COMMON

Founded in January 2018, COMMON has rapidly become the leading arts and social justice organisation working nationally to support the UK creative industries to achieve greater intersectional socio-economic diversity and social mobility.

We are a cultural campaigning organisation with a vision of the UK creative industries where the access and inclusion of creatives from diverse, working-class backgrounds is valued, supported and equal.

“There were problems, challenges and impossible hurdles when I was starting out from this kind of background, from a deprived community, but it’s only getting harder for the next generation of ferociously talented artists. I have been so impressed and inspired by the work of COMMON, and wish an organisation like this had existed when I was in my early career.” – James Graham OBE: Olivier Award-Winning Writer and Patron of COMMON (‘QUIZ’, ITV; ‘Brexit: The Uncivil War’, Channel 4).

Our work spans three key areas:

Skill and Career Development: COMMON design and deliver programmes to meaningfully support the skill and career development of creatives from diverse, working-class backgrounds, including writers, designers and directors.

Cultural Consultancy and Campaigning: We provide specialist consultancy to cultural organisations across the UK to identify structural inequalities in their working processes and organisational structures. We also uncover barriers to access, inclusion and engagement for cultural workers and communities from intersectional, working-class backgrounds in their regions. We then work in partnership with these organisations to develop sustainable solutions which dismantle these barriers and inequalities.

Commissioning New Cultural Works: We commission new cultural works, such as theatre productions, short films and literature, with a mission to increase the diverse, complex and positive representations of the working-class in British culture.