\n<\/p>\n
NOTE<\/strong>: This post is to introduce you to the 49th episode of Fran\u00e7ois Matarasso\u2019s and my monthly podcast, \u201cA Culture of Possibility.\u201d It will be available starting 21 February 2025. You can find it and all episodes at Stitcher<\/a>, iTunes<\/a>, and wherever you get your podcasts, along with miaaw.net<\/a>\u2018s other podcasts by Owen Kelly, Sophie Hope, and many guests, focusing on cultural democracy and related topics. You can also listen on Soundcloud<\/a> and find links to accompany the podcasts. <\/em><\/p>\n The Miaaw Review<\/em> inaugural issue came out last month. It will appear five times each year. The first edition contains an essay by me and shorter pieces by Owen Kelly and Fran\u00e7ois Matarasso. You have to subscribe to receive it. It\u2019s free, you won\u2019t be spammed, nor will your email be shared with anyone. Just enter your emailhere<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n I\u2019m happy to say that podcast cohost Fran\u00e7ois Matarasso is back from medical leave!<\/strong> This is the first episode featuring both of us since October, and it\u2019s great to be back! As you\u2019ll read, this was a double occasion, Fran\u00e7ois\u2019 return and the beginning of the fifth year of the podcast. We used this episode to take stock\u2014reviewing the guiding intentions of the past four years\u2014and to think aloud about the future. After you listen, we\u2019d be grateful to hear what you think is needed now (and what\u2019s not). Please email me at arlenegoldbard@gmail.com<\/a>. We\u2019d love to hear from you!<\/p>\n I kicked things off by summarizing our intentions thus far.<\/strong> <\/p>\n \u201cCore for me is a clear sense of the values and identity of the work. We\u2019re always fighting for the legitimacy and value of the practices that we talk about on on this podcast, as against either what are considered mainstream theater, visual art, music, whatever, or as against things like social practice, which are seen as breaking new ground. One of my perpetual complaints is that they borrow a lot of methods from community-based arts work, but generally without acknowledgement. We bring up topics that help people to consider what their work means, where it fits, whether it\u2019s seen clearly by other people as well as practitioners, how it\u2019s treated, and so forth. That is sometimes clarifying.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat can art do now? That\u2019s a question that we\u2019ve asked over and over. Interviewees have had a lot of different intentions and ideas about that, and it\u2019s good to keep that conversation going. We\u2019re both really interested in putting the work that people like those we\u2019ve interviewed do in a larger social, cultural, and political context. The little story of a specific project in a particular place with particular aims, as we talk to the person that we\u2019re interviewing, we\u2019re trying to situate that in the spirit of the times, in the larger political and economic and social and cultural context. When you and I have devoted an episode to talking about funding or evaluation or ethics, that\u2019s what we\u2019ve been trying to do, situate the work that guests talk about in in that framework.\u201d<\/p>\n Fran\u00e7ois connected that to another intention<\/strong>. \u201cA really important part of what I\u2019m trying to do in all of my work, I talk about encouragement. I like the word because in its origins it\u2019s about giving people courage. Yesterday, I had a email from a young mother, an artist living in in one of the Southern European countries, taking an opportunity while her daughter was asleep, to write and and talk to some extent about how difficult her working life has been, to get funding, to get credibility, to get support. But it\u2019s never difficult to find people to work with, or to be appreciated by the people that she\u2019s working with. We are living in reactionary, dangerous times when many of our core values are overtly under attack. For me, one of the central challenges is how can I speak to people truthfully and encourage them in a situation that is so daunting?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve also done some things we hope will be useful\u201d I added. \u201cFrom time to time we have a conversation as Owen and I just did about a cultural policy document of some kind, or some kind of a new program, or way of looking at cultural policy that\u2019s being announced. I wish I could say sometimes we just love it and sometimes we really have problems with it, but the truth is, we always have problems with it because the powers that be tend to be barking up the wrong tree.\u201d<\/p>\n Fran\u00e7ois didn\u2019t mince words.