As artists, cultural workers and arts organisations, ours is the business of statement-making.

I was reminded of this recently by the work of Portuguese artist Tiago Casanova, whose installation Every wall is a Statement is currently part of the A liberdade e só a Liberdade exhibition (‘Freedom and only freedom’) at The Art and Culture Center of the Eugénio de Almeida Foundation in Évora.

I was also reminded, less pleasantly, by recent rushed and fumbled public statements made by Australian arts and cultural organisations in response to local and global issues or events like last year’s Voice Referendum (or the need for voice, treaty and truth more broadly) and the ongoing genocide in Palestine — including the statements that many have made with their silence.

Depressingly, failure has become status quo when it comes to Australian arts, cultural and non-profit organisation’s response (or lack of response) to these and similar issues as matters of governance, risk and crisis management, financial sustainability and duty of care.

This may be attributed to organisations’ wish to remain neutral or apolitical, lack of expertise or understanding of how these issues directly impact their work, general overwork or overwhelm, our sector’s prevailing monoculture, an aversion to advocacy in an increasingly competitive, precarious and punitive economic environment, disproportionate pressure from particular stakeholder groups, or simply the hope that any given situation will resolve itself before their communities demand some sort of response.

But our work has always been about more than what’s shown on our stages, places, pages and screens. There are dozens of stories behind each work we commission, publish, exhibit or perform, with every decision making a statement about our organisations, decision makers and supporters — from seemingly innocuous ‘business-as-usual’ social media feeds, to the policies that guide our governance and operations, or what happens when whistleblowers or Freedom of Information (FOI) requests reveal how we behave behind closed doors or firewalls.

Art-making is always political

Attempting to keep politics out of art making is as nonsensical as it is impossible.

The question of who has the time, energy, resources or safety to engage in art-making is grounded in privilege, as is their access to local, affordable and lifelong arts education, peer or professional networks, the difference between the work they want to make and what’s possible, whether their stories or voices have been skewed or silenced in the past or told by people with no lived experience of them, as well as how those stories reinforce or challenge historical or contemporary stereotypes or power discrepancies.

Whether those artworks or stories are able to find a pathway or platform is just as political, as is who within our monocultural arts industry gets to make or block those decisions (or establish cultural or funding policies in the first place), how those people are appointed to decision-making roles, what they fund (and don’t) using which processes, who curates, edits or influences how those works appear, and who owns their IP or copyright. Who gets paid through the process (and how much) is further politicised by the statistically low likelihood of artists ever being able to earn a living wage, and the decisions of our governments, funders and organisations that perpetuate precarious working conditions.

The question of how artworks are produced or shared with the world is political, too, including the responsibilities of making them on unceded land, their environmental impact, the ethics and behaviours of our funding, production and distribution partners, the physical, intellectual, financial and technological barriers between us and audiences, whether those audiences can see their own experiences in the work (or care if others can too), the language and images we use in marketing those works, whether or how they’re critiqued or reported on (and by whom), if they go onto be distributed illegally or used to train AI, or whether we stock boycotted products or at our events.

Even the visibility and value of art making in everyday life is political, with sport more visible, better understood and much better funded (and sportsballers among our most revered and well paid cultural figures) in spite of more Australians engaging in art than sport every year.

The majority of not-for-profit arts organisations receive some form of public funding in recognition (however inadequate) of the centrality of culture as a vital public service. Because of this relationship, many choose to specify remaining non-party political as a requirement of their operating Rules or Constitutions. State-owned institutions or statutory authorities may be further required to adhere to public service codes of conduct, which demand all public servants demonstrate ‘impartiality’ (though this is irrelevant and inappropriate to ask of the artists they employ). But “nonpartisan” does not and cannot mean “apolitical”.

“We must always take sides,” writer and activist Elie Wiesel noted in his 1986 Nobel Prize acceptance speech (itself later critiqued for the unintended statement he made in failing to include Palestinians within the scope of this advice). “Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.”

