Sky partners with national art education project, The World Reimagined

• The World Reimagined is a national art education project that aims to transform our understanding of the Transatlantic Slave Trade and its impact on all of us.
• Sky has provided early funding for the project.
• Financial support forms part of Sky’s wider commitment to help tackle racial injustice.

Sky has become the Official Presenting Partner of The World Reimagined, a new national art education project that aims to transform people’s understanding of the Transatlantic Slave Trade and its impact on all of us. The project will launch on the 27 May 2021 with an online event.

The World Reimagined will bring trails of large globe sculptures to cities across the UK throughout May, June, and July of 2022. The installations of sculptures will be created by artists who will bring to life the reality and impact of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, and the installations will be part of a wider learning and engagement programme.

Sky’s funding forms part of its broader commitments to help tackle racial injustice. Sky is investing £10 million per year across its markets through to 2023 to support anti-racism and improve diversity and inclusion. The World Reimagined project crosses two of Sky’s priorities; using the power of Sky’s voice and platform to highlight racial injustice and making a difference in communities impacted by racism.

In January 2021, Sky set ambitious targets to increase ethnic diversity and representation across its UK workforce. By 2025, Sky is aiming for 20% of their employees in the UK & Ireland to be from Black, Asian, or ethnically diverse backgrounds, with at least a quarter of these being Black. This target also applies to Sky’s leadership team.

Denise Peart, Sky’s Chief Talent, Diversity and Inclusion Officer said:

“The World Reimagined will be a valuable resource for those looking to explore our history and we’re delighted to support them on their road to 2022.

“We’re committed to using Sky’s voice as a force for good and The World Reimagined is one of the ways we’re doing that. We’re excited to see where The World Reimagined’s thinking takes them, and how they deliver their vision for this educational programme up and down the country.”

Michelle Gayle, Co-Founder of The World Reimagined said:

“We are absolutely delighted to have Sky onboard as our Official Presenting Partner – supporting us in bringing the vision and plans of The World Reimagined to life in cities across the UK. This is a really meaningful partnership that will help us create spaces for all to come together in dialogue to think about how we can make racial justice a reality in our society. We look forward to working together.”

The World Reimagined launch event will take place virtually on Thursday, 27 May 2021 at 19.00-20.00. Click here to register your attendance.

For further information please contact:

• Sky: Jessica Bihari, Jessica.bihari@sky.uk
• The World Reimagined: Ella Phillips, ella.phillips@theworldreimagined.org

About Sky

Sky is Europe’s leading media and entertainment company and is proud to be part of the Comcast group. Across six countries, we connect our 23.4 million customers to the best entertainment, sports, news and arts including our own award-winning original content.

Our technology, including the market leading Sky Q, connects people to everything they love – with entertainment from Sky TV, Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video and BBC iPlayer, and apps like Spotify, YouTube, BBC Sounds, Highbrow, Peloton, Fiit, and more, in one place, easy. Our streaming service NOW brings viewers all the enjoyment of Sky with the flexibility of a contract-free service. Through our new B2B broadband provider, Sky Connect, we offer superfast broadband with business-grade 4G back-up to small businesses in the UK.

Building on the success of Sky Originals like Chernobyl, Gangs of London and Brassic, we are doubling our investment in original content by 2024 through Sky Studios. Sky News provides impartial and trustworthy journalism for free, Sky Arts is the UK’s only dedicated free-to-air arts channel making the arts accessible for everyone and Sky Sports, our leading sports broadcasting service, brings customers some of the biggest and best global sporting events from the Premier League to Formula 1 and everything in-between. Our new TV and movie studio, Sky Studios Elstree, which will open in 2022, is expected to create over 2,000 new jobs and generate an additional £3 billion of production investment in the UK over the first five years.

We believe that we can be a force for good in the communities in which we operate. We’re committed to being Europe’s first net zero carbon entertainment company by 2030 and we’re proud to be a Principal Partner and Media Partner of COP26. We take pride in our approach to diversity and inclusion: we’ve been recognised by The Times and Stonewall for our commitment to diversity and we’ve set ambitious 2025 targets to continue to increase diversity and representation. We’re also committed to investing £30million across our markets over three years to improve our approach to diversity and inclusion, and to tackle racial injustice.

About The World Reimagined – www.theworldreimagined.org

The World Reimagined is a ground-breaking, national art education project to transform how we understand the Transatlantic Slave Trade and its impact on all of us.

For too long, the history of the Transatlantic Slave Trade has been untold, mistaught or misrepresented. In the UK, we celebrate with pride the Trade’s abolition - but the people who were enslaved and their descendants; Britain’s role in the Trade’s creation; and the Trade’s devastating legacy are usually missing from how history is told. This is not ‘Black History’, this is all of our history.

We are living in a key moment for racial justice. It calls on us to courageously face our shared history with honesty, empathy and grace, so we can create a new future in which all can say:

“I am seen.” That is the mission of The World Reimagined.

The World Reimagined will see trails of large Globe sculptures in cities across the UK in May-July of 2022, created by artists to bring to life the reality and impact of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. The trails will be the centre of a broader learning and engagement programme - with hundreds of schools, community groups, sporting and cultural institutions taking part across the country.​

The World Reimagined is a vibrant project that will inspire pride in what it means to be Black and British and help us all better understand what it means to be British.

The World Reimagined is a not-for-profit company (#12501914). We are a charitable project and restricted fund under the auspices of Prism The Gift Fund (www.prismthegiftfund.co.uk; charity #1099682).