Showbiz | Celebrity News I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice . The first black woman to be elected to the Royal Academy of Arts has said creative skills are “integral to everyday life” as she received her damehood at Windsor Castle.
Speaking to the PA news agency following an investiture ceremony carried out by the Prince of Wales , Dame Sonia Boyce said she wanted to use her profile to continue advocating for the arts. Dame Sonia is a professor of black art and design at University of the Arts London and was elected to the royal academy in 2016. So I feel very privileged - slightly shocked still - to be in this position and also to be an advocate for the arts Dame Sonia Boyce She said: “It’s (the damehood) a recognition of work that not only myself have done but has been done over the decades to just acknowledge and, I suppose, reward the contributions that many have done.
“So I feel very privileged – slightly shocked still – to be in this position and also to be an advocate for the arts. “We so need that at the moment – the arts are just incredible, they’re not an add on, they’re integral to everyday life. “The arts is really about if you’ve got something to say, or you’re envisaging something you’re in a dialogue with everybody about it, and so it really is about ‘Come and take part, come and add to the conversation, come and dream your dreams’.
” Dame Sonia was honoure.