Politics are inevitable and inseparable from art and culture: there is no neutral ground. Responding or choosing not to respond to all issues equally only reinforces existing inequities, in the same way that silence (or the silencing of others) in the name of ‘neutrality’ only serves those who already have privilege or power.

Art-making is always contextual

How long has our sector been in crisis? How far back should we count?

Characteristically overworked and underpaid, our over-achieving sector has always relied on and taken advantage of dedicated and passionate practitioners who (myself included) have been taught and then reinforce the lie that poor financial, psychological or physical wellbeing is the ‘price we pay’ for the personal or creative satisfaction of working for an organisation or industry we love.

This changed with the pandemic. Most noticeable within ours and other for-purpose sectors, we are now in the midst of an international workforce crisis epitomised by cross-sector exhaustion and reinvention, and a new sense of perspective that left many (including unfairly named “quiet quitters”) no longer willing to put up with the poor practices of the past.

The work we do was busy and challenging even before things became quite as busy and challenging as they are now, which means those overworked practitioners and their diminishing number of volunteer governors were rarely able to find quiet(er) times to prepare for crises like these.

Our organisations were notoriously bad at diversity, cultural safety and duty of care at the best of times and not set up to have conversations or make decisions at the speed being asked of us now. Many are also on the receiving end of unfamiliar lobbying from internal and external stakeholders, interest groups or funding partners, at a time when the individuals in and outside those organisations have limited capacity to respond.

As a result, none of us are — nor should we be expected to be — our best, most calm or articulate selves. Most of us haven’t been for quite a long time. This is particularly true for those from already-underrepresented communities and those closest to the ongoing issues or grief, many of whom have become further triggered, traumatised and marginalised as a result.

But this context, while important, provides explanations, not an excuse.

When things go wrong, they tend to do so quickly. Existing friction points become risks really fast. And while our organisations and decision-makers may not feel ready for the multitude of challenges they currently have to face, they need to be.

Art making is always intersectional

What some may interpret as distant or theoretical issues that fall outside their organisations’ direct program or scope are actually having very real impacts closer to home. Apparently, a commitment to life, liberty and the equitable application of human rights and international law (even at a time when those things are not assured) has not been enough to overcome the institutional silence of many of our organisations — not even through the self-interested lens of upholding those rights they wish to retain for themselves.

However, boards and organisations are beginning to identify and make statements about the other pragmatic, on-the-ground ways this multi-faceted polycrisis intersects with their day-to-day work:

1. Being anti-censorship

Across Australia — as well as overseas — we are witnessing greater limitations on freedom of expression than in most of our lifetimes, with artists, cultural workers and organisations being censored, silenced or punished for making issues-based statements (both through their work and personal actions, and even accessories).

Nevertheless, it’s difficult to imagine there being any disagreement with the basic tenets that underpin our sector which is to say: that artists’ work is valuable and necessary; that artists have a right to life and livelihood; that their stories and ideas should be able to be safely told (in their own voices and words); and that those who tell or benefit from those stories have an obligation to create those conditions for others, too.

While critics of censorship often speak of attacks on free speech, that’s not actually a right we hold as Australians, but rather the right for protection against hate speech. This distinction is further muddied by regular tone policing of oppressed peoples’ language as hateful (think “land back”, “always was, always will be” or “from the river to the sea”) and therefore worthy of silencing.

As usual, those calling for censorship appear mostly concerned about comfort, ideology or quality of life, while those being censored seem more concerned about actual lives — which we know our work can save.

2. Supporting viable and sustainable cultural sector careers

The last year has provided evidence of extensive back-room lobbying leading to the loss of existing and future work, income and opportunities, including artists and cultural workers being dropped from their jobs, contracts and partnerships — predominantly through panicked and poorly executed complaints, human resources and “cultural safety” processes.

