Sync Leadership has always been a small project with big ideas.
We work globally, sharing the latest leadership thinking and coaching practice to support Deaf, disabled, neurodivergent leaders and those with chronic health conditions to move beyond what they and others thought possible in arts and culture.
Sync Leadership was founded in 2008 by (Sarah Pickthall and Jo Verrent – link to current Founders and Facilitators Page ) with a goal to develop leadership and coaching resources for Deaf, disabled and neurodiverse leaders working in arts, culture, heritage and media.
Since then it has worked across the globe, inspiring our leaders to find new ways and means to thrive and survive within their different societies. With its kicking ‘y’, its disabled-led ethos and exemplary accessibility, it has changed the lives and aspirations of many and continues to do so.
In 2023 we had our best and most brilliant year working with 60 Sync leaders, both face to face and online, some of whom were and still are experiencing the most challenging life situations and circumstances.
We ran our first face to face intensive – Sync Arabi -working with leaders from Jordan and Palestine in English and Arabic.
We developed Sync Twilight, a group coaching programme with our alumni in Australia and Canada, and further developed Sync Shorts for learning-disabled and autistic leaders in both English and French.
We met up with our Sync alumni across Canada in person, sharing our thinking and practice. We’re so thankful for the last 15 years. Here’s to making the future Sync.
The people I have met through Sync have confirmed and reinforced once and for all that I am not alone – never will be alone.
The Leadership part of Sync is how we take current leadership thinking and practice and make that accessible and relevant to our lives.
It’s also where Sync Leaders hone their own ideas and thinking about leadership and what we need. Find out more about our Sensing Sync leadership residency.
Sync runs programmes in different ways online, face to face and hybrid exploring different themes and ideas for Sync Leaders to explore to break through in their professional lives.
Sync is globally focused. It is interested in the wider family of Deaf, disabled and neurodivergent leadership and what our Sync Leaders are facing in their communities and societies.
It’s World Autism Awareness Day, and myself and co-helmer, Thompson Hall and the Sync team are celebrating the end of our @acegrams 3rd Syncing Space UK/Korea residency, launching an exhibition of works and reflections from our four participating artists: Hyun-Woo “Pixel” Kim, Eliph Hadert, Victoria Bowman and Lucy. @pixel.kim @eliphhadert
We couldn’t be more in awe of the journeys our artists have taken in understanding what leadership means. All on their terms, with a new sense of where they can have an impact in the future.
We are all feeling a refreshed sense of self and confidence for the road ahead; that’s what a Sync Leadership programme does.
For those of us who are neurodivergent (and we are many), it isn’t just a day, it’s an ongoing marginalised way of being. One that should be accepted, counted and counted upon with all its untapped potential and vibrancy. ✨
Visit www.syncingspace.org (link in bio 🔗) and press the exhibition button, where we’ve gone live!
With thanks to: @sheep_films @coldharvcash @annilim and Oli Pyle
@projectartworks @actionspace @figmentarts and Community Art Project, Darlington.
Wonny Kim, Azin Lim, Laurence Ward, Patricia Finnegan, Elias Blacklock and Lisa Brown.
Image Descriptions: Image 1: The exhibition page on our syncingspace.org website showing the click-through artwork images for each artist Image 2: Eliph Hadert`s artwork page on the Sync website with a focus on the piece `Palace of Bees` Image 3: Hyun-Woo “Pixel” Kim`s artwork page on the Sync website with a focus on the piece `Melody of Chaos` Image 4: Victoria Bowman`s artwork page on the Sync website with a focus on the piece `Wonderland` Image 5: Lucy`s artwork page on the Sync website with an image of her in her Beagle in Blue and Yellow costume...
We`re excited to focus the spotlight on our final artist resident, Lucy, who is based at @projectartworks in Hastings. She joins our third Syncing Space residency that comes to fruition this week, funded by @aceagrams, working with artists in the UK and South Korea.
Lucy`s practice explores the characters which she makes and inhabits, and smaller characters that she crafts and more besides.
When Lucy joined the programme, she didn’t really feel like a leader (but we knew she was). What she does know instinctively is the ideal environments and attitudes that help her to be the artist she wants to be and knows it’s different for others.
