backs face the camera and the walls. They are examining the painting.
Two men, seated at a table, are helping with JarSquad prep. The man in the pink shirt is smiling broadly, surrounded by bowls of crabapples. The other man in a black hoodie is focussed on peeling a large rhubarb stalk. Image Credit: JarSquad

Research team

Contact us

Contact us

For more information about this project you can contact Dr Patrick Campbell and Dr Kai Syng Tan.

Email Patrick Email Kai