As well having an immediate impact on affected practitioners’ livelihoods, reputations and careers, this has motivated many organisations to review their complaints and community engagement procedures, and discuss how legal and ethical imperatives are embodied within their HR, governance and partnership policies.

Many are considering the risks of making decisions to which they may later be held accountable through wrongful dismissal or slander proceedings, media or public opinion, boycotts, member or stakeholder meetings, or FOI requests — and the impact this may have on staffing, program delivery or organisational sustainability.

3. Meeting our duty of care

It makes sense, when none of us are our best selves, that we may not be the best governors, managers or peers either. Many have struggled to address our own diminishing wellbeing, let alone support those we’re responsible for. But our duty of care is heightened during times of crisis, not diminished.

Meeting this duty not only requires us to respond when things go wrong, but anticipate anything that could be “reasonably foreseen” to cause harm. With the individuals and communities we rely on to run our organisations, deliver our programs and bankroll our work affected by so many issues in so many ways, and with so many rifts and resentments between them, this necessitates acknowledging context and complexity, committing to asking and listening, and an openness to admitting and learning from our mistakes.

At a time when artists and cultural workers are leaving the sector in record numbers, this may also require organisations to actively reduce their usual workloads to do the vital work of making sure there’s people around to deliver it.

4. Improving workplace and sector culture

Over the last year, we’ve seen funders, donors and ticket holders divest from once-loved organisations, workplaces bring in mediators because of scarves or flags, and the normalisation of formerly inappropriate behaviours: direct and indirect abuse, breaches of trust, individual and organisational threats, and lateral violence between allies. Not to mention rising awareness of and free-falling tolerance for ‘the way things have always been done’, including the systemic discrimination, inaccessibility and lack of cultural safety that have always been baked into our sector (to our shame).

Is it any wonder our board rooms and workplaces have become less collegiate, healthy and productive as a result? Or why many organisations have begun conversations about what they do, how they do it and how they expect each other to behave?

It’s hard to imagine what happens “after”, but we can’t wait to get there to think about how we’ll recover, nor fail to accept our roles and responsibilities in making that happen.

5. Improving cultural safety

Originally coined by New Zealand’s nursing sector, the phrase “cultural safety” is perhaps most helpfully understood as a process, not a fixed or mythical end point. It’s an approach we use to identify and address bias and power imbalances by reflecting, rejecting and replacing previously unquestioned ways of working.

This is not something our sector has ever been particularly good at, and we seem to be getting worse. At the March launch of The Relationship is the Project, Dr Ruth de Souza talked about the ways in which cultural safety is currently being weaponised against particular groups, and in which organisations are using the language of cultural safety as an excuse to deepen existing deficits.

When individuals and communities are made to feel unwelcome or unsafe, they’re likely to disengage — particularly those who care most or are closest to the issues, and those on the front lines who are powerless to make change from within. This deepens the deficit further, as we can measure by the number of women on Australian boards now going backwards, and barely any representation from First Nations, culturally diverse or disabled people at all.

Improving cultural safety not only requires ongoing self and organisational reflection and critique, but a commitment to policy, operational and behavioural change that starts with boldly naming the issues we’re trying to address (more “equity” than “equality”, less “Special Envoy for Social Cohesion” and more “Minister for Anti-Racism”).

6. Putting organisational values into practice

Some of these issues are exacerbated by the fact that (spoiler) for-purpose organisations attract people who share and are motivated by that purpose, be they board members, employees, volunteers, partners, donors or audiences. So, when we fail in our duty of care to those people, when organisational culture or cultural safety worsen, or when we fail to live up to the purpose or ethics we espouse, they notice (and keep receipts).

Most of our organisations make formal values statements in their strategic plans, funding applications, annual reports or public communications. Many of these include commitments to safety and wellbeing, to putting First Nations first, or more broadly to inclusion, diversity, artistic value, innovation or risk.

