My time as a trustee at the National Portrait Gallery

My whole life has been dedicated to understanding people and society through art and creativity. Studying History of Art and Theology provided me with the basis of understanding how people’s minds work, why people need ritual, belief and community and the importance of representation for one’s own sense of belonging. As a filmmaker I continually reflect and develop ways to express how people represent themselves and we interact. My love of portraiture stems from this fascination with people’s behaviour and how portraiture is a way artists show their relevance and purpose in the world. So when, in 2016 I noticed the opportunity to be a trustee of a national institution that focused on British portraiture I was immediately drawn to it.

I invited to Chocolate Films neighbour; the then, US Embassy Cultural Attaché, Kim Dubois to attend the Private View of ‘Michael Jackson: On the Wall’

When I was first appointed to to the National Portrait Gallery, my son was only 2 years old. I used to push him around the gallery in his buggy whilst I explored the rich collection. When I looked around the collection, I was invigorated by the potential for bringing the stories of the people in the portraits to life. The interpretation for visitors was then very minimal and so you really had to want to investigate the subjects in order to find out their stories. At the time, the gallery was also in need of a major makeover. It had not be refurbished for 30 years and the permanent collection was largely devoid of female sitters and people of colour. The first couple of years of my trusteeship saw me hosting a table at the Portrait Awards, going on an away day to our chairs newly built opera house Nevill Holt and attending the private view of the Michael Jackson exhibition. The then Director, Nick Cullinan was interested in pop culture and wanted to experiment with the exhibition offer at the Gallery. As part of the Jackson experience, there was even a screening of ‘the Wiz’, where Diana Ross plays Dorothy in an all black cast of my preferred version of the Wizard of Oz.

As Digital Trustee I was tasked with assessing how to bring the gallery into the 21st century. This was no small undertaking. Any of my fellow trustees will tell you, that I always have a multitude of ideas and alot of enthusiasm. One of them was to start the gallery’s Instagram account. At the time, the board were sceptical about why a national institution needed to integrate digital into its systems. Before the pandemic, the consensus of national museums and galleries were still incredibly analogue, believing that digital was a bit of a fade that interfered with the high standards of a traditional cultural venue.

This week, April 2025, I end my 8 year tenure as a Board member with the gallery’s lnstagram having over 1 million followers and growing. We recently even started the gallery’s own Tiktok account and today we have over 10 thousand followers. The newly transformed physical gallery today hosts an array of interactive digital experiences. It is a joy to see this progression and reflect of the dedication and hard work and persistence it has taken to bring this to fruition.

Since 2017, I have pioneered for digital within the galleries permanent collection. One positive knock on affect of the pandemic is that it fast tracked the inclusion and acceptable of digital into the arts and heritage sector. I continue to advocate that when it comes to interpretation, digital is a perfect tool to introduce and inform visitors about a portrait, its sitter(s); their life; the artist and the society that lived in. Digital is a game changer for visitors who often feel intimidated by lack of knowledge and not inclined to want to ask for information that they feel they should probably know.

Digital like AI are new innovations that challenge the status quo. It is understandable that existing systems find new systems hard to comprehend and therefore hard to integrate. Chairman of the Trustees, David Ross, understood this and in 2018 was open to the idea of a dedicated Digital Advisory group being set up to discuss and open up these possibilities to the institutes, executive and non executive leads. As chairperson, I was tasked with leading the conversation and navigating this opportunities into the existing organisational system. One key focus for me to to inspire the executive and non executive to better understand that digital and AI are tools that offer us new multiple possibilities to explore, discover and enrich our experience of the portraits, the sitters, the culture and history and the techniques used.

Bringing the digital knowledge and expertise of Chocolate Films to National Portrait Gallery. My wonderful Chocolate Films team with Dr Flavia Frigeri and Nick Cullinan.

