Sophie, Jo, and guests, discuss power sharing, community leadership, governance structures, co-creation, longitudinal evaluation, anti-oppressive working practices, and communities of practice.

EPISODE 02 | FEBRUARY 27 | 2026

Jo Gibson | Sophie Hope

In this episode, Sophie and Jo talk to Jo Chard, Senior Producer for Disrupt at Guildhall School; Divya Satwani, producer, Somatic coach and facilitator; Alan Lane, co-chair of Slung Low, a theatre company in Leeds; and Maia Mackney, Public Engagement and Evaluation Manager at Guildhall School.

We talk about their involvement in Disrupt, an ongoing series of interventions, initiated in 2020 at Guildhall School, to explore ways in which cultural organisations collaborate with communities more equitably.

We discuss power sharing, community leadership, governance structures, co-creation, longitudinal evaluation, anti-oppressive working practices, communities of practice and more! Thanks go to all our podcast contributors and to Iona McTaggart, who couldn’t join us for this episode, and everyone else who has been part of Disrupt over the years.

Disrupt Toolkit: https://www.disruptfestival.org/toolkit

Slung Low https://www.slunglow.org/

Sharing power: the ethics of decision making and funding article by Maia Mackney and Jo Chard https://ncace.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/NCACE-Research-Report-Collaborations.pdf

Old Fire Station Storytelling Evaluation Method: https://oldfirestation.org.uk/our-work/storytelling-evaluation-methodology/

Cards on the Table: https://www.cardsonthetable.org/

Barbican Communities and Neighbourhoods Team – Imagine Fund https://www.barbican.org.uk/imagine-fund-2024

Leytonstone Love Film: https://www.barbican.org.uk/leytonstone-loves-film-community-fund

Community Impact Collective: https://www.barbican.org.uk/community-impact-collective

Headway East: https://headwayeastlondon.org/

Jumped Up Theatre: https://jumpeduptheatre.com/

Can we talk about power? Online talk series curated by Suzanne Alleyne: https://www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2021/event/can-we-talk-about-power