BCA Career Spotlight: Project Assistant
“Abandon the idea that life has to look a certain way by a certain age.”
Spotlight on: Milan Wright
D.H. Lawrence’s articulation that ‘Life is ours to be spent, not saved’ is Project Assistant, Milan’s favourite inspirational quote and one that reminds her to always go for opportunities and put her ideas and opinions across, regardless of fears of being unqualified or saying, ‘the wrong thing’. This go-getter mentality allowed Milan, a philosophy student on her placement year at Black Cultural Archives, to be in the mix leading up to our recent ‘Transforming Legacies’ exhibition – picking up art with the curator, speaking to artists, and helping with the installation. This experience saw Milan interact with full-time artists, those paid to deliver their craft and live out their dreams, which cemented Milan’s conviction that the creative, not corporate world, is for her.
Since starting in October, she has worked hard to develop a podcast that will focus on workforce development within the arts and heritage sector and its accompanying training programme, which will equip young people with the skills needed to create podcasts and tap into the UK’s fastest growing medium for the dissemination of information. This process from inception to implementation has seen Milan research the various fields in the sector, invite industry experts to provide their insight on the programme, draft scripts to be used during episodes and create social media content to promote it all.
Currently, a considerable amount of Milan’s day, which begins with checking in with her line manager and answering any outstanding emails, is spent reviewing applications for the training programme, setting up the interview schedule, and compiling questions. She is also busy researching the significant role Black women from the Windrush generation played in building up the NHS, the unrecognised work their successors currently do, and the link to the current strikes for a blog post she is writing to commemorate Windrush 75.
Though in the early throes of her career, Milan is already keen to create a legacy and is facilitating a partnership between her university, a leading institution in the North of England, and BCA. She hopes this partnership will ensure students have online access to rich archival material regarding the Black presence and experience in the UK and begin adding to the very few centres for Black history which exist outside of London.
Her advice to individuals following the path she is paving would be to ‘abandon the idea that life has to look a certain way by a certain age’, as her immersion into the professional world has demonstrated that even those at the midway point of their careers are still ‘figuring it out along the way’. Milan believes imposter syndrome is experienced by everyone, with all of us experiencing doubts, anxiety and fears. Instead of viewing it as a negative, she embraces it and uses it as evidence she is stretching herself- something she will continue to do until her dreams are followed and her goals met.