Page Title page AREVA REPORT A Knowledge Exchange Report on Anti-Racism and Equity in the Visual Arts in London for CVAN London and Iniva By Jack Ky Tan Jan 2023 ________________ Contents Summary page 2 Background page 3 Approach page 4 Context page 7 Data page 13 Future page 26 Jackfruit page 29 ________________ Summary This report is one outcome of a knowledge exchange that scoped the needs and experiences of arts institutions in Contemporary Visual Arts Network (CVAN) London. It responds to the question, "What does an anti-racist institution look like?" Led by artist Jack Ky Tan, it takes an Art Practice as Research methodology, and is informed by new materialism and postcolonial theory. The research comprised two facilitated roundtable discussions among CVAN members, and identified nine forces that form the context of institutional practice. The nine forces identified are: Teleology, Exclusion, Precarity, Language, White Fragility/Allyship, Power, Lines of Accountability, Neo-Utilitarianism, Neo-Liberalism. The data from the conversations have also been organised according to various topics that emerged, and presented as poetic text in order to capture the active sense of creative knowledge generation at the roundtables. This format also allows space for the data itself to be open to multiple connections and layers of meaning. The emerging topics were: Time, Talk, Lived Experience, Intersectionality, Criteria, Dismantle, Change, and Build. The report concludes with suggested practical steps and a recommendation for the creation of an anti-racist and equitable research and development scheme. Finally, a workbook of organisational performance scores is appended to this report. These are devised to enact a disrupting of the exclusionary, racist, othering and command-and-control ways of thinking that are normalised in institutions, and to cultivate equity as a working perspective and practice in organisations. This is a work-in-progress document that invites institutions to devise and contribute their own interruptions. ________________ Background In recent years the visual arts sector has seen increasing numbers of complaints and incidences of whistleblowing around racism, highlighting the urgent need for a sector-wide anti-racist response. In 2021 Arts Council England funded the Contemporary Visual Arts Network (CVAN) in collaboration with the Institute of International Visual Arts (Iniva) to begin exploring how to establish anti-racism and equity in the visual arts. The commission is in two parts: this knowledge exchange report, the result of a conversations between CVAN London members; and a companion piece of research among artists led by artist Larry Achiampong. The knowledge exchange roundtables opened a safe and confidential space for the institutional members of CVAN London, and scoped their needs and experiences around tackling and experiencing racism and inequality. This research responds to the question, "What does an anti-racist institution look like?", and seeks to create a foundation of knowledge from which further action, trust and conversation can build. There were two roundtables that were held on 21 and 22 July 2022 and each lasted approximately 3 hours. Members from the CVAN London network were invited to attend and 25 participated across the two days. Participants represented a range of small, medium and large organisations from across London. ________________ Approach My practice uses organisations and legal structures as medium, and as such, organisational change, development and restructuring also become forms of sculpting, poetics, and performativity. It is on this basis that I regarded CVAN itself and the arts landscape as fabric, through which I speculate the potentials and possibilities of this material. As a visual artist-researcher, I have also taken an 'Art Practice as Research' methodology in this knowledge exchange. This means two things. Firstly it foregrounds how artists know and do things as the main way of researching social or policy issues. Secondly, it appreciates that vital forms knowledge available in the data are only accessible within an artistic register or through the creation of artworks. My work is informed by new materialist and postcolonial writing. New materialism understands that reality is created out of difference. Systems are not created through resolving the differences, but by manifesting and holding differences together as multiple entangled truths. This report is further informed by postcolonial thinking and Black studies scholarship, particularly Sylvia Wynter's critique that from the Western Enlightenment onwards, knowledge has being formed in the image of the European man. In particular, Wynter reveals that rational and linear thinking has been used as a way to justify colonial oppression. Therefore this lays down the challenge for us to reimagine and invent differential, diverse and inclusive knowledge systems, perspectives and approaches through which we can recreate art institutions. This report also brings together two different forms of knowing: policy and art, i.e. rational and creative thinking. It presents research data as both analytic and poetic/artistic insight, and invites the reader to find the value in each as well as in what emerges between the two. While participants' words were gathered as data and handled according to research ethics principles, I was alert to how these words transcended the functionality of social ________________ research data. Our conversations in this