New ‘Holding Conflict’ resource supports arts organisations to navigate controversy and disagreement
A new resource from the University of Leeds’ Cultural Institute offers practical tools to help arts organisations, cultural sector workers and practitioners prepare for, manage and learn from conflict
Holding Conflict has been developed by Professor ally walsh (School of Performance and Cultural Industries), with the Cultural Institute, drawing on the experience of cultural organisations and practitioners who took part in a series of workshops in Leeds during 2026.
The project was supported by the Leeds Arts & Humanities Research Institute (LAHRI), the Cultural Institute and the School of Performance & Cultural Industries, with contributions from poet, writrer and speaker Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan, Adam Baker, Dr Diana Damian-Martin (Royal Central School of Speech and Drama) and Dr Dani Abulhawa (School of Performance & Cultural Industries).
Designed for arts organisations, cultural sector workers and practitioners, the resource responds to a growing need across the sector for ways to engage with conflict without avoiding difficult issues or allowing disagreement to deepen harm.
Below, Professor ally walsh explains more about the resource and how arts organisations, cultural sector workers and practitioners can use it.
What is the Holding Conflict resource pack?
We are in conflictual times. Locally, because of precarious budgets, nationally with changes to the political agenda, and in terms of what is called ‘culture wars’. These can be specific issues that get sudden credence because of saturation in negative media attention that then turn back on how we work together, engage the public, or programme work. The cultural sector is vulnerable to political pressure to remain ‘neutral’ and is often ill-equipped to deal with intense and public backlash to their programming/values. In the past few years, there have been several critical incidents that reveal a gap between the interests of the sector (producing hubs/ building based organisations, programmers), artists (who are often freelance and precarious), and audiences.
This resource is collectively developed with cultural sector leaders who gathered together to explore the skillset for holding conflict rather than generating ‘solutions’ for the specific issues. It will be useful for organisations who aim to build some capacity in teams across roles for recognising that holding conflict can and should occur at different points and levels of responsibility. It contains a set of activities to support rehearsing the forms of accountability needed in cultural sector workplaces.
Why is now an important time to talk about how organisations hold conflict?
There are so many urgent ‘fronts’ and issues for artists, organisers, arts administrators and leaders to fight on, and we want to enable teams to better attend to how conflict arises, and to be able to work to repair rather than succumb to the rhythms and urgency of making excellent culture happen. Conflicts can deeply affect workplace culture, and they need tending, not ignoring, or we risk entrenching positions, resentments and oppositionality.
Tell us a bit about the research and learning that has informed this resource.
This resource arose from an intensive workshop I led, drawing on my experience as a socially engaged arts practitioner with a background in prison theatre and in working with groups on conflictual issues across the Global Majority world, including ecosystem services, arts activism, climate justice and prison abolition. Through this work, I became interested in how the skills and approaches used by activist groups in transformative justice might also be relevant beyond organising contexts.
Jo Nockels of the Cultural Institute had also identified a clear need through several sector events, where colleagues spoke about wanting more support to understand how conflict emerges within organisations and how to respond when it arises as a result of programming decisions.
The research underpinning this resource is informed by participants’ experiences and enriched by the contributions of several key voices, including Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan, Diana Damian-Martin and Dani Abulhawa, who offered important provocations that helped shape the work.
What are some of the key takeaways from this phase of the research?
We identified five interlocking domains that need to be worked through for organisations or collectives to best hold themselves to account when conflict turns up. These are: values; power, accountability and governance; preparation, resources and infrastructure; practice, communication and care; reflection, learning and evaluation.
Each of these domains needs time and attentiveness, and to be taken up at all levels of the organisation, so we propose that some of the resources could be usefully adopted through development days, staff training, or workshops with trustees, for example.
What are you hoping users will take away from the resource pack?
We hope people engaging with Holding Conflict will be encouraged to try out some of the activities, and reflect on how organisational cultures can build capacity and resilience.
What’s next for this line of research?
We found that cultural sector colleagues are very keen to have spaces to share experiences, supporting greater capacity to hold conflict. We noted that folks were keen to have different role holders engaging (including artists and freelancers). We want to see the responses to the resource and are looking forward to how it could be taken up or used elsewhere. We are keen to invite opportunities for collaboratively extending this material and will be looking into further funding for research.
