You have to stop being what you were when you start paying attention to the work it takes to maintain your clear distinctions – B.C. Smith
To my still much missed grandma, the term “collaborator” would have meant something very different to the sense in which I use it.
When I think of her, I see myself looking up at a tiny lady waving at me from the umpteenth floor window of a communist grey block of flats in a small Polish town. My gran – my “babcia” – was one of the small but brave millions caught up in World War II. To her generation, a “collaborator” was a very bad person indeed.
I am happy to see this sense of the word fading and even happier to extol its positive aspects; but still, the murkier account of its meaning lingers…
Why is this bothering me now? It’s because of the current social climate: life feels particularly difficult at the minute, so we are all desperate to protect our own interests – it’s hard to think about other people when you’re worried about yourself. What if the work dries up? How will the rent get paid? What if things get worse?
Counter-intuitive though it might seem, in this currently precarious situation we should be more aware than ever of how our actions and connections affect others. This is as true for the legions of jobbing artists, who will increasingly come to rely on – and answer to – private sector funding, as it is further up the power chain for the problematic collaboration that is the governmental coalition.
When it comes to collaboration, there has to be a balance between getting what you want out of it AND not letting the side down – otherwise you might as well go off and build yourself a bubble to live in.