Unfortunately, this hasn’t stopped some of those organisations releasing poorly-crafted statements on the Voice Referendum or Palestine that have not only failed to uphold their own values but actively undermined them. Others have failed to walk their own  talk through their silence, risking critique for hypocrisy by not speaking up on the other intersectional issues they care or make work about, such as the environment, feminism, child safety, freedom of expression, or a free and unbiased media.

7. Aligning our partners’ ethics and practices with our own

Tolerance for greenwashing, pinkwashing, colonial and other unethical fundraising practices and partnerships is also at an all-time low. We’re seeing philanthropic funders and donors becoming less attractive because of who they support and who they don’t, as well as their crappy funding practices.

This trend is all the more startling given it’s happening in spite of there being less funding available to our sector in general, what funding there is being more competitive than in most of our careers, high-net-worth individuals being asked to give more, more often and to more life-and-death causes, and within a more complex and expensive economic environment in which income is harder to earn and diversify than ever before.

Many organisations are rearticulating what their values really mean in terms of who they partner with and how, reviewing their existing partnership arrangements, or putting new standards and agreements in place. Some are even questioning their public funding support, given recent misalignment between their internal values and the Australian Government’s actions.

8. Using our program and platform

There’s much debate within Australian arts and cultural organisations as to if and how to use their programs and platforms to showcase topical issues. This is, indeed, how we’re used to making statements, by letting our work speak for itself — carefully percolated, in most cases, through multiple (and often multi-year) drafts or creative developments, showcase opportunities and feedback loops.

As we’ve seen, however, statement-making isn’t just a matter of content, but includes every choice we make about what and who we program and under what terms. This includes who makes the decisions, with more of these conversations happening in board rooms at the moment than the program team meetings where they belong — leaving unpaid or low-paid governors with significantly less sector and/or programming expertise to make unaccustomed decisions with a much faster turnaround.

Some organisations have classified their approach as “remaining impartial” while actively censoring artists and teams. Others have attempted to present a “neutral framework” in which artists and other third parties can do or say what they like (with or without restrictions), in order for organisations to be able to defend artists’ right to do so without showing bias themselves. But both these models fail to acknowledge the innate politics and power structures of their organisations, venues or programs.

A smaller number have deliberately tried to create brave spaces over safe ones, or approach contentious issues with care instead of censorship, harmful “free speech” platforming, or a false notion of “balance” that doesn’t account for our unbalanced world.

Program decisions have been further complicated by concerns about due diligence and background checks (How much is enough? How contentious is too contentious?), the growing reluctance of potential artists and panellists to be contracted before they know who else is on the program, and unavoidable risks (including the inability to guarantee spaces free of harm or hate speech from artists or partners with no former history of the same).

9. Insisting on media justice

Misinformation, misrepresentation and media injustice are everybody’s business. If you’re in the business of stories and storytelling (as all our organisations are) or community-led or community-engaged practice (as all our organisations should be), if you represent a community or membership, or have members of a community represented within your board, staff or artistic teams (as you inevitably will), you’ll want those stories and communities to be promoted, reported on and critiqued in a fair, informed and unbiased way.

Once again, if we want to retain these rights for ourselves, we also have an obligation to insist on them for others, too: be that through tracking what gets produced or reviewed, campaigning for equitable coverage, providing education on appropriate language, calling out bias or supporting those who are punished for doing so.

10. Representing our membership or constituency

The question of whether or not to formalise and publish issues-based statements is heightened for peak and representative bodies and membership organisations, who may hesitate to speak on behalf of large and disparate groups.

That said, actual membership organisations (from which I exclude the many Australian arts organisations still operating as Incorporated Associations for purely historical reasons) already have a system in place to represent those members: the requirement to elect a number to their governing boards, who are tasked with making decisions on their behalf.

In times of crisis and controversy, it’s understandable some boards may want to do more and survey their broader cohorts or constituencies to inform or affirm their decisions — though those sorts of panicked crisis communications should never be a replacement for ongoing community engagement.

