LIA

A few days later, two events were added to the conference, as well as an ancillary program:

1. Optional Town Hall – The Role of Organizations in Divisive Times
2. Workplace Rights and Responsibilities in the Digital Realm
3. Ancillary Program: Gaza Monologues by Teesri Duniya Theatre

On May 29th, the first day of PACTcon, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre put out a post on social media writing “Free Palestine”, alongside a thought piace: “multiple attempts at a statement on the ongoing genocide in palestine”.

Though the topic of Palestine arose throughout PACTcon, we will focus on the first two events added in response to our open letter, as well as another event (New Works Architects Caucus) that our co-writer, Shanae Sodhi,attended.

New Works Architects Caucus

S: New Works Architects Caucus was a meeting for companies that create their new work. They chose to focus their meeting on the same topic as the Town Hall which took place later that night: The Role of Organizations in Divisive Times. Meaning, what are the ways in which an arts organization should and could respond to political conflicts in the world?

Someone began by stating they felt that if these are issues we would support 10 years from now, then we need to figure out how to be responsive in this moment as well.

The question came up about what it actually means to support artists and the message of their art. If artists are concerned about censorship or about an issue in the world that they feel is important to respond to, do the organizations and institutions have a role in supporting them?

Some helpful ideas were:

• Thinking about what actions your organization is involved in and how those actions can be used to support your community’s action in a conflict.
• Are arts organizations’ only responsible to art creation or does the organizations’ responsibility to its stakeholders reach beyond that?
• Concerns about how there is a lack of agility and actual ability to respond to issues when they occur in the world given our institutions’ capacity.
• Government funders are becoming increasingly less arms length, even though that’s how they are supposed to function.

I mentioned that I felt that the central question of the discussion was a bit of a false one because we had already widely discussed how art is inherently political during the 2020 BLM movements. And these uprisings are going to continue to happen so we need to find ways to respond to these public movements. 

Because arts organizations regularly do political work, they often back off and try to wash their hands of political issues when an issue is seen as “divisive”. 

And race is a big factor in which issues we decide are “divisive”. 

So maybe this conversation would be better served if we actually talked about the relevant fears that are coming up around being defunded or losing support from our board.

Some people brought up the idea of wanting to continue to build their tables longer and longer and that by getting involved in politics by supporting an issue (which they do anyways), they are risking breaking those long tables. 

At times during this conversation it felt like there was a lack of creativity to come up with ideas rather than barriers as to why organizations could not possibly get involved in political art. Even though they do. 

Overall it seemed like many of the orgs wanted to talk around Palestine, doing a lot of hand wringing, rather than talking about real quantitative action that could be taken or is being taken by theatres. The conversation constantly seemed to circle the sink and stay away from saying or specifying Palestine. 

I left with a sense that many arts leaders recognize the need to support artists by taking action for Palestine but are unwilling to actually take the risk to do so. I hoped that we could begin to build towards a collective action that would allow for us to step up together, but that never came along.

Optional Town Hall — The Role of Organizations in Divisive Times 

S: PACT hired two facilitators to guide us through the conversation, and attendees were invited to send them an email outlining who they were representing, what they would like to say, and what region  they are from. If selected, they would get two uninterrupted minutes to share their views. The first folks that shared were from a feminist theatre company, and said that they had put together a cohort, who would normally run an annual fundraiser towards the charity of the cohort’s choosing. In this case, they decided to fundraise for Palestinian refugees. The company felt that this would jeopardize a building that they are trying to get built. So they told the cohort to either cancel the event, or hold the event elsewhere without the affiliation of the company.

There were some voices in the room that stood in solidarity with Palestine and shared why it is important for arts organizations to be involved in the conversation.

An individual from a Saskatchewan theatre company said that the open letter put together by Labour in the Arts was “harmful”. They refused to expand on why it was harmful. They also said that while they understand they have white privilege, they are unsure as to whether or not they actually have it at that moment. But either way proceeded to take up more time than anybody else in that room, and used their white woman tears without advancing any conversations forward.

But the town hall turned into more of a debate on how Palestine has made people feel and who is right on the issue rather than actually tackling the topic in question. No actions came up as a result of this town hall. 

One of the last people to share was an Indigenous artist, who reminded the attendees that Indigenous people do not recognize colonial states, like Israel.

LIA: I’d just add that this individual from the Saskatchewan theatre company (who doesn’t feel like they have white privilege in the conversation regarding Palestine) is a core member of PACT’s BIPOC Administrator Mentorship program.

Workplace Rights and Responsibilities in the Digital Realm

S: This session was initially promoted as an event for participants to talk about political advocacy, how individuals and organizations can be protected from harm, and how social media plays a role in mobilizing arts workers.

LIA: We heard that someone had initially been asked to be on a panel for this event, but hours before the event format had completely changed to a much more controlled format. 

S: Yeah. 

LIA: So they weren’t ready to “have the difficult conversations”.

S: No. Turns out they really didn’t want to “have at it”.

LIA: We had also heard that some people walked out of this session in disbelief.

S: Yep. The event was turned into an exercise in online marketing and community engagement. It was clear that some members only wanted to engage in a specific type of political advocacy that is polite, safe, and free from perceived “controversy”.