knowledge exchange were not only reports of participant beliefs and experiences for analysis; they were manifestations of new relationships, emergent states and a collective will that deserves to be honoured. As such, the knowledge gained from are presented in this report as follows: The Context section sets out a summary of how the participants described the way the visual arts sector in London operates. It presents their perspectives in a reporting style. Drawn from an analysis of all the participant conversations, it is an account of what forces are at play across the sector, and how they impact on people involved in the visual arts. These forces also form the ethical, political, social and economic context within which we had our knowledge exchange discussions. The Data section presents data arranged according to themes that arose from the conversations. Verbatim quotations are weaved into poetic writing that reinforces, juxtaposes, opens up or questions the verbatim data. This section not only provides evidence of what people said, it also captures the sense of creative problem-solving and generative thinking on the day. The Future section concludes this report with speculations on possible further actions and research, along with my own recommendation of what the Arts Council could consider in future planning. The Jackfruit appendix is a set of organisational performance scores that represent the participants' desire and willingness to experiment and change. The scores invite organisations and readers to continue to challenge themselves, and to disrupt normative organisational practices and mindsets. ________________ There were two main reflective exercises in the roundtables. You might find it useful to do these exercises yourselves in your organisations. Exercise 1: Categories of racism As a starting point for us to explore the complexities of racism and to get us into a headspace to think about this topic, let's consider 4 descriptors for racism that has evolved in UK law and policy over time: * Direct Racism * Indirect Racism * Institutional Racism * Structural/Systemic Racism Think of examples of incidents, policies or cases for each of these categories. Spend time brainstorming and then discuss: * These categories and what they exclude; * How much of this describes our sector; and * How can we navigate this? Exercise 2: anti-racist organisations Working in small groups, discuss: * What would a culture of anti-racism look like in an organisation? * How can an organisation practically go about implementing this, in operational, bureaucratic and governance practices? * What are resources needed to achieve this? ________________ Context In the visual arts sector, various forces operate which characterise the dynamics of racism, and help or hinder the development of anti-racist organisational cultures. The knowledge exchange roundtables showed awareness of nine main forces at work in participants' daily work as well as the fact that these forces also operated as the context for conversations at the roundtables themselves. The nine forces identified (so far) are: * Teleology * Exclusion * Precarity * Language * White Fragility/Allyship * Power * Lines of Accountability * Neo-Utilitarianism * Neo-Liberalism This is the ethical cosmos in which CVAN London members operate. It colours and controls how they understand their space, programming and operations. These contextual forces were derived from participants' comments and sharing and indicate what may be important to address in the bigger picture. Group members were also aware of their opposites. ________________ Teleology Teleology is the belief that things can (and often should) be explained and justified by their ends or ultimate purpose/goal. Participants recognised that the sector wanted to find a way of solving the problem of racism, ostensibly a teleological desire. However, they expressed the opinion that anti-racism and equity has no fixed end point; there is no moment at which an institution can say 'job done'. For them, there is no utopia of anti-racism where "at the end of [a project or training] we’re suddenly not a racist organisation anymore". Instead, anti-racism should be regarded as a continual organisational practice of changing and maintaining equitable habits and mindsets. One participant said that "it’s about changing both those policies, but also ensuring that those individuals are going to abide by them". Like developing new muscle memory, equity involves undoing discriminatory cultural habits that have already been built up, and developing new habits of alertness and change. Exclusion The forces of racist exclusion don’t fit neatly into the legal definitions of direct, indirect, institutional and systemic racism. They are hard to articulate, and often cannot be categorised, even when the overarching system in which arts institutions operate demands it. In this sense, the demand to identify, diagnose and deal with racism misunderstands its nature and can itself become a form of exclusion and barrier to anti-racism. Participants articulated that a conceptual or policy understanding of racism is a different dimension to its lived experience. Those who are not people of colour may only recognise or feel the effects of exclusionary forces when a crisis happens. ________________ Precarity Many people live precarious, contingent lives and many organisations have precarious, contingent prospects because of how racist exclusionary forces work in systematic, habitual and normalised ways in