She has scripted an animation called `Transformation Exploring Environments’ working with our SyncingSpace animator, Dave Packer.
Watch Lucy`s `Welcome to my studio` video via the link in bio 🔗
Image descriptions Slide 1: A picture of Lucy in her Beagle in Blue and Yellow costume Slide 2: A screen grab of one of her comic strips Slide 3: A screen grab from Spectrum the Autistic Wolf being relaxing in a Hastings garden, part of the new animation.
We want to shift our focus to Sync Shorts Syncing Space co-helmer, Thompson Hall, an artist based at the brilliant @actionspace in London, who has partnered with Syncing Space since it began.
Thompson has a deeply reflective practice that explores society and injustice. He was part of the first @my_british funded Syncing Space residency between the UK and Malaysia in spring 2025, and took such an interest in leadership learning that we asked him to lead some more. Our programme wouldn’t be the same now without him!
Image Descriptions: Thompson sharing himself through work and actions, talking about leadership through making his own art pieces and in that last image, in conversation with @pixel.kim in our residency....
Time to meet our third SyncingSpace resident artist based in Brighton, @eliphhadert
Eliph is active in the community and an artist who was introduced to us by @figmentarts
Their practice sensitively weaves their ways of being into a gentle, eco-aware exploration of memory and meaning, with a natural focus on those who are often left out.
Eliph is all about their life in connection with others through collaboration, inspiration and thoughtfulness. They make us buzz with the bees!
Check out their studio video over on our website - link in our bio 🔗
With thanks to @coldharvcash for capturing Eliph in their studio.
Next up we`re so delighted to have Hyun-Woo “Pixel” Kim with us in the @acegrams Sync Shorts - SyncingSpace.org joining us every Thursday from Seoul. Pixel`s work is known and loved globally and since meeting him in Jamsil Studios in Seoul with Sync Korea in 2018, we`ve wanted to work with him and now we have that great pleasure. @pixel.kim @pixel.kim95
Check out Pixel`s studio for what drives his practice. Link to watch is in our bio 🔗
With thanks to @coldharvcash for capturing the video.
Our artists will be showcasing their leadership thinking in April!
We’re halfway through our @aceagrams funded UK/South Korea arts leadership residency. This week and next, we`ll be focusing on our `Sync Shorts` - SyncingSpace.org residents in turn.
Meet Victoria Bowman, an artist at The Community Art Project in Darlington through @darlingtonbc
This piece is called Tree.
Check out Victoria`s studio and watch her `Welcome to my Studio video!` It`s a flutter of loveliness, that`s for sure! Link to watch is in our bio 📽
With thanks to @coldharvcash for capturing Victoria in her studio so beautifully 😍
Our final focus this Winter Solstice is the light dark and bark of artist leader Carlisle Robinson, constantly striving and enquiring, with such curiosity and championing others always with notable humility around their own brilliant artistry. Their blend of past and present and harnessing the leadership metaphor of silver birch loveliness sits at the heart of their #SyncRe-Ignite leadership exhibition.
And to all our Sync Re-Ignite artists, wishing you the happiest of new beginnings, it has been our joy to walk alongside. You’ll always be part of our Sync family for the venture you came on board with us this year.
With gratitude to:
@carodoodles @olivetreeonthemount @41essia @missdeesaccount @faliansgrnddtr and www.carolinesjlee.com.
And happy call-out to @olipyle @rachaelwalker01 @coldharvcash @seanleelee1 and our brilliant team: @louiefermor @papalia_carmen @shivanyara_artist @picturesalima @thealexbulmer @vibrafusionlab for helping shape something more than was this year #DeafLeadership #DisabledLeadership #SyncLeadership...
The Hero’s journey or monomyth is a well known leadership pattern and none so beautifully explored in the research and exhibition of @faliansgrnddtr and her painting in progress.
