How to let go of the thing you love
Rising's founding Director, Kamina Walton, announces Rising's leadership transition and hands over Rising's directorship to young team members, Jess Bunyan and Euella Jackson.
On 28th September I’m handing over the leadership of Rising to two talented, visionary young women, Jess Bunyan and Euella Jackson. The three of us have been preparing for this transition over the past two years. Every step has been carefully considered, constantly reviewed, with none of us being asked to do anything we didn’t want to do. We are all ready for the change.
So firstly, let’s start with some myth-busting:
1. I am not handing over the leadership of Rising because I’m retiring.
2. The leadership transition wasn’t a recent decision. It’s been part of the strategic plan for the agency since I conceived of Rising back in 2014.
3. Handing over the leadership to two young women is not “a really brave thing to do”. It’s modelling the change we need to see in the sector.
4. Young people are perfectly capable of both thinking and working at a strategic level in the sector right now.
5. Just because I’m stepping aside doesn’t mean that Rising is no longer one of my children. It’s about knowing the right time to let that child spread its wings and fly the nest.
Kamina working at a consultancy session with Buttle UK in January 2020
I’d just like to take you back briefly to 2014 when Rising first became a seed of an idea. I’d been working as a freelancer in the sector in Bristol for 25 years. I’d had some great experiences and others that were pretty bad. I’d reached a point where I had a fire in my belly fuelled by a number of things. I was raging about the lack of agency and voice young people had in opportunities that were supposedly created for them. I was also operating in a sector where, without exception, all the existing leaders were over 40 and almost all of them white and non-disabled. Something had to change.
NEW BEGINNINGS
By creating a new enterprise with and for young people I felt it would give me the opportunity to model the change I wanted to see across the sector. The vision was always that, assuming the agency was successful, I would hand over the leadership to one or more young people in our community after 5 years.
In 2018 I had the joy of meeting and working with both Euella and Jess for the first time. At that point Euella was working with Rife Magazine, based at Watershed, and took part in a pilot workshop for our research strand around the cultural engagement of young people of colour in the city, Whose Culture. After sharing a space with her for 2 hours I knew I wanted to involve her in the development of Rising and find a way of paying for her thinking, her insights and her passion for inclusion. When I met Jess she had just moved back to Bristol from Oxford having been managing an art bookshop for a number of years. She was keen to work with a mentor to help her move into the creative sector and grow her network in the city. Jess had an ease and knowledge around business and finance that I’ve only ever dreamed of. In our first meeting I pledged to try and find some funds to bring her on board in a freelance business development role. The rest, as they say, is history.
A photo of the whole Rising staff team. They are stood in front of a #WhoseFuture billboard that reads "DEMAND JOY", and they are all laughing and smiling at each other.
I have met so, so many talented, inspirational young people since launching the agency, but it was Euella and Jess that I had in my sights as Co-Directors. They’ve been readying themselves to step up through our rich conversations, endless questions, invaluable reflections, building of new skills, all the while increasing their confidence. There was a point last year, in the midst of Covid and the trauma caused by the very public killing of George Floyd, when I thought we might have to postpone the transition until the team felt grounded and ready to take on the sector. But at the beginning of this year I knew we were back on track and the time was right.
Process is everything
In other blog posts I have mentioned the importance of pace, care, trust and transparency within our work at Rising. These have all been fundamental to knowing that now is the right time for this transition to happen. Over the past two years Jess and Euella have witnessed the co-leadership so beautifully modelled by Roseanna Dias and Will Taylor as they have nurtured and tenderly grown Rising’s transformative leadership programme, BE IT. We have the most incredible support and expertise offered by our non-exec directors, Laura Gabe and Emma Morsi. They will be working more closely with Jess and Euella over the years ahead, strengthening their relationship and continuing to share their learning through the Leadership Corner that meets quarterly. Elinor Lower, Rising’s Creative Practice Coordinator, has been alongside them every step of the way, showing them the ropes and handing over various aspects of her original role when it was just the two of us trying to hold everything together. Rosa ter Kuile, Rising’s Campaign & Communication Manager, is walking alongside them, sharing their work, stories and achievements through our social channels, campaigns and talks.