the daily life of arts organisations. This results in a pervasive sense of insecurity, lack of hope, and a dynamic of dread around how arts organisations survive. As one participant put it: “there’s a lot of people there who are having like constant feelings of insecurity without much positive hope.” Language What underpins the whole conversation about racism and anti-racism is the function and failure of language. As categories, names and labels evolve, the use and misuse around words reveal a cynicism about language and a widening of the semiotic gap between form and meaning in words. Language becomes both the vehicle and the barrier. Participants continually learn what codes of language are currently in use, often having to navigate how those codes limit or oppress the stakeholders they are supposed to be helping. By the time those forms of language reach national policy level, arts organisations find they are using blunt tools for highly refined interpersonal work: “it’s those kind of subtleties and complexities that…underpin everything we’re talking about…the bluntness, and the crudeness of the Arts Council language ________________ White Fragility/Allyship Language has the effect of not only excluding people of colour but also of generating fear amongst white people. The participants face questions of how and when to speak up. They recognised their own white fragility, and perhaps also that of their audiences or stakeholders: “I’ve been in situations before where there’s a sense of like not feeling that you can voice, because you’re not a person of colour”. The participants identified a need to find a platform and process through which everyone can speak openly in a caring and accountable way, and that moves people from fear and fragility to solidarity and allyship. Power The participants operate within, and rely upon, complex power structures in their organisations. They also recognise how those structures support exclusionary racist practices. Many acknowledge how the formal corporate models of company or charity produce rigid pyramid organisational dynamics, darwinian survival-based hierarchies, and modes of power-holding: “we need to rethink or remodel institutions and how they operate and how power is held”. ________________ Lines of Accountability Along with hierarchical food chains, other lines of governance and accountability operate as racist forces within arts organisations. Participants identified that governance in their arts organisations is rooted in modes of categorisation and calculation. They recognise that these modes feel incompatible with the inherent humanity of their daily work and the issues that concern their artists and audiences. Evaluative processes (from curating to risk assessment) are underpinned by a sensibility of audit that sometimes feels incongruous and oppressive. Consequently, the way an arts organisation has to communicate the complexity and its lived reality within the linearity and rationalisations of corporate governance can often feel inadequate and absurd: “we work with artists with learning disabilities…so…it requires us to make assumptions when we’re filling in those details…their social economic monitoring is absolutely ridiculous, it took us about half an hour to understand what the categories were". Neo-utilitarianism Utilitarianism is an ethical doctrine stipulating that actions or decisions should be made to bring the greatest happiness to the greatest number of people. It is a form of 'numbers game' or majority-rule thinking that is often at odds with the idea of minority rights and diversity. In the friction between the human multiplicity of running an arts organisation and the linearity of reporting on it, a duality appears between numbers and ________________ narratives. It was felt by participants that while numbers tell a kind of story, they may not tell the only story, nor the most important one: “the numbers question is actually taking away people’s narratives and I think we need to maybe try to be as specific as possible”. The over-reliance on a numeric, statistical mode of justification for arts organisations is indicative of a culture that feels like a return to utilitarianism: being ‘value for money’, ‘doing more for less’ and funding fixed outcomes rather than emergent outcomes from processes. Neoliberalism The context in which arts organisations operate is felt to be one of pervasive racist capitalism, characterised by statistics, categorisation, and competition. The basis on which organisations are judged, and how they judge themselves, is whether they carry market value. 'Market value' here includes performance indicators such as: audience reach, value for money, growth, and the framing of art as 'creative industries'. Such are the conditions of neoliberalism. Some participants felt that human subjectivity (the basis for artistic and creative expression) is under threat, for themselves and also on behalf of the artists that they support. These are forces “we’re all subjected to” and signifies the dominance of cultures of positivism and meritocracy within arts governance. 