Suritah Wignall’s application to be one of our 6 Sync Re-Ignite artists was impossible for us to ignore. Her inherent life-long love for Gladiolus and her harnessing of imphepho “for communicating with ancestors, cleansing negative energy, inducing spiritual or dream-like states” was so joyful to be alongside. That and the courage to forge on through the many mires of life and living. Listen to all that she found and see the work emerging. It’s metaphorical fuel and fodder for our own journeys.
The desire and drive to serve and the delightful sensory enquiry offered up is so much ‘More Than Words Can Say’ for @olivetreeonthemount
The gentle ask of her audiences to feel, touch, watch and be moved to understand more, sits at the heart of Olivia Brouwer’s practice.
“The creation of sounds and vibration will activate senses beyond vision to challenge the engager to form their own language beyond speaking or signing.”
We have felt so lucky that she was one of our 6 artists on the new SyncReIignite Sync Canada program of leadership, coaching, comradie and accessible curation.
With thanks to @tangled_arts @vibrafusionlab @canada.council @my_british for #SyncingSpace @sarahpickthall
Stop the clocks and take time to drop into our Sync Re-Ignite exhibition pages this Monday and listen read and reckon with the beautiful reflections of @41essia
‘Notes on Crip Time and Chronodissidence’ - a creative non-fiction personal essay by Alessia Canteros
“The phrase “I have no time” was an abdication of responsibility, a scapegoat to avoid saying ‘no’ directly. It positioned time as external, uncontrollable, when really it was about choices and power.” . With thanks to @41essia @tangled_arts @Vibrafusionlab @canadacouncil @britishcouncil for #SyncingSpace & shared @sarahpickthall
Our second foray into the exhibition pages of our new extended #SyncLeadership program, spotlighting today, multidisciplinary artist Michele Dickson one of our 6 Sync Re-ignite residents who lives life and makes work from bed in such a generous and playful way and with such grace, honesty and artistry.
“Attitude is everything. You can change your perception. It just takes perseverance, compassion, and wisdom, along with an understanding that it does take time.” Michele Dickson.
Michele you are a leader extraordinaire!
With thanks to @whitefawn64 @tangled @Vibrafusionlab @canadacouncil @britishcouncil for #SyncingSpace
This Autumn Sync Canada & SyncingSpace.org hosted a brand new online residency as part of a new extended #SyncLeadership program, the first of its kind.
Working with 6 visual and media artists over 3 months This week and next, we’re focusing on what each of the artist’s taking part explored and shared through an exhibition reflecting on their leadership journeys and the different accessible ways of their practice.
Caroline So Jung Lee’s achingly beautiful film centres on the artist’s grief, through a beautiful wintering landscape and haunting narrative & audio description - a letter to her mother, somewhere far away.
With thanks to @tangled_arts @vibrafusionlab & the #SyncReIgnite artist facilitator team alongside @sarahpickthall @canada.council @my_british for #SyncingSpace
We’re thrilled to share a glimpse of the artistry of our 6 resident artists who we’ve been working alongside through our new Sync Re-Ignite Leadership programme these last few months in Canada.
We’ll be focusing on each artist in the lead up to the Season - jumping into their beautiful leadership journeying, profiled in their very own programme exhibition portal.
A celebration of creativity, collaboration, curation and crip community beyond one day. To view the exhibition and find out more go to SyncingSpace.org and press the Exhibition button! A golden oeuf to mark the everyday brilliance of disability and Deaf identified artists whose thinking and practice shapes new possibilities.
We’re live at www.syncingspace.org profiling the thinking and practice of 4 IDD learning disabled and autistic artists who have been on residency with SyncingSpace.org since July ‘in Canada’.
Click the exhibition tab to watch our project film made by associate artist @coldharvcash with captions and audio description introduction and hear the artists describing their artwork with transcripts and go a little deeper into their process and their Sync Shorts journey too.
With gratitude and thanks to my wonderful co-facilitator Thompson Hall @actionspace and all the other creative support artists from our associate studios in Canada @beingstudio_ott @ninahaggertyarts @accessartsca and to @olipyle for our super webs & our wonder @annilim for creating our graphic illustrations across the program and to @rachaelwalker01 & David Bobier @vibrafusionlab - always there.
