David Powell obituary

By NJ Ewbank • July 2, 2026 • Culture

Other lives: Leading light in the arts charity Inter-Action who went on to form his own consultancy and to influence arts policy

My friend and former colleague, David Powell, who has died aged 78, was, for a quarter of a century from 1968 onwards, the backbone of Inter-Action – one of the most influential arts, education and development charities of its time. If its mercurial founder-director Ed Berman was the front legs, David said, then he was the back legs of the Inter-Action pantomime horse. During David’s time there Inter-Action spawned, among other things, the City Farms movement, the Weekend Arts College, a menagerie of arts buses, and spin-off projects in several counties. The Inter-Action centre in London’s Kentish Town, the construction of which David oversaw, was of the UK’s first purpose-built community arts and resource centre. David began working for Inter-Action at weekends in 1968, while still a student, moving on to become a full-time worker on graduation the following year. In the early years he took on many roles – performer, theatre games workshop leader, trainer and youth leader. From the early 1970s until leaving employment with the charity in 1986, he was finance director. He became a trustee in 1987 and Inter-Action’s chair from 1990 to 1992. On leaving his job at Inter-Action David joined the community development team at London Docklands Development Corporation. He worked there until 1991, when he formed his own consultancy, DPA, which went on to play a vital role in the development of the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, the Institute of New International Visual Arts (INIVA), Stratford Circus, Derby Quad and many other projects. David served as chair of Greater London Arts from 1990 to 1992, seeing the funding agency through its difficult transition into becoming London Arts Board. For 10 years from 1998 he chaired Camden Arts Centre. DPA produced several reports on the scale and potential of the UK creative economy that fed into the Blair government’s economic plans, and in addition provided the inaugural briefing on culture for the first mayor of London, Ken Livingstone. In 2013, with Christopher Gordon and Peter Stark, David wrote a report, Rebalancing Our Cultural Capital, on the persistent inequities in England’s arts funding that is still influencing the national conversation today. Born in London, David was the son of Jean (nee Walker), a nurse, and Benedict Powell, a paediatrician, and he grew up in Werrington, near Peterborough. He went to the King’s school, Canterbury, and then Selwyn College, Cambridge, where he studied history, graduating in 1969. That same summer he met his partner, Harriet (also Powell), a musician who went on to become musical director of Spare Tyre theatre company and a music therapist. David was a marathon runner, an explorer of wild places and a cold-water swimmer. In 2015 he and Harriet left London to begin a new life in the village of Ogmore-by-Sea in the Vale of Glamorgan. Last year, his book Pulling Together, about his years at Inter-Action, was published. He is survived by Harriet, their sons, Sam and Tom, and their grandchildren Eva, Ezra and Lilwen.

Source: The Guardian