'Positivism' here means: the use of verifiable data evidence to make decisions. And 'Meritocracy' here means: competing on the inequitable assumption that we all have an equal starting position. ________________ Data Time There is no such thing as time, There is only SpaceTime. There is no such thing as Mind, There is only BodyMind. There is no such thing as Thought, There is only PracticeThought. We need time to just exist … Talk We're not really encouraged to kind of like take this time to sort of like write and then also talking to a group about it ... : to Kind of like, Sort of like, Talk. We hesitate, we beat around the bush, We fill silences to feel the shape of the unsaid; To feel the shape of the-allowed-to-be-said. I've been in situations before where there's a sense of like not feeling that you can voice, because you're not a person of colour. Yet here we are, Somehow, for a brief span of time Opening up a kind of space for a sort of like Voicing. ________________ There was a period of time where we didn't talk about it, we just didn't talk about racism, When was that I wonder? Where and Who? In polite white society? The way 'we' don't talk about money? We've learned to avoid certain words— *** ***** ***** **** **** —like dodging pedestrians on a busy street. Or is it that there's a lot of subtleties with racism and its various forms that I am struggling to articulate?: Subtleties that escape articulation; Racism that dodges you; Inequities that hide in plain sight; Unfairness that hides in exhaustion. ________________ It's very hard to have these conversations when you're trying to keep up with your sort of day-to-day workload. And it's hard to speak when you are out of breath, Trying to keep in step with the pace of the crowd; You end up communicating without conversing, Vocalising without articulating. The existing system actually starts to make it very difficult for you to do what you're doing right... unless we actually get to the point of articulating, Unless there is talk and time for talk. But there is no such thing as Talk, There is only TalkDo. And there is no such thing as Thought, There is only ThoughtDo. Lived Experience There is a kind of difference between...the intellectual and the lived experience, which I feel tends to be why I sometimes I go quiet. There is a quiet between the intellectual And the lived experience, which Is sometimes why I tend to feel different. ________________ I'll have artists who are having a lived experience of not being able to participate in something. I'll have a lived experience of artists Participating in something they are not able to. There's a lot of people there who are having like constant feelings of insecurity without much positive hope. There's a lot of positive hope there in people Who are having constant feelings of insecurity. Once you actually try and wear it...you know you...wear that racism and then you start feeling uncomfortable Once you start to wear the uncomfortable, you know you Are actually trying to feel that racism. And then you get the lived experiences from audiences as well … ... funders as well ... donors as well ... journalists as well ... politicians as well ... trustees as well ... stakeholders as well … It's many, many things to different people's experiences I've gone quiet. ________________ Intersectionality Intersectionality means a form of humanism, where everyone is considered at their level of their own individuality and their own issue. However the numbers question is actually taking away people's narratives and I think we need to maybe try to be as specific as possible Criteria Humans don't really fit into good statistics. Yet two hundred years on, We whirlpool back, round, down Into the sinkhole of 'the greatest happiness For the greatest number'. Jeremy Bentham's corpse looks on approvingly From his glass case at UCL. Awards for all, Art for all, Ambition for all, Excellence for all, ________________ If One meets the criteria. Criteria is a way of choosing. Choosing is a way of seeing. Seeing is a way of worlding. Worlding is a way of structuring. Structuring is a way of seeing And not seeing, Seeing-Not-Seeing is an aesthetics Of criteria. The other big problem with all of that is that it sets up a hierarchy of protected characteristics that they're interested in. You end up having to fill in this questionnaire ... and it really does feel like racial profiling ... I remember once sending a report back to Arts Council with a lot of 'prefer not to say' ... and I got an email saying the way it was reporting on my data was threatening potential grants 'I prefer not to', said Bartleby. And Bartleby's boss didn't know what to do. He couldn't get rid of Bartleby because Bartleby was a human being. ________________ I used the terrible term 'audit' and then was rightly sort of told that as an audience it's a horrible term to use in a way, because it again it has all these kind of connotations of scrutiny and accountability. You cannot prefer not to be audited. You cannot prefer not to be scrutinised, analysed, categorised. You cannot prefer not to be accountable, accounted, accountabilised. I've got a couple of problems with that, one of which is that we work with artists with learning disabilities...so it requires us to make asssumptions when we're filling in those details ... their social economic monitoring is absolutely ridiculous it took us about half an hour to understand what the categories were. It's those kind of subtleties and complexities that ... underpin everything we're talking about ... the bluntness, and the crudeness of the Arts Council language: Language that isn't talk; Language that isn't conversation; Language unable to grasp intersections Or humans; Language that refuses refusal And requires articulation even if There is no way of eliciting that information. ________________ Dismantle Why does it always seem to be left to the artists to be the one to stand