PLEDGE: What Next?

One of the questions that I've been pondering in the developing of the Tramway's Unlimited Festival: What? programme is around commitment. I've been fortunate to have some really rich conversations with a cohort of established artists based in Scotland in preparing the programme and commitment is something that came out again and again. What is our personal commitment, what organisations are committed and what does commitment mean beyond box-ticking and Equalities, Diversity and Inclusion plans?

In particular there is a question around commitment to the next generation of disabled artists. We've come out of a period of fantastic support for disabled artists, with targeted and strategic funds addressing inequalities in the sector and providing opportunities for artists specifically to redress these imbalances. However the artists that have benefited most from these initiatives are now so successful and busy that there is a real capacity issue when we look to ensuring the next generation. While wanting to ensure that disabled voices are the ones that articulate the needs of an evolving sector, it's not practical or possible to keep placing the responsibility for this on the same five or ten people that always get asked. 

One part of the solution is that we need allies. We need organisations with capacity and resources to get on side and advocate for embedding work by disabled artists across the whole cultural sector in Scotland and UK, to make room for this (and other types of) diversity in their programmes and events. Much in the same way that feminism needs male allies, racism needs white allies and classism needs privileged allies, ablism needs non-disabled allies. So who are our allies and what is their commitment? 

A key aspect of the Tramway's Unlimited Festival: What? programme is a two day symposium asking the question What Next? Tapping into active conversations in Scotland around disability and dance, this event will open up the conversation to other artforms. The symposium seeks to create spaces for the young and emerging artists we want to support to set their own agenda, to platform them and amplify their voices, needs, demands and desires and to work with them to set some actions. What's vitally important is that those allies in the sector with the power to facilitate these actions are there and are listening and are ready to act.

So my pledge is to create this space, to be mindful that we need to hear from those that really know what barriers exist for them, to ensure that those who can help are there to do just that and to make sure the discussion gets out so we can keep moving things in the right direction.

The What Next? symposium is supported generously by Unlimited Impact and will take place at Tramway on 21st and 22nd September 2016. See the Tramway website for more details.

What Next?

21 & 22 September 2016

10am - 3:30pm 

Free, please book in advance

artmusiclearning@glasgowlife.org.uk | 0141 302 2810

Tramway

In a context of economic and political uncertainty, harmful narratives around disability, lack of access to training and education and dwindling arts provision in schools, how do we ensure the next generation of disabled artists? A two-day symposium for emerging artists, students, graduates and the sector asking what your commitment is to the next generation?

Includes an Open Space session, Platforming emerging artists, a Lab exploring the issues more deeply and Reflections and Setting Actions for ourselves and our champions in the sector. Keep an eye out for ways to engage with What Next over the coming weeks! 

PERSPECTIVE: Right at this moment

At this moment in time, I fear for the world that I live in. I fear for the sick and disabled people who have found out that they were deemed fit for work. I fear the assistance of people to die before we assist them to live. I fear for the hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing countries where the politics, economics and environment have made it impossible to remain. I fear for the fact that we renewed Trident. I fear for our political systems. Speaking from my own political perspective, I fear for the Labour party, but not as much as I fear the Tory party.

I fear for the arts, in Scotland and more generally. I fear for women, for black people, for working class people, for LGBTQ+ people. And I fear for the lives of disabled people, the way we are viewed, written about, pictured, presented, sidelined and excluded.

I have hope though. Every time things get really scary, I feel the push-back. I have hope that in time, we will find a political and social system that works for us, for everyone. That silenced voices will get louder. The internet gives me hope. It's messy and imperfect, prone to inaccuracy and corruption, but also a space where anyone can have a voice. I have hope in the people around me. I have hope BECAUSE of the people around me. If the artists and thinkers and doers I know are up to a challenge, even if it is just to hold a mirror up to ourselves and ask "What are we doing?" then I can believe that good things are possible. 

HIGHLIGHT: Pain, fatigue and producing

This first post has been pretty hard to begin. I am a producer and I’ve been thinking a lot about the role a producer has and some of the capacities it requires; clarity, communication, reliability, consistency and leadership.

At times all of these capacities have eluded me and at times it makes me feel like a fraud. Due to the nature of my condition I can find myself ‘brain-fogged’. In the wrong circumstances I experience anxiety spikes which can warp my sense of self awareness and in turn affect my responses within a collaborative relationship. These spikes can also do a real number on my self-esteem. If I take on too much work (which is easy to do in the arts!) or don’t pace myself properly, I inevitably crash with fatigue and exhaustion and find myself in bed for long periods, or in chronic, widespread and persistent pain that I can’t tackle with medication or sleep.

By writing publicly about how my condition affects me professionally and in relation to making great art happen, I wonder how it will reflect on my capacity as a producer? I have, until relatively recently, chosen to, or more truthfully, happened to ‘pass’ as a non-disabled person, allowing me to exist in the world with few assumptions made about my abilities (not including those assumptions made on the basis of my gender or age) however this wasn’t necessarily the right choice for me either.

Since making the choice (over a period of time, which I will go into in a later post) to own my disabled identity and to communicate about how it affects me, there’s been a constant negotiation between my own adjustments to my working life and the adjustments made for me by individuals and organisations that I work with. And a constant questioning of where my responsibility ends and another’s begins…

The key seems to be communication. This can also be wearing, and often disabled people can be viewed as awkward bastards, with our constant demands and accommodation needs and 'special assistance'... though even as I write this, I realise no-one has ever said to me that I am awkward... it's a completely implicit, internalised notion that just sits in the fabric of our society.

Now I have worked for long enough that I know what my strengths are. After much umming and awing about this post, I decided to write it. My condition changes how I work and limits the hours I can do, but it does not make less of a producer or diminish my skill. There are mechanisms that can be employed to mitigate the risk of holding a project up because I need to take to my bed (thank you Bitrix24, Evernote and Wunderlist) and I would say that my capacity for empathy, sensitivity and creativity are enhanced by my perspective on the world and my experiences. Producing is such a broad practice that I don't need to do it all brilliantly all the time... no-one does. I just have to focus on the bits I'm good at and communicate and collaborate around the bits I'm not. 

Welcome!

Thanks for visiting! This is a site that I (Kim Simpson) run alongside my work with Tramway and Tramway's Unlimited Festival. It started in 2016 and then had a little quiet spell while I was doing other things. Now I have returned to work with Tramway on a panel discussion that will be happening in 2018 and am revisiting this blog to support that.

It will probably evolve further as a resource and site for my own musings and conversations around disability and art.

Image: Flickr Creative Commons Jez 101