Image by Nicola Golightly, drawn during a recent event organisation by a-n and Navigator North, where I spoke with Annie Rigby of Unfolding Theatre.
Welcome
This month’s newsletter focusses on creative resilience. As we enter another phase of uncertainty in the pandemic, and the other ongoing pandemic of social and political nonsense in many parts of the world, that feels about right. In the words of the immortal Merle Haggard: ‘If we make it through December we’ll be fine.’
You can listen to the audio version here or below.
Tactics for the Tightrope
Extract from Chapter Five: Creative Resilience and Resistance
Why resilience (still) matters
I want to start by thinking about some of the reasons I still think resilience matters, beginning with this quote:
“We recognise that the seeming paradox of change and stability inherent in evolving systems is the essence of sustainable futures. We now know that to counteract the current pathology we need policies that are dynamic and evolutionary. We need policies that expect results that are inherently uncertain and explicitly address that uncertainty through active probing, monitoring and response. However, we cannot successfully implement these new policies because we have not learned the politics and we ignore the public.”
This does not come from a cultural policy commentator hoping for a culture reset or a new normal or a bouncing back better post-Covid. It comes from the field of ecology, one of the founders of ‘resilience thinking’, C.S. ‘Buzz’ Holling. This, and other comments from the same article such as “The fundamental paradox is that change is essential, and yet stability is necessary” led me into an interest in the ideas relating to resilience in ecological and social systems. That innovation might be driven and embedded by moving through cycles of growth, consolidation, release and reorganisation. Providing the opportunity to build resilience to events without becoming defensive or static seemed to open up conceptual and practical possibilities for arts policy and practice.
Resilience matters because things need to change whilst sustaining the best of the how things are now. In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic has shown the vulnerabilities, inequities and costs of the kind of cultural sector which has evolved in the UK in the past, let’s say, 60 years. The combination of funded, commercial and socially-focused uses of arts and culture has led to a sector which super-serves the educated and the middle-classes, makes it hard for people from beyond those groups to work in them, let alone enjoy them, and in which the precarity and un(der)paid labour of freelancers and junior staff is baked-in. Some artists win big, many will earn less than £10,000 per year from their artwork. Freelancers also face low pay and lack of support. The creativity and culture of people who don’t often engage with either funded or commercial cultural activity is often overlooked or downplayed. Hierarchies of culture put certain sorts of music-making or writing in different boxes, say, with strict demarcations between professional and amateur, which bear little relation to actual earnings, or to the large amount of creativity shared informally, online or in local scenes or cultures. The pandemic lockdowns have been devastating on many people’s livelihoods, but they have also inspired the kind of considerations of what’s needed for a healthy ecology I was, in my own way, groping towards in my first writings about resilience. (One academic paper accused me of ‘subterfuge’ in that first try: this under-estimates my clumsiness and over-estimates my commitment to the status quo.)
The pandemic has been like someone turning the big light on at a teenage party: suddenly we can all see what’s been going on. My question, though, remains what it was in 2010: how do we best cultivate and sustain a resilient ecology or ecosystem for arts and culture in this country that can serve people well and equitably over lifetimes, and so has to be about more than sustainable financial models, whilst including those? How do we respond to the shock of the wakeup call, the big light blinding us, without stuffing everything into bin bags in a panic and then having to rebuild or rebuy some things later? These are ethical and practical questions, not ones of academic, definitional debate. My interest remains practical, for all I have – gratefully – drawn from theory and academic thinking.
THINKING /
Podcast interview with Sarah Fox
I recently had a really enjoyable conversation with coach Sarah Fox for her podcast ‘Do Good and Do Well’. She took the title - It wouldn’t do for us all to be the same - from something I remembered in answer to a question: something my Mum would say when I got on my high horse as a teenager (and later tbh). (My Mum liked a good saying - I think I took that, added some bookishness, and ended up with my love of epigraphs.)
Sarah picked up on my approach of sharing things I think might be useful to others without dictating what they do with them, and wondered where that came from. I also related it to seeing, experiencing and occasionally displaying certain kinds of funder-behaviour during my decade at Arts Council England. There is such a temptation - not exclusive to funders either - to demand people behave as we want them to, as you can see they ought. But this kind of parent-child dynamic leads only to frustration in my experience. Anyway, do give Sarah’s podcast a listen - loads of interesting folk on there. I think I may have given away about more about myself than I planned to.