In order to be a relevant place for the public to digest the Arts, AI, QR codes, video, audio and virtual reality are hugely effective tools make the National Portrait Gallery’s collection accessible. One wonderful example now in the permanent collection is the digitisation of the Westminster Tournament Roll.

It is in the Tudor gallery on the 2nd floor. This digital display literally brings to life the royal festivities that happened over 500 years ago, when this tournament was staged to celebrate the birth of King Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon’s son Henry, Duke of Cornwall. Over my time as a trustee my production company and social business was able to gift videos as part of the Tacita Dean PORTRAIT exhibition in 2018, create content to support in the celebration of 20 years of the National Portrait Gallery’s Membership exhibition and programme that Pim Baxter OBE run so successfully.

Chairman, David Ross on one of our many visits to the building site of the National Portraits Gallery under re-construction.

With COVID the world’s understanding of the importance of digital transformed forever. The National Portrait Gallery responded with a digital engagement project; Hold Still that empowered people in the UK to be part of a digital community. Photographs were shared with us to showcase the public’s collective experience of lockdown. It was a very proud moment for me when the gallery won several awards for this digital gallery, with over 31,000 submissions, this digital project brought so many people together to understand the importance of portraiture. Collective engagement projects within the Arts are such a brilliant way to form community and a human portrait of society. I continue to do this through my work at Chocolate Films and as the Creative Director of a digital public engagement documentary project, 1000Londoners. www.1000londoners.com

From the outside, it is really difficult to realise the huge amount of work from so many committed people that goes into the re-build and rehang of a gallery. There are over 200 staff members, 16 trustees, the builders, architects, designers, project managers and still I was personally heavily involved in reviewing all of the digital interpretation and video content to make sure we were all ready for the big day; 22 June 2023.

With the intense workload of preparing for the opening, the Digital Advisory Group disbanded and I was invited to be on the Curatorial Committee. This was a perfect move for my experience with digital and my passion for incorporating a more balanced and honest perspective into British portraiture. Within this committee, digital became interwoven with the work the curators did on a daily basis. Curators are the gallery began to understand the positive and effective impact the use of digital could have in enhancing their research and ability to communicate their wealth of knowledge to the nation; essentially their obligation as a national institution. The Curatorial Committee also enabled me to get to know a brilliant team of excellent minds, Simon Sebag Montifore, Shearer West, Jonny Yeo, Peter Stothard. As celebrated writers and experts in their fields, I felt I had found my ideal place to enable change. Working closely alongside these creative, learned passionate people also felt exciting. Though some of our views were different, debating and discussing interpretation at this level was transformational for the gallery’s development and my own enjoyment!

National Portrait Gallery Curatorial Committee 2022-2025; from left to right: Jonny Yeo, Shearer Carroll West, Peter Stotard, Rachel Wang & Simon Sebag Montefiore

One theme that came up again and again was how people of colour are celebrated in the gallery. This came to the forefront of conversations in the aftermath of George Floyd’s brutal murder at the hands of racist people in power. The gallery needed to reevaluate the way in which it has dealt with cultural diversity in its spaces. Much of Britain’s wealth derives from the enslavement of people 400 years ago - how should the gallery address this on its walls and in its interpretation?

In the 2010s this was not really an area of expertise for me. There was hardly any representation of people of colour in the permanent collection then. Progress in revisiting conventions has been made. Today you can view Frederick Douglass by Elizabeth Peyton within the permanent collection, Polynesian Omai has been acquired and celebrated and there is a small digital display that hosts the likes of Sara Forbes Bonetta and Olaudah Equiano. There is a tapestry by black british artist, Michael Armitage on the ground floor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urSisqyRk2c

My trusteeship at the National Portrait Gallery forced me to learn, acknowledge and become a voice of knowledge in this fascinating though contentious area. In the archives of the gallery there are representations of how Britain’s wealthy treated people of colour during a time when enslaving black people was considered acceptable. By being of the curatorial committee I was able to question areas that others would not necessarily see as problematic; like the word slave which I was able to remove from our interpretation to the more fitting ‘enslaved’ to describe people that was tortured and trafficked by the British Empire. When decolonising our national institutions, digital is a very effective tool in enabling us to reimagine our British history from different viewpoints. It enables us to add layers of interpretation to the traditional perspectives we have been led to understand as the only truth.