Nor should they be used as an excuse, either to delay decisions to be fully informed by stakeholders (which may perpetuate harm or see people divest from the organisation in the meantime) or await consensus (an understood impossibility we don’t expect on other issues), nor by using the workload that comes from genuine consultation (and its impact on team capacity and wellbeing) as reason not to proceed at all.

Many boards are being forced to clarify who it is they really serve, who they listen to as a result, and who they prioritise when everyone doesn’t agree. While usually fewer in number, more people usually take the time to send in complaints than endorsements — which means louder groups can drown out larger ones, and “concerned citizens” can be heard more than those we were set up to serve.

11. Securing our income or financial bottom line

Even before this last year, we’ve watched artists, audiences, donors, staff and board members, production, distribution and funding partners (and more) start to disassociate and/or disinvest from arts and cultural organisations of all types, sizes and locations because of those organisations’ stance or silence on values-based issues.

As well as creating problems for organisational culture and duty of care (as outlined above), this is having a direct impact on income generation, organisational sustainability and survival — through the loss of funding and partnership opportunities, reduced ticketing and other sales, end of financial year and other fundraising campaigns — with increasing numbers of potential or former donors asking for evidence of organisations’ positions on issues before deciding whether or not to donate.

Silence can be expensive. So can speaking out, of course, but that’s business we’re all in.

12. Practicing good governance

Aside from our personal or organisational position on an issue, what our organisations say or don’t say has an impact on if and how they can meet their ambitions, and the strategies they use to do so.

Board members’ fiduciary duties require us to act in good faith and with reasonable care to achieve the best interests of our organisations — including in all twelve of these impact areas.

When doing so, under our current understanding of “best practice” governance, boards are expected speak with one voice. No matter what gets discussed in the board room, who agrees or disagrees in order for decisions to be made, the public or silent statements boards make are always unanimous.

This means Boards also have to manage risk around risk management process themselves. Dissenting “for the record” doesn’t preclude board members from being counted in support of board decisions, and sharing those deliberations or decisions in public is considered a breach of confidentiality and trust. Some board members attempt to overcome this tension by resigning (often forgetting they’re required to keep board confidences even after stepping down), while others remain, in hope of influencing change.

Other boards are starting to interrogate the gaps between what they think they need to do and what their legislation and organisations actually require, and rethink their entire governance model as a result.

Mistakes are lessons

It’s likely the current polycrisis has created the most challenging professional and creative environment most of us have ever had to navigate. There are no experts, no templates, no guaranteed way of getting it right, and dozens of different ways our organisations’ response can damage their reputations, relationships and financial bottom lines.

After nearly a year of high-profile missteps and miscommunications, we have more examples of poor than good practice — though all provide lessons from which we can learn.

• This isn’t a trend. It’s a reckoning

Our sector is tearing itself apart in real time: a workforce in crisis, with board directors, CEOs and team members leaving the sector entirely (and not being replaced at anywhere near the same rate); artists finding it harder to make a living, including refusing or being refused work; organisations, funders and donors losing credibility and viability; and an increasingly precarious, unsafe and fearful culture that’s undermining our value and impact. This is not a theoretical exercise, nor something that’s happening on the other side of the world. It isn’t happening adjacent to our work, and it’s not going away anytime soon. To stop ourselves falling at every single hurdle, we need to name and treat it as the polycrisis it is: a perfect storm of secular, non-party-political issues that will create significant, ongoing ripples for the sector for years to come — though ripples that we can, at least, reduce.

• Have the conversation/s

Framing issues-based conversations in the context of risk and crisis management or duty of care can be highly empowering — becoming something we have both the responsibility and ability to address. We need to make safe spaces to talk about issues, values and the impact of our organisations’ actions or silence. Adding a standing agenda item to board, staff and artistic meetings is a simple way to ensure our key wisdom-keepers and most at-risk constituencies feel heard. Finding a way to for them feed in anonymously is also needed to offset intra-organisation power discrepancies.