Can events help build happy, thriving and more connected communities? A Spirit of 2012 Inquiry
A commonly sought and less frequently reported result of major events such as the Olympic and Paralympic Games or Cities of Culture is a boost in volunteering and through that people feeling better and more connected to their communities. However, some research suggest that is much harder to achieve than to aim for. A recent report from Spirit of 2012 quotes Sports England research that only 7% of volunteers at large sporting events go onto to volunteer in grassroots sport. While more than 85% of volunteers see benefits to well-being and community, they also see barriers, as does those not currently volunteering. Volunteering, as with many things, is - in the UK at least - a highly unequal pursuit.
A new inquiry has an open call for evidence of how events can help build happy, thriving and more connected communities, and how to maximise the positive social and economic impacts of events. You can find out more on the Spirit of 2012 website.
(Spirit is a charity established after the London Olympics and Paralympics, with an endowment from the Big Lottery Fund. It has funded sports, arts, volunteering and community projects, often related to major events - such as recent Cities of Culture. I currently do some of my volunteering on its Policy, Impact and Influencing Committee.)
/ PRACTICE
Tool: Creative Resilience Self-Assessment
Thinking about where you are strong, and where you are less so, is a useful start to many planning processes in almost any context: from running an organisation to forming and norming a network, or running a marathon or playing five-aside. This month’s tool is a basic self-assessment against the eight characteristics of creative resilience.
This is a basic building block activity for people working in organisations. It can be done very quickly and intuitively, or in more depth, and involve one or more people. It is most powerful when you bring people together to discuss it, as you will undoubtedly get a deeper understanding of your organisation’s strengths and weaknesses by comparing different perspectives. You can do it on your own, but it’s richer if you can bring together a team of staff and board members or trustees, and compare answers. (This is a really useful activity for an away day, for instance, though I think you can do something useful in hour.) Pay particular attention to discussing any areas where scores differ markedly. There may not be a right or wrong answer – but try and find out why you have different perspectives.
You will want to refer to the detailed descriptions of what you might see at organisational and sectoral levels in relation to the characteristics described in Chapter Five. As a summary reminder the eight characteristics fall into clusters: Resourcefulness and Creative Capabilities.
Resourcefulness
Culture of shared purpose and values
Predictable financial resources
Strong networks
Intellectual, human and physical assets
Creative Capabilities
Power and agency
Leadership, management and governance
Creative capacity
Situation awareness
Once you’ve thought through the self-assessment, as always, think what it suggests you should do - or not do.
Unfolding Theatre Free School Meals
The graphic at the top of this newsletter is a recording by Nic Golightly of Navigator North of an event I did with Annie Rigby of Unfolding Theatre last month. Annie spoke about a recent Unfolding project, in partnership with Northern Stage in Newcastle, called Free School Meals. Free School Meals was inspired by Marcus Rashford’s campaign to end child food poverty and co-created with over 50 children living in the Byker and Walker areas of Newcastle upon Tyne.
The video below gives a great flavour of the show and its intentions. It seems to me to be about resilience, and about finding your power and agency, no matter how old you are, and how far from hierarchical power. As Annie said ‘We wanted to make a show where children were powerful. Where children were in charge. Where they talk about the change they want to see in the world. This show is about believing that the world can be better. About not accepting the things we know are not good enough.’
This is, in its way, very much what I mean when I talk about resilience as resistance.
(I should probably also say I am a trustee of Unfolding Theatre, and very proud to be so.)
Multiplying Leadership Questions
Although the Multiplying Leadership frame came from a different part of my work than creative resilience, there are obvious connections. This month’s questions relate to something I have drawn out more than in my earlier work: the power we have, and how we use it. Put ten minutes aside for thinking about these questions, and what your answers suggest you should do, stop doing or do more of.
Adj. POWERFUL
What power do you have that you are not using, or not well enough?
How could you help others find or use their own power?
When do you feel at your most powerful?
Upcoming Events
7th-9th December Creative People and Places Conference (online)
I’ll be exploring themes from Tactics for the Tightrope with Annabel Turpin (Arc), Gavin Barlow (The Albany), Leila D’Aronville (North East Cultural Freelancers) and Ryan Calais Cameron (Nouveau Riche Theatre) at the Creative People and Places conference.
TACTICS TOMATO #5
Something of a resilience-themed pomodoro playlist this month. There’s more to creative resilience than keeping on, but if it’s good enough for Curtis Mayfield, it’s good enough for me. Ends with something, er, old school: when artists dreamt of getting paid in full… Also includes my personal theme tune, provided by Field Music: them that do nothing make no mistakes.
Just one more thing…
Here’s a picture of one of the neon works made from poems Stellar Projects commissioned from me as part of their Nightfall event in Stewart’s Park, Middlesbrough. There will be more pictures, and maybe some of the poems , in a bonus Xmas Special newsletter before the end of the year.