out to call something out? To demand that we really examine those structures? We need to rethink or remodel institutions and how they operate and how power is held. Therefore, let us destroy the pyramid. It is something a bit like capitalism, or something we are all subjected to. The further up the food chain you get, the more resistance there is. So, let us destroy the pyramid. The existing system actually starts to make it very difficult for you to do what you you're doing right And the requirement to be 'value for money', and do more for less, is part of a culture of expectation ________________ Please, let us destroy the pyramid. It is an incredibly difficult cycle to break. But when you're talking about the breakdowns ... there is actually a sense of horrible release. Do let us, destroy the pyramid. Change "What does it mean when the tools of a racist patriarchy are used to examine the fruits of that same patriarchy?", Said Audre Lorde, "It means that only the most narrow parameters of change are possible and allowable." ________________ So, if this is anti-racist research, we need to use anti-racist methods; Methods that understand world as difference, That honour Knowledge Systems, Accountability Systems, Organising Systems, That pre-existed European Man. Perhaps we can develop quite a new muscle, I suppose, in order to change the cultures that have been built up? A new type of organisational muscle That moves between the practical and the poetic, That values both outcome and process, That's evolved from fragility to vulnerability, And from competition to cohabiting. It's about changing both those policies, but also ensuring that those individuals are going to abide by them, Trust in them, Reside in them, Create with them, Build with them. I wonder if that's something we can all push back on together? ________________ Build It'd be so useful to be able to get away from everybody being terrified. It'd be great if line managers have proper support and training. We're all so busy with our own issues and our own organisations that actually sort of sharing and shadowing and giving time to other organisations is hard. At the moment there's not much organisational sharing of resources ... like peer mentoring, like exchange, like seeing how other people work, like referencing, like just shadowing … ________________ There's no time to build new structures, new futures, new solidarity, new worlds, new governances. The new is just stifled by the pace of the institution having so many projects. The new needs time. Time (Reprise) But there is no such thing as time That is quantifiable or linear in creativity, Time that assures outcome. Time has its art And art has its time: slow time, make time, crip time, queer time, Black time; Time to breathe, Time to just exist. ________________ PAUSE ________________ Future This report aims to provoke and inspire further conversations in the coming years. Arts organisations keen to put this into action may want to explore how they can build some key practical steps into their planning and operations. They will also be keen to ask how the Arts Council can support them in this, especially allocating funds and enabling time for them to develop and exist in an anti-racist modality. This means time to manifest and practise anti-racist consciousnesses and embedding this in the long term body knowledge of the organisation. Practical Steps 1. Build friendship and allyship among organisations in the sector. 2. Create governance models that systematically performs anti-racism. 3. Develop trauma-informed and transformative justice practices. 4. Evaluate in a ways that centre intersectionalities of lived experience. 5. Fund organisations to develop an anti-racist ecosystem in the sector. ________________ Concluding Recommendation The participants care deeply for their artists, community and staff. They desire strongly to create an anti-racist and equitable visual arts sector. But this is deep and complex work, and unfortunately organisations are pressed for time and under pressure to over-programme. As such, my key recommendation is for a designated R&D scheme spanning the equivalent of several NPO rounds to be created where a number of organisations (not necessarily with NPO status) are given time, headspace and relief from producing and precarity, in order to co-create the anti-racist ecosystem that we need as a sector. A comprehensive proposal for the creation of an R&D scheme is beyond the scope of this knowledge exchange. But, I envisage such a proposal would: (a) outline a detailed brief for participating institutions; (b) set out the criteria for selecting participant organisations (for example, 4 small, 3 medium and 2 large organisations); and (c) provide the rationale, methodologies and evaluative framework for creating, developing and experimenting with anti-racist governance and operational models over a period of time (ideally 3 NPO rounds). Significantly this proposal would also articulate the expectations around the collective endeavour needed between participating organisations in order to create a lively and healthy sub-ecosystem that will go on to fertilize and transform the wider arts sector, and indeed other sectors too. ________________ The aim of such an 'Anti-Racist and Equitable Development Scheme' would be to achieve systemic change by affording time for organisations to create an intra-organisational environment that performs anti-racist values and ethics. It would allow organisations to invent, implement, practice