Next steps
So, what are my own next steps? It was important for me to have a clear sense of direction before I stepped away from Rising. I knew I wanted to reclaim my studio and my personal practice, but also needed clarity to prevent me from panicking about money and just taking any work that came my way. Back in April I gained my qualification as an RD1st Coach with the intention of building up a coaching practice from October ’21. I now have my first two major contracts and am supporting 8 individual artists at Spike Island pro bono.
Kamina Walton, with BE IT Creative Producer, Roseanna Dias and Rising's Non-Exec director, Emma Blake Morsi at the Whose Future Launch in 2021.
The same month I submitted an application to the Arts Council’s Developing Your Creative Practice fund. My request was for 6 months support from October ’21 to March ’22 was successful! This will allow me to re-imagine myself as an artist activist, radical change-maker and creative provocateur in a well-paced, considered way. I will embed my learning from the past 5 years and have 3 key aims for this development:
1. Successful transition from my role as Rising’s Director to recognition as a valued, independent arts professional.
2. To gather and utilise knowledge and new skills, articulating my vision, values and motivators as a creative leader in order to support others in new inclusive ways of working.
3. To re-position myself within the sector nationally as a champion for equity, co-creation and democratising practice.
A couple of weeks ago I found out that I had been awarded the Spike Associate scholarship to attend the year long programme based at Spike Print, Press Play. Designed to help you understand your art practice and develop your capabilities as a professional artist through a carefully curated series of seminars, ‘makes’ and studio visits, it also develops strategies for sustained research. These sessions are every Tuesday morning and in the afternoons I am co-delivering on the 2nd Year Photography BA elective, Collaboration Through Text, at University of the Arts, London. I have been taken on as Associate Lecturer alongside Senior Lecturer in Photographic Theory, Paul Tebbs.
On the flip side of all this my partner Paul and I have spent time over the past 18 months converting an old Mercedes Sprinter long wheel based van. Our original plan was to tour around Eastern Europe but for now we’ve content with travelling the length and breadth of the UK, in between work and family commitments. I’m so ready for this new phase in both my professional and personal life that it makes letting go of Rising totally possible.
Kamina and Euella at Whose Future Launch in 2020.
The journey is the destination
Here we are, 5 years after Rising was officially registered as a social enterprise, and so much amazing work has happened during that time. I can honestly say I have learnt more on this journey than in the rest of my professional career, and every step of the way has been a joy and a privilege. It has also been the most challenging thing I’ve ever tried to do – with the exception of bringing up Fin and Orla, my two birth children. But Rising has grown beyond my expectations and that has only been possible due to the commitment and vision of the young people in our team and the determination and talent of those artists and creatives in our community. As our Critical Friend, Dawn Cameron, so eloquently said in a BE IT steering group meeting the other night, we as elders bring the experience but it’s the young people that so often bring the knowledge.
In the same way that you know as a parent when your child is ready to leave home and it’s your responsibility to support rather than to prevent them taking that step I feel the same with Rising. It was always my dream that we’d reach the point where the agency was resilient enough, and valuable enough to the city, for it to be able to stride forward without the need for me to be there offering my guidance and experience. That time has come and I’m ready to let go of this thing that I truly love. There are so many of us within the sector who have invaluable experience to share, but if we really want to advocate for inclusion, innovation, risk-taking and cultural change then more of us need to seriously consider stepping aside or sharing our power and privilege to make space for new and diverse leadership, knowledge and vision.
If you’re interested in finding out more about our transition journey and how you might embark on your own then I’d love to talk to you. From the end of the month I’ll be using my personal email: kaminawalton@gmail.com and mobile number 07752 447819. Feel free to drop me a line.
Kamina Walton
September 2021.
Kamina will remain connected to Rising as a non-exec director, alongside Emma Blake Morsi and Laura Gabe.
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