Cutaway #2: Nora Mahammed and Magali Elali on leadership in the arts

Speakers

• Nora Mahammed was director of the TheaterFestival from 2021 to 2025. In October 2025, she became Head of Drama at the RITCS, where she has been director since May 2026.

• Magali Elali is a curator and founder of The Constant Now, a platform dedicated to promoting the advancement of artists of colour within the visual arts.

Summary

Both speakers start from a shared observation: although diversity is widely recognised as important, structural change in the sector is often slow, fragmented and superficial. How can new leaders turn the tide?

The Constant Now

The Constant Now is an organisation founded by Magali Elali that aims to empower visual artists of colour within the art world. It was established in response to a clear need for greater representation and inclusion, and focuses primarily on supporting artists’ progression into existing art institutions.

Although community building is often put forward as a solution, both speakers have reservations about this. Magali emphasises that bringing people together is often temporary and project-based, and therefore remains artificial. Her focus is on progression: empowering artists so that they can operate sustainably within existing structures.

POC POC MANIFESTO is The Constant Now’s travelling dialogue in which structural issues within the sector are discussed. These conversations keep a finger on the pulse and highlight pain points, but also demonstrate how difficult it is to effectively translate those insights into change. Together, they form a practice committed to empowerment, knowledge-sharing and structural change, with a strong emphasis on collaboration and long-term impact.

In doing so, The Constant Now positions itself as a bridge, rather than as an opponent of institutions. Through mentoring, exhibitions and networking, artists are given the tools and insight to strategically claim their place. At the same time, the need for an autonomous space remains, because institutions themselves are failing to transform sufficiently.

Experimentation and agility as drivers of change

Nora sees festivals as unique opportunities for experimentation. By working with rotating juries and temporary structures, the TheaterFestival was able to respond more quickly to different needs and perspectives.

The scope for experimentation is enhanced by the scale: small teams and limited overhead ensure agility. What is tested can be shared immediately with the sector in practice. In this way, festivals also take on a reflective role.

New leadership here means not just thinking, but doing, testing and implementing.

An intellectual field

Drawing on this practical experience, both speakers highlight a fundamental impasse: the sector excels at reflection and knowledge generation, but is weak when it comes to implementation.

There is a great deal of awareness regarding inclusion, but this rarely translates into concrete changes. Fear of failure, resistance within organisations and a lack of clarity about how to shape change mean that progress often stalls. New leadership therefore also means taking responsibility for translating discourse into practice.

This impasse is linked to a deeper conservatism. Despite progressive discourse, structures remain largely intact. New positions are often filled by people from existing networks. Diversity is therefore regularly used as window dressing: visible in communications, but not embedded in decision-making or power. Both speakers emphasise the need for structural choices, not merely symbolic actions.

Agility and strategic thinking

Small organisations often operate in precarious circumstances, but this is precisely where their strength lies. They are agile, able to respond more quickly to opportunities and experiment with new forms of collaboration. This logic also applies to artistic practices. Opportunism is not viewed negatively, but as a necessary skill for gaining access to a closed field, for dealing strategically with opportunities and constraints.

Participation in committees, juries and boards of directors is seen by both speakers as a deliberate strategy. It provides access to decision-making and makes it possible to introduce new perspectives. This allows one to exert influence, build new networks, and bring about change more quickly.

Tokenism is recognised as a risk, but not as a reason to drop out. The position can be utilised strategically.

Mentoring young artists (both artistically and strategically)

A key aspect of their leadership styles is mentoring young artists. Both emphasise that artistic development cannot be separated from knowledge of the field.

Within training programmes and pathways, they therefore focus on:

• understanding how the arts sector works;
• learning to communicate with programme curators;
• understanding what pitching entails (both formally and informally);
• strategically managing encounters and networking.

Both make it clear that artistic practice and the above-mentioned navigational skills are inextricably linked.

Curatorship, quality and public engagement

Decisions about what constitutes ‘quality’ often still rest with a small group of gatekeepers. This homogeneity leads to stagnation and a narrow definition of quality. Diversity is sometimes presented as a risk to quality, whereas both speakers see it precisely as an enrichment. They call for greater vulnerability among decision-makers: a willingness not to understand everything and to allow for other frames of reference.

Programming and audience engagement often operate in isolation from one another. According to both speakers, there is a need for greater trust and collaboration in this area. Cultural centres cannot expect that diverse programming alone is sufficient to reach diverse audiences; representation alone is insufficient. Programming an artist from a particular background does not automatically lead to audience diversity. What does work is focusing on local networks and context. Diversity must resonate in terms of content and be supported.

That is why there is a call for

• pluralism in curatorship;
• the use of guest curators;
• sustainable collaboration with people who have specific networks.

A curator with an authentic network can effectively reach an audience. Without that connection, audience engagement remains superficial.

Sustainable specialisations

During the discussion, it becomes clear that sustainable specialisations within the arts sector are not only desirable but also essential for bringing about real change. Whilst organisations today often respond to temporary themes or trends, the speakers highlight the importance of a more long-term and considered approach.

In this context, sustainable specialisation means that organisations, curators and institutions immerse themselves in specific communities, practices or perspectives, and continue to work with them over the long term.

Rather than constantly targeting new audiences without a genuine connection, the focus is on building trust, knowledge and networks. As highlighted in the discussion, this authenticity is often lacking: initiatives remain superficial and rarely lead to lasting change.

An important dimension of sustainability also lies in continuity. Initiatives that exist only temporarily make it difficult to build expertise or measure impact. By entering into structural collaborations and long-term partnerships, organisations can create better conditions for artists and audiences, and space is created to grow and learn from previous experiences.

In addition, this also requires collaboration within the field. Rather than each organisation addressing the same themes, a complementary approach – in which different players each develop their own expertise – can lead to a richer and more accessible ecosystem. This calls for letting go of competitive thinking and recognising mutual interdependence.

Finally, sustainability calls for a shift in mindset: away from quick results and visible quick wins towards a long-term vision in which experimentation, failure and learning are central. Only in this way can space be created for genuine transformation within the arts sector.

Room for pioneering work

Innovation requires room to fail. Today, this is often lacking due to pressure to deliver results and attract large audiences. Both speakers emphasise the importance of pioneering work, in which even small and less visible impacts are valuable. Nora advocates allowing for vulnerability, experimentation and uncertainty.

Throughout the conversation, it becomes clear what Nora and Magali expect from leaders in the field:

• intrinsic motivation for change;
• the courage to take risks;
• accountability (from discourse to action);
• collaboration;
• long-term structural commitment.

Conclusion

New leadership is an ongoing process of navigating, connecting and taking action. It requires the ability to work within existing structures whilst simultaneously transforming them.

It is relational, strategic and focused on creating space for others – even when that space does not yet exist as a matter of course.