Conversations about Change

Reflections from the Space for Change roundtable

1 May 2025

On Thursday 6 March 2025, fourteen leaders in creative education assembled a roundtable event to share the final stages of their research projects following their involvement in the fourth iteration of the Space for Change programme. They represented the 2024/25 cohort, a dynamic group of 14 change-makers collaborating to address this year’s enquiry theme: how can we develop ethical and equitable career pathways for the next generation of creatives?

Arts researcher Sarah B Davies reflects on the event and the cohort’s learning.

A garden of ideas

If you were asked to open up opportunities for young people to enter the cultural sector and transform its practices, how would you begin? What structures would you put in place? Who do you need to bring round the table and how would you start the conversation? What garden of ideas could you create?

For six months the 2024/25 Space for Change cohort, with facilitator Sheryl Malcom, have worked together in small groups to explore imaginative, creative solutions to this year’s theme. Through passion-led enquiries, they utilised their networks, their youth groups and the resources that are already at their disposal. They piloted and co-created with young people, schools, their own organisations and with each other.

What emerged are five approaches to opening up pathways into the sector for young people: playful responses, provocations, caring models and discursive activities addressing this urgent challenge.

“Today we have used all our senses, which is what a good garden serves” –Roundtable guest

Sheryl reflected on the “garden of ideas” the cohort had developed within their small groups. Within this garden, we explored the key issues through a board game, we pledged a commitment to change with a resilience-building elixir, we conversed together using a model for collective action, we developed a care package. We heard recordings of youth perspectives and we talked through a menu of discussion points about cultural spaces and value shifts. This wasn’t a set of presentations to a passive audience; this was immersive learning.

And a consistent theme across the groups was the power of conversation as a crucial starting point for action.

When should young people be introduced to creative career information?

One group, Shermaine Slocombe and Solmaz Kennedy, worked to explore this challenge and they maintained this must happen in primary school. Following research into the barriers of creative careers, they co-developed the Creative Futures Game with year 6 pupils, teachers and their cultural organisations. This is a team-based boardgame for children, teachers and creatives that expands on snakes and ladders where pencils are opportunities and solutions and paintbrushes are dilemmas and challenges, which are explored collectively through discussion and collaboration.

Find out more about the Creative Futures Game

How do you hold conversations to create change?

Three groups creatively explored and developed models for catalysing change through conversations.

Fleur Adderley, Emma Lawrence and Jazz Willet hosted conversations across groups of young people and used their reflections to co-develop a ‘menu’ to ‘cook up’ systems of change supporting organisations to hold shared conversations with and for young people. The Space for Change menu is a resource designed by artist Natalia Leoni to interrogate the nature of creative spaces, the values that should be at the foundation of our sector and the ways we might support young creatives more.

Download the Space for Change menu

Through surveys, Layne Harrod, Jasper Morvaridi and Kit Miles identified actions and supportive structures for young creatives, which they converted into ‘ingredients’ for Fire Cider, an immunity boosting home remedy. It would act as a metaphor and a mechanism to support conversations to happen in the workplace and help build resilience within individuals. Managers, colleagues and young creatives are invited to drink a ‘shot’ as they discuss their ‘firsts’, such as their first project delivery; first leadership opportunity; first job rejection and first mistake.

Vanessa Bunn, Rimi Solloway and Zoe Thomas worked together to explore models and methods that would help organisations to become more open and porous for young people. They developed a Beginners Guide for Open Space Technology – a method that enables co-created dialogue tailored to the interests of the individuals involved. The guide focusses on dialogues between young creatives and arts professionals to undermine barriers into the sector such as connections, support and information.

What practices of care do we need to introduce into the sector?

Claire Gallagher, Louise Dussimon, Kelly Robinson considered organisational cultures of care for young creatives and developed ‘care packages’ that can be used for both new starters and their line managers. These include a notebook, teabag and a selection of resources and reading materials. They worked with creative practitioner Henny Shaw to develop a creative, reflective resource, which encourages conversation with prompts and acts as a useful documentation of support needs.

Watch the video:

Download the print-out activity

Key takeaway: The power of conversation

A current theme throughout each Space for Change project was the importance of shared conversations: dynamic, relationship-building dialogues across the sector and across age-groups, opening up ideas for collective action and for more ethical practices. But there was also an acknowledgement that these conversations are difficult to hold and bitter to taste, much like the Fire Cider itself which has a powerful smell and packs a punch that could “burn the oesophagus!”

5 conversation starters for your garden of ideas

Grab a colleague, new starter, student or young creative and use the conversation starters below:

  • Firsts: What was your first failure and your first win?
  • Care packages: How can we implement caring practices in our organisation, for all staff?
  • Boardgame: what are your pencils and paintbrushes? How might we engage in playful game-based approaches to a difficult challenge?
  • Models of conversation: What are different ways of holding important conversations? such as open space technology, menus of conversation starters, or discussing the ingredients for resilience and feeling cared for.
  • Spaces and barriers: what do we need to do to ensure our spaces are welcoming and that pathways into our organisations are open?
“Sometimes this work is difficult and uncomfortable. Like Fire Cider, it challenges the taste buds” – Sheryl Malcom

What would be in your ‘garden of ideas’ for sector-wide change?

2024/25 Space for Change graduates:

  • Fleur Adderley (ArtsDepot)
  • Vanessa Bunn (Mountview)
  • Louise Dussimon (Richmond Arts Service)
  • Claire Gallagher (Agency for Creative Production)
  • Layne Harrod (individual, previously with Go Live Theatre)
  • Solmaz Kennedy (Rosetta Arts Centre)
  • Emma Lawrence (Scarabaeus Aerial Theatre)
  • Kit Miles (Southbank Centre)
  • Jasper Morvaridi (Raw Material)
  • Kelly Robinson (Dulwich Picture Gallery)
  • Shermaine Slocombe (individual, freelance)
  • Rimika Solloway (Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance)
  • Zoe Thomas (London Transport Museum)
  • Jazz Willet (Crafts Council)

Creative practitioners involved:

  • Henny Shaw
  • Natalia Leoni

Space for Change facilitator:

  • Sheryl Malcom

Further reading:

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