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Jude Kelly: Sad to leave the Southbank Centre, but it’s time for me to shout WOW

Jude Kelly is leaving the Southbank Centre after more than a decade: Daniel Hambury/Stella Pictures
Jude Kelly is leaving the Southbank Centre after more than a decade: Daniel Hambury/Stella Pictures

“Excited and frightened” is what I wrote to my friends, telling them I was leaving my wonderful job at Southbank Centre. It’s a great time for the best artistic centre in the world. Its curating team, which includes world-class authorities such as Gillian Moore and Ralph Rugoff, could lead any cultural organisation on earth. And with the Queen Elizabeth Hall and Purcell Room re-opening shortly, the future is extraordinarily bright.

But, for me, it’s time to move the Women of the World Festival into a higher gear. When I founded WOW eight years ago it was a different emotional climate: before Malala was shot, before the Delhi rape, before the girls were captured by Boko Haram and long before Trump, Weinstein and the thudding knowledge that the pay gap is still enormous. Then, young women were often quick to tell me they were NOT a feminist, but were equally quick to pour out their bafflement about sexual harassment, glass ceilings, poor child care and the sense that they should be grateful for the progress made.

The WOW Festival — which now involves more than two million people in more than 30 countries, with a presence on every continent and is growing all the time — is a public, inclusive exploration of these issues. But each festival is also there to celebrate and relish all that girls and women have done, are doing and can do. From comedy to science, from policing to engineering, sport and choreography, women have made extraordinary things happen for centuries despite so many hurdles being placed in their way. That celebration gives the festival the optimism and energy to face up to the very painful subjects we discuss in totally candid style. No silence on any subject and no sense that women, or any who identify as women, should be shamed by the circumstances of inequality.

All over the world, women and girls are questioning long-held power structures. Not just men v women, but race, class, disability and LGBTQI awareness now inform the debates that are happening. It’s a rich, raw and volatile time, and we’re all involved. Aren’t we? Men and boys are part of this of course: gender equality is about all of us together.

Jude Kelly: 'All over the world, women and girls are questioning long-held power structures' (Dave Benett)
Jude Kelly: 'All over the world, women and girls are questioning long-held power structures' (Dave Benett)

I don’t believe the traditions of the workplace or social structures can or even should maintain the status quo. And because art and culture can lead necessary changes in society, WOW will be developing a whole new series of artistic projects arising from the core idea, created and driven by the women of the world.

It’s time.

WOW London is at Southbank Centre from March 7-11, supported by Bloomberg