and refine new forms of institution, thus creating the fertile and solid groundwork necessary for the organisation of the future. Finally, as evidenced by the multiple ruptures of whistleblowing that made this research necessary in the first place, the fundamental conditions of what makes creative life possible are increasingly under threat in my view: trust, interpersonal connection, open-endedness and the valuing of difference, to name a few. To protect this life, such a scheme would act as a sanctuary allowing an anti-racist ecology to grow and thrive in the arts landscape. Much like a marine sanctuary, the overflow of life and learning from such an ecosystem would enrich and resource the rest of the sector. It is of course my hope that in years to come, such an ecosystem will expand to encompass the whole of the sector, and beyond. Dr Jack Ky Tan Artist August 2022 ________________ Jackfruit (appendix) After Ono [Rectangular image: Painting of a large oval shaped green jackfruit in the background and jackfruit segments in the foreground, which show rows of yellow oval shaped fruit comprising the interior of the large green fruit.] JACKFRUIT is a growing set of performance scores devised to disrupt how exclusionary, othering and command-and-control ways of thinking are normalised in institutions, and to cultivate equity as a working perspective and practice in organisations. This work is inspired by Yoko Ono, in particular, her book 'Grapefruit' which, to me, is about disrupting the ordinary, the established and the entrenched. It invites thought objects to become performed objects, and challenges us to see and do differently. I invite CVAN members and institutions interested in changing organisational consciousness to perform and contribute to these. I wanted to find the name of a fruit that had the word 'fruit' in it and, like for Ono, one that reflected who I am and where I am from. The jackfruit is a member of the breadfruit/fig family and common throughout southern India and Southeast Asia. Weighing up to 50kg, each fruit contains multiple fruit inside whose flesh and seed can be eaten in sweet or savoury dishes. ________________ Meetings 3 Minute Piece Before a meeting begins, set a timer to chime at 30 second intervals. Catch and hold someone's eye for 30 seconds, then switch to someone else for 30 seconds. Do this for 3 minutes. Then begin your meeting. Quaker Piece If all of you find yourself at an impasse during a meeting, agree to be silent. Listen to the silence. Keep listening. Keep on listening. Then carry on with the meeting. ________________ Minutes Listen for words that jump out at you during a meeting. Turn these into a crossword puzzle. File this as your minutes of the meeting. Fasting Piece Don't have any meetings for a day, even with yourself. Men’s Piece Let the men be silent for one meeting a week. They can communicate only by passing written notes. ________________ Swap Piece Everyone swap jobs or roles or an aspect of their jobs for a day. Office Move Move your Head Office or Director's office to a different location for a month. Do this consecutively for 3 months. If within one building, choose locations that are not within typical 'admin' departments. If within a multi-site organisation, move to a more peripheral site. Celebration Piece Find out what important high days are celebrated among your staff, stakeholders and community beyond normal Christian holidays. Put these in your organisation's calendar and remember to make organisational headspace for it or to celebrate it appropriately. ________________ Counting Piece The philosopher Foucault recounted how he found a list of animals from a 'certain Chinese encyclopaedia' in a book by Borges, where animals were divided into: "(a) belonging to the Emperor, (b) embalmed, (c) tame, (d) suckling pigs, (e) sirens, (f) fabulous, (g) stray dogs, (h) included in the present classification, (i) frenzied, (j) innumerable, (k) drawn with a very fine camelhair brush, (l) et cetera, (m) having just broken the water pitcher, (n) that from a long way off look like flies." Invent new categories for inventorying equipment, tools and resources in the organisation. Risk Assessment Consider mental, social and emotional spheres as potential risk areas of workplace injury or health. Conduct risk assessments for each of the protected characteristics by: * identifying potential risks to their health and safety; * consulting on who might be harmed and how; * checking any existing measures are adequate; * recording the findings; * reviewing and revising the assessment periodically, particularly if there has been a significant change in the organisation. ________________ Whanganui piece Choose a nonhuman entity who should be represented on the Board. Invite them to sit as a trustee on the Board. Demography piece Change your constitution such that half the total number of trustees comprise 'nominated trustees' who will serve for a term of 12 months. Nominate Black trustees to serve a 12 month term as 'nominated trustees'. Or Queer trustees, or South Asian trustees, or East & Southeast Asian trustees, or disabled trustees, or Traveller trustees, or other underrepresented groups in your community. Reflect on how agendas, concerns, perspectives have changed at the end of the year. ________________ Backpage Thanks Jo Townshend (Chair, CVAN) Sepake Angiama (Artistic Director, Iniva) Stuart Wood (Research Assistant) Members of CVAN London Yoko Ono (inspiration) © Jack Ky Tan 2023 Arts Council England logo