I’ve begun reading Nina Simon’s book “The Art of Relevance” after listening to some podcasts and watching some videos of her talking about value in the museums sector.
I’ve just followed a link on Twitter to this article on diversity in the arts by Tania Canas – “Diversity is a white word” – and it seems to be echoing some of the directions in which I think The Art of Relevance might be heading. It’s also a good reminder that superficial diversity isn’t really diversity.
It’s also resonating strongly with work that I get asked to do within community settings of different types and I’m seeing it as a reminder to look below the surface at the frameworks of power.
This in turn is reminding me of this Tweet that I saw earlier this morning
Even though I was arrested, I smiled bc I was on the right side of history. Find a way to get in the way #goodtrouble pic.twitter.com/SN0K6lHbqO
— John Lewis (@repjohnlewis) July 19, 2015
Here are a few quotes from the diversity article, but I recommend you read the article in full.
Diversity is the in-vogue theme for the cultural industry, becoming an exercise in ill-thought-out, quick responses to stage diversity rather than as an opportunity to re-imagine the entire sector. It has become painfully obvious that the sector’s increasing self-awareness and subsequent panic, has caused a scramble towards superficial diversity, rather than an opportunity to dismantle the frameworks that created the systemic exclusion to begin with.
Just because we exist in a space, doesn’t mean we’ve had autonomy in the process by which the existence has occurred. It is not about ‘giving a voice’, we already have one. It has been systematically silenced. What we are talking about is power and self-determination.
The sector needs to abandon its quest for authenticity and instead seek multiplicity. Authenticity is determined, verified and labelled by the dominant narrative in relation to periphery narratives. When tied to ideas of staging ‘authentic voices’ the arts restricts, places demands on form and content as well as systematically silences the multiplicity of truths. It is an exercise of institutional and national power from the entitled to do so (Hage, 2000). Multiplicity, as opposed to authenticity, defies constructs that are palpable and easily consumable to the dominant narrative.
