Para Site Code of Conduct & Sexual Harassment Policy

Para Site is dedicated to nurturing a respectful, dignified, and friendly work environment, free of harassment and violence; preventing and prohibiting sexual or any other unlawful harassment, and resolving complaints of sexual or any other unlawful harassment; providing a harassment-free experience at our exhibitions, programmes, residencies, conferences, workshops, and online events for everyone, regardless of gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, age, marital status, and/or religion and do not tolerate harassment of Para Site staff, collaborators, or visitors in any form.

We are cognisant of the fact that the professions of the arts are structured on patriarchal lines that have thus far fostered a system of patronage and privilege which raises issues of sexual harassment in these spaces. This can lead to heavy professional and personal consequences.

Para Site is committing to the following definitions and measures.

Harassment includes, but is not limited to:

  • Quid pro quo, when a job benefit such as a pay rise, a promotion, or even continued employment, or other forms of collaboration (such as collaboration between artists and galleries) is made conditional on acceding to demands to engage in some form of sexual behaviour,
  • Verbal comments related to gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, age, marital status, religion,
  • Deliberate intimidation, stalking, or following,
  • Harassing photography or recording,
  • Sustained disruption of talks or other events,
  • Inappropriate physical contact,
  • Unwelcome sexual advances or unwelcome request for sexual favours.

Absence of explicit objection to inappropriate behaviour does not amount to consent. Inappropriate behaviour can constitute sexual harassment or any other unlawful harassment even if it is a one-off incident, the person engaging in the behaviour does not intend for the other person to be offended, humiliated or intimidated, some people in the workplace are not offended by the behaviour, and/or the behaviour was previously an accepted practice at the workplace.

Enforcement

All Para Site staff members are expected to comply with this Code of Conduct and any non-compliance may result in disciplinary action.

Collaborators or visitors violating this Code of Conduct may be expelled from the exhibition, programme, residency, conference, workshop, or online event at the discretion of Para Site. Collaborators or visitors asked to stop any harassing behaviour are expected to comply immediately. Para Site may take any action to redress anything designed to, or with the clear impact of, disrupting our exhibitions, programmes, residencies, conferences, workshops, and online events or making the environment hostile for any participants.

At your request, our team can assist you to feel safe for the duration of the relevant activities. We value your right to a harassment-free experience.

Reporting

The violation of this Code of Conduct and any other policy on harassment reduces the value of our activities for everyone. We want you to feel happy and safe at all of our exhibitions, programmes, residencies, conferences, workshops, and online events.

If someone makes you or anyone else feel unsafe or unwelcome or if you are being harassed, please report it to us as soon as possible.

A report/complaint can be made in the following ways:

  • By filling in an online report here; or
  • By contacting Kelly Ma (the ‘Responsible Officer’) in person or via telephone at +852 2517 4620 from 12-7pm HKT Monday – Friday. Other members of staff may be involved to ensure your report is managed properly. Once safe, we will ask you to tell us about what happened. This can be traumatic, but we will handle it with respect and care. You will not be asked to confront anyone.

Note: It is possible to file an anonymous report, but we cannot follow up with you directly, but we will investigate it and take whatever action we consider to be appropriate.

Once we receive a complaint, the Responsible Officer will promptly conduct a preliminary inquiry. We will do our very best, to the extent possible, to keep any investigation confidential and to only disclose it to our staff members on a strictly need-to-know basis in order to ensure that we are able to conduct an adequate investigation and take appropriate action.

If the Responsible Officer considers that the complaint requires further investigation, they will inform the Deputy Director or Executive Director/Curator, as appropriate, of the complaint. They will then investigate the complaint by taking any steps they consider appropriate and necessary. Where the alleged harasser is an employee or a collaborator, the alleged harasser may be interviewed and be allowed to present their own case.

At the conclusion of our investigation, we will take such preventive or remedial measures (which may include reporting the incident to the relevant law enforcement bodies) as we consider appropriate to address the matter.

We would like to assure you that we take this responsibility very seriously. Our code of conduct is not meant to offend anyone who does not plan to offend others. And it should not get in the way of us all having a perfectly wonderful time together.

We look forward to seeing you at Para Site!