Friday Selection Box: 15th November 2024

A timely reminder of the agency we do have through spheres of influence

We can decide, today, to run a meeting in a more open and inclusive way. We can bring curiosity and kindness to a routine interaction with family, friends, and coworkers. We can commit to more equitable practice in the contracts we offer and the budget commitments we make. We can open our decision-making to more voices and more visions. We can invite our boards and our teams to notice and name the positive adjacent possibilities in how we produce, present, preserve, manage, market, finance, steward, sell, or support the arts experiences we offer.

Ways to temper your hypervigilance at work

.. hyper-vigilance is a heightened state of awareness: “It’s your brain’s way of protecting you by scanning the environment for signs of danger.” While it is a normal human survival mechanism, for some individuals, it is as though the part of the brain designed to keep one safe … gets stuck in overdrive, making you feel like you’re always bracing for impact, even when you’re perfectly safe.  Hypervigilance makes it hard for people to relax at all. They always feel awkward or worried that they’re doing or saying something wrong,

Value Dissonance: a meandering of thoughts through cognitive dissonance and values

Cognitive Dissonance Theory (CDT) reveals the tension we hold when we attempt to have competing ideas, beliefs, values and behaviours. In AMMERSE, we expand this concept to values, as value dissonance is critical in organisational alignment.

Fundraising Now 2025 – Online conference on Thursday 6 February

One to put in the diary for next year. Interesting that one of the breakout sessions is self-care for fundraisers.

Dora Carrington: Beyond Bloomsbury

Dora Carrington’s works are being shown for the first time in nearly 30 years.

The Barbican Art Gallery held the last major exhibition of her work in 1995 and in the same year Emma Thompson starred as the free-spirited painter in the film Carrington. Co-curated by Anne Chisholm, editor of Carrington’s Letters (2017) and Ariane Bankes, the exhibition will reveal the continued relevance of Carrington’s remarkable work and unconventional life.

Lost Victorian London at the London Archives 

The exhibition is intended to take you on a journey through a London that has disappeared.