Write on Art Prize

A national writing competition designed to encourage an interest in art history among young people

Sally Shaw MBE

Sally has been Director of Firstsite, Colchester for the last seven years. With the team, she has delivered an exceptional turnaround programme realigning Firstsite with a highly creative and relevant purpose targeted at deploying art and culture as a means of addressing critical challenges in the community, such as deprivation, food poverty and inequity. Her focus on ground-up community collaboration, combined with exceptional quality contemporary art, has led Firstsite to be recognised nationally and internationally for the gallery’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and to win Art Fund Museum of the Year in 2021.

Sally is also a member of Arts Council England National Council and chairs the South East Area Board. Previously Sally was Head of Programme at Modern Art Oxford; Deputy Head of Culture for the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson; Chief Curator for London Underground; Director of Media Art – Bath; and Residency Programme Manager at Spike Island, Bristol. She has also established a number of independent projects and programmes including an artist residency programme in an open prison in Gloucestershire.

Enuma Okoro

Enuma Okoro is a Nigerian-American writer and cultural curator. Her research and writing interests include the visual and literary arts, contemplative eco-spirituality, intersectional feminist critical theory and the study of the human condition, and how we live. A weekly columnist for the Financial Times Weekend, “The Art of Life,” she also curates, moderates, and hosts public conversations with artists, writers, culture makers, spiritual practitioners, and thought leaders. She has written and edited four nonfiction books, her short story and poetry is published in anthologies, and her essays and articles have been featured in The New York Times, The Financial Times, Aeon, Vogue, The Cut, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s Bazaar, Artsy, Catapult, NYU Washington Review, The Guardian, The Washington Post, Essence, NPR, ABC’s Good Morning America, and other media outlets. Enuma was born in Manhattan, and raised in Cote d’Ivoire, England, North America and Nigeria.