• Remember, silence is a statement

In navigating crises and everyday-business alike, everything we do tells the world who we are. There is no neutral, no position that doesn’t come with risk. Pro-actively managing that risk is necessary business, and more effective than leaving it up to others to infer what systems or oppressions our silence accepts or upholds.

• Choose words with care

A quick internet search will provide a depressing number of “neutral”, “two-sides”-ing or bureaucratic business-speak statements from Australian arts and cultural organisations on the Voice Referendum and Palestine, including some that read as actively threatening or wonder why we “all can”t get along”, and some as opaque as “war = bad” or “racism = bad also” without hinting what holding those views means in practice. Language is political, subjective and evolves over time, so when silence and speaking out can both be interpreted as violence, it might feel like organisations simply can’t win. But our intent matters, so even when statements don’t land how we’d hoped, recipients can usually tell the difference between well-meaning and weaselly words — particularly when accompanied by willingness to listen and change.

• Get better at listening and taking criticism

In Simple Secrets of Successful Community Groups, the Institute of Community Directors Australia (ICDA) reminds us that: “People who make complaints are not your antagonists, they’re your quality inspectors. Your first reaction to any complaint should always be that something needs fixing.” In times of crisis (as in all situations), reflectiveness will always be more effective than defensiveness. We can’t let ourselves be so offended by the implication of bias or poor practice that we stop ourselves reflecting on how our organisations implicitly support systems of oppression. Because they do. Yes, all of them. Yes, yours too.

• Acknowledge fault or harm

Your organisation may have made decisions before circumstances changed to make them problematic, or decisions that were already problematic in ways that only later come to light. Your plans, policies and procedures may have seemed perfectly fine on paper before becoming unclear, unhelpful or unfit for purpose when tested. In the panic of a crisis, you may have spoken in haste or poorly represented your organisation’s values or policies in ways that created or compounded risk. But it matters less what happened, and more what you do next. Ideally, by being human and open and culpable in admitting mistakes, offering genuine apologies and remedial actions, and following them through. Those organisations who can’t admit fault should at least acknowledge when they’ve caused harm. Regardless of intention, whether you stand behind your decisions and decision makers, or whether you think reactions have been justified or overblown, harm is harm — and can have harmful results for your organization, too.

• Be like a time machine

It’s obviously better to have preparatory conversations that pre-empt crises before they occur. But while we can’t go back in time, we can address where strategies and systems have recently fallen short in order to do better next time. To look at board and partnership agreements to make sure everyone’s on the same page about what our organisations do, value and support, and how we expect each other to behave. To use genuine consultation and co-design to rearticulate our codes of conduct, rather than wielding them as inflexible, bureaucratic tools to bludgeon those with differing views. To hold up a mirror (however unflattering) to our sector’s dreadful accessibility, representation, cultural safety and duty of care, and commit to seismic and systemic change.

• Have the conversation/s again

Unanimous decisions don’t have to be final ones. We do our best with the information we have at any one time, but it’s incumbent on us to learn, grow and change.

The new new normal is not business as usual

The world isn’t changing, it’s already changed. Our organisations would be negligent if they carried on as usual when the context we work within requires us to acknowledge or respond to that change in some way.

That doesn’t mean we need to know all the answers. More likely, we need the confidence to admit that we don’t. To acknowledge the responsibilities of the polycrisis and show we’re taking them seriously. To be grown up enough to discuss our failures and fears. To admit to being unprepared, and commit to listening, learning and taking this opportunity to make sure organisations are informed by their purpose and the communities they serve. To hold space for those closest to the issues. To learn from and implement their advice.

If we let it, this new new normal could be an opportunity for complexity and plurality, thoughtfulness and innovation to support our organisations and sector to evolve in order to survive — things artists, cultural workers and organisations are uniquely equipped to provide.

Image: Lerato Shadi, blank projects (CC (by-nc-nd) 4.0)