CLAIRE SIVIER

For the most part, I think I’ve always perceived the world in an intersectional way. Even before I knew the word, I think I always knew it’s meaning. Perhaps it’s what has brought me to tialt. As a Black, mixed-race, queer woman, growing up in South London, I found myself in a community of second generation immigrants; my best friends were Moroccan, Pakistani, Nigerian, Indian, Guyanese, and Bajan. All living on the intersection of Londoner and “other”, but yet one - we challenged each other, stood for and with each other. You could say it was my first lesson in collaboration. 

My white working class mother encouraged my sisters and I to travel and be creative. My black Caribbean father encouraged, “healthy” living (sports), a steady job, and a reality check (those who know, know). They both encouraged empathy, questioning and standing for myself and others. So did my community.

During my first round of academia, I wasn't actually very academic. In school, college and during my undergraduate degree, I found myself leaning into art activities and team sports outside of institutions; netball, rugby, hiking, basketball, drama club, choir, steel pans, street dance, tap dance...you name it, I did it! I did enjoy humanities subjects though, which at the time, opened up new worlds, frames of reference and forced me to think critically & creatively. 

After spending some time travelling and living abroad, my early professional life was grafted to the backdrop of the UKs transition from New Labour to a Tory government and a global recession. I seemed to bridge the gap of creativity and my fathers pragmatism as an Arts & Cultural Producer, and youth facilitator.  For over 12 years, much of my work focused on music, and large-scale performances, monthly performance nights, festivals and theatre through public funded projects and I have always done my best to ensure projects are accessible, anti-racist, open, and subsidised. However, due to the nature of the public funding processes, I found that much of the work created often requires a quantitative evaluation or monitoring process, and sometimes this can inadvertently reduce participants to statistics. While this type of evidence is important I wanted to explore alternative and more human centered ways of carrying out these processes, with participants themselves, whilst maintaining rigor and depth. 

As a result, in 2018 I took a leap, and began my journey into more arts based research practices beginning a Masters degree in Art and Design for the Public Space at the University of Porto, Portugal. This shift led me to reconnect with Dougie having begun our friendship and working relationship almost ten years prior - we were both searching for alternatives and we were ready to co-create them, and meeting creatives like Fernanda has shown us the potential for these collaborations to flourish.

And so began this new venture! This journey with tialt has given us space to zoom in and assess from a qualitative framework and understand more personal, relational experiences, and shared connections, which we hope all of our clients, collaborators and community can learn from. 

So let's continue to learn, unlearn, challenge and question together.