5 days remaining for Canada creatives to apply for our new leadership and coaching program this fall, ‘Sync Re-Ignite’ designed by and for Canadian visual/media artists for visual/media artists!
With all access provided so you can focus on your development and an online arts residency component to explore accessible curation within your work, this new program could be a gamechanger. We’re really hoping so and can’t wait to work with our 6 selected artists. So why don’t you apply to be one of them?
Deadline Monday 18th August, end of day. Go to www.syncleadership.com. Any questions: [email protected].
In this image from our Sync Re-Ignite promo, co-facilitators, Carmen Papalia and Louie Fermor talk about what the program will explore. Carmen who is described here as a non-visual social practice artist poses the question ‘what is the supportive context for our work?’
Calling all Canadian Deaf, visual/media artists & curators, there are 7 days remaining for you to apply for our new leadership and coaching program, ‘Sync Re-Ignite’ designed by and for Canadian visual/media artists and with exciting Deaf artist/leaders guesting from the UK and Canada in our October and November sessions.
Check out the ASL/LSQ video at www.syncleadership.com where our artist team give a sense of the program in more detail. Press the button through the orange Sync Re-Ignite tab to find out more.
You can apply in your preferred communication medium be that in sign or having a call with us. contact [email protected] You must apply by end of day, Mondahy April 18th – 7 days and counting..
Just over a week to apply for our disabled-led @syncthinking 3 month leadership and coaching program, ‘Sync Re-Ignite’ designed by and for Canadian visual/media artists.
How might time with visual/media crip artists help energise your leadership thinking in new ways and inspire new realms of disabled-led accessible practice and curation for yourself and others.
David Bobier has just written a wonderful testimony as to why Sync Re-Ignite, now Go to articles at syncleadership.com
Application is simple, written or in sign, just answer questions at the Sync Re-ignite button: www.syncleadership.com as to why Sync Re-ignite is right for you now, sharing your work with us and what you want to focus on in the online residency part of the program.
Deadline for applications is end of day Monday 18th August.
Calling Canadian Deaf, Disabled and Mad visual/media artists & curators. Just 3 weeks to go to get your application in for @syncthinking 3 month leadership and coaching program, ‘Sync Re-Ignite’ designed by and for Canadian visual/media artists.
The program runs over 6 sessions between September - December and has additional coaching, mentoring and an online arts residency focusing on accessible curation.
And all honed and held by a team of Sync artists, curators and associates.
Go to syncleadership.com for more info and apply to be one of our 6 Canadian artists.
Check out our project videos with audio description and ASL/LSQ. Deadline for applications 18th August.
So excited to shape and share our new @syncthinking 3month leadership and coaching program, ‘Sync Re-Ignite’ designed by and for Canadian visual/media artists.
The program runs over 6 sessions between September - December and has additional coaching, mentoring and an online arts residency focusing on accessible curation.
And all honed and held by a team of Sync artists, curators and associates.
Go to syncleadership.com for more info and apply to be one of our 6 artists.
Check out our project videos with audio description and ASL/LSQ. Deadline for applications 18th August.
So great to have launched syncingspace.org in hybrid livestream fashion in KL at British Council’s venue today alongside dear collaborator Armani Shahrin and her team Natasha and Azaad and crew @naksenidotcom.
This Spring Sync Shorts programme for visual artists with learning disability and/or autism was made possible through a @my_british Connections through Culture grant.
Collaborating online with artists Charlotte Stephens, Andi Miranti, Thompson Hall and Izzati Shahrin has been a delight.
So many pics, choosing just one is hard but such a joyful pic of VIPs and team here. But if this post does one thing is to urge you to go to the Syncingspace.org website, press ‘Exhibition’ and enjoy the leadership and artistry of these artists!
With thanks to @anthony_miranti @zurainu, Lisa Brown @actionspace, Katie Taylor and Patricia Finnegan @projectartworks, @coldharvcash for the beautiful films, @olipyle for the brill webs @sheep_films for the artistic collaboration @aneemaida for Mcing @ericacml and Flo for such warm hosting and @annilim for her illustration and amazing support throughout. Great to see @limanuar from Sync Singapore 2019 again.