National Portrait Gallery Trustees and Executive Directors in Spring 2022, a few weeks before the reopening of the Gallery

This debate will continue long after I leave. I stand behind DCMS and the brilliant work they continue to do to raise awareness for BAME industry leaders to apply for trusteeship roles so that different perspectives can further shape and enhance our institutions responsibility and in doing so reduce collective amnesia. I am interested to see how progress will be made in this area of portraying remarkable BAME people in Britain’s history for our 21st century population.

As I leave my position at trustee I am so proud to see the rebalancing of the permanent collection with more remarkable women in history being acknowledged and celebrated.

Since the reopening the gallery has gone from strength to strength. When you visit you will notice a contemporary young woman on the phone in the foyer by Thomas J Price another testament of the digital experience becoming centre stage at the National Portrait Gallery. Though there are many omissions in the history of colonisation, when looking at the interpretation, there are more areas of balanced multi perspective views and open ended questions instead of fixed statements.

Tracey Emin’s doors incorporating 45 bronze drawings of women formally opened to the public. These collection of every woman panels was also inspired by a community workshops.

At the reopening of National Portrait Gallery June 2023 with celebrated British artist, Tracey Emin.

One defining moment for the gallery’s rebalancing of women in the gallery was the brilliant partnership with Channel’s Culture Fund, Reframing Narratives: Women in Portraiture. This enhanced the representation of women in the National Portrait Gallery’s Collection and highlight the often-overlooked stories of individual women who have shaped British history and culture. Two of the many incredible women artists that now feature in the permanent gallery are Jann Haworth and Liberty Blake for their the group portrait ‘Work in Progress’. This seven-panel mural, was produced with women across the UK and in the US, and portrays 130 historical and contemporary women, who have made significant contributions to British history and culture in varying fields of endeavour and at different times. I even made my own contribution, smack in the centre of the group portrait - an image of the black British astronomer, Maggie Aderin Pocock.

Maggie Aderin-Pocock and Rachel Wang at the opening party of National Portrait Gallery June 2023.

Now that my son is 10, I am thrilled to take him around the gallery and show him a more balanced representation of women that have shaped Britain over the years. From Malala, the iconic green dress of Christabel Pankhurst.

Of course there continues to be an array of fascinating and important white men in the the gallery. Some of my favourites include the very first portrait No. 1 in the permanent collection, Shakespeare. It interests me that this may not really be Shakespeare. Known as the Chandos Portrait, the identity of the first ever portrait in the National Portrait Gallery is one that scholars have also claimed to be Sir Thomas Overbury. When thinking of interpretation, perspectives and beliefs of what is true, this underlines the grey area and richness of representation and the alludes to the danger of trying to fix it into one idea of what is accurate when there are often different equally valid interpretations to always be considered. Another brilliant portrait is of the 18th century transvestite, Chevelier d’Eon. Not only was he able to be trans in this time, but he was a celebrated swordsman adored by the court and the King, his identity was not only accepted it was greatly reowned; something we can learn from today.

The storyboard style of the less well known portrait of Sir Henry Unton 1596 also intrigues me. It provides a full illustration of the life and death of Sir Henry in a pictorial manner not dissimilar to biopics films created today. The dashing Bryon and enticing John Donne as portraits I go and visit regularly; both weighted in such rich celebrated literature; their mood and passion that come from their portraits provide a intoxicating urge to re-read their work.

The likes of Oswald Mosley still hang confidently in the permanent collection, as the founder of the British Union of Fascists; surely we need a wall of evil people in the gallery! Or maybe he should find a new home deep in the archives with the rest of the 80,000 portraits not hung in the current permanent collection?