As part of our Inspiring Women series of talks, Kamina Walton of Rising Arts Agency came and spoke about her work. Community Hub Coordinator Eilidh Tannett writes about the event:
Do young people really need to climb the career ladder in order to be leaders, or is it a myth to keep young people tied to their
zero-hour, minimum wage jobs? Does the working world need to be so driven by ‘grind’ culture, or would we work better with scheduled rest and reflection?
These were the questions I was left with after the wonderful talk with Kamina Walton. Her radical CIC, Rising Arts Agency, is changing the ways we approach young people, work and art.
Kamina’s talk was not just about Rising, but also her rich career. It has ranged from training as a trapeze artist, working as a freelancer with young people (from schoolchildren to young offenders), founding Rising on a shoestring and working without pay to grow her passion project before handing over leadership to ensure the organisation stayed ‘by the youth, for the youth’. Returning to freelance employment, she is now working on an exciting project, focused not on the young but also the old.
Despite originating in London, Kamina has been rooted in the arts community in Bristol, working in familiar venues across the city,
including Watershed, Arnolfini, St Paul’s Church and Knowle West Media Centre. Her baby, Rising, has taken over Billboards across the city and nurtures the talent that bleeds into the city.
At the end of the talk, the Q&A turned into an open-ended discussion, with all the women brimming with interest and ideas about Kamina’s talk. They scribbled into notepads as women local to Knowle, or visiting from London, separated by generation and occupying a range of fields, shared details with each other. When time run out in the venue, they milled about, chatting in the toilets and car park. It was so nice to see what magic happens when women are put into a space together to talk.
For more about the inspiring Women series, and to stay in the know about upcoming talks, check out our Inspiring Women page.