<\/strong> \u201cI\u2019d be even more brutal. I\u2019d say that what I\u2019ve noticed in the 45 years of my working life is that very few people in politics or which is worse, in senior positions in the arts and cultural world, even understand the basic concepts of cultural policy. They just shuffle words around and choose words that sound nice, but they are literally incapable of constructing a meaningful cultural policy that could be turned into a plan of action. It\u2019s rhetorical candy floss intended to make the organizations producing them look good. I\u2019m sorry that\u2019s harsh, but I really do feel that there is an intellectual emptiness in cultural policy today.\u201d<\/p>\n I agreed, and described an irony I\u2019ve noticed. \u201cThe thing that\u2019s been challenging for me, especially in the past few years, has been how little interest there seems to be in addressing that, even within the community of people who are doing the work. I understand that it\u2019s discouragement, because a lot of things have been tried and failed. It\u2019s a feeling of \u2018as it has been so it shall always be.’\u201d There\u2019s no opening to get in and move something around. Here in the states, some private sector entities have been experimenting with specific things like guaranteed income initiatives on a small scale for artists only, with some need-based criteria that run counter to the original idea of basic income. I don\u2019t know if they really have the hope that then these things will be picked up by the public sector, which is the only way that they would be capable of operating on a truly meaningful scale. But there\u2019s no sign that they\u2019ll be picked up by the public sector; especially under Trump, it\u2019s the opposite. It\u2019s kind of like keeping a candle burning. When we talk about what\u2019s happening in this area, at least we\u2019re helping a few people to get acquainted with it and maybe decide if there is some way to respond.\u201d<\/p>\n So what could the A Culture of Possibility podcast do now, under emergent conditions that are even more antithetical to cultural democracy than the prior status quo?<\/strong><\/p>\n Fran\u00e7ois sketched out some of those conditions. \u201cBecause of choices that have been made over the last decades, we have a lot of financial chickens coming home to roost, and budgets have never been quite as tight. Deficits have never been as high, both on national levels and in many organizations. At the beginning of this year, I wrote a blog post that was really an act of will, as much for myself as anyone else, that I called \u2018Hope.\u2019 It\u2019s not a feeling, it\u2019s a decision. The choice of hope begins with not accepting the narratives of inequality and oppression that are increasingly being advocated as normal.\u201d<\/p>\n I mentioned one type of hope I didn\u2019t exactly like having to say,<\/strong> which is that with Trump\u2019s barrage of edicts radically changing public policy and action, many people will likely be directly affected. There\u2019s a Congressional election in two years that may shift the distribution of power somewhat, reinstalling some checks and balances that are currently MIA. \u201cI\u2019m not saying Trump is Hitler, but the idea of the Thousand Year Reich is pretty much the same tone of voice that we\u2019re hearing: this is a new social order, it will be eternal, and nothing will ever disrupt it\u2014contrary to pretty much all of human history. So one possibility is that the bad stuff produces a reaction that brings something better about.\u201d Fran\u00e7ois pointed out that was conditioned on putting forward a meaningful vision of the society we want to build, instead of just being reactive. <\/p>\n \u201cMost people want to live in peace,\u201d he said. \u201cWant justice. Want fairness. Want to treat their neighbors and be treated by them with dignity and with respect. The work that you and I have been involved in over the years, that\u2019s exactly where that exists. It exists in the grassroots, in communities, among people who are willing to work together to make a change for the better. It\u2019s from there that there has to come a better vision and a better way of explaining that vision, of communicating it to people that says it doesn\u2019t have to be like this. There is a way of living that respects all of life, that respects humanity, that respects nature, that respects a planet that doesn\u2019t put profit and and individual riches before everything.\u201d<\/p>\n Throughout the episode, we talked about possible futures<\/strong>. About resistance. About the importance of the small and local. About how funding is likely to change (and what\u2019s already happening in the U.S.) <\/p>\n Fran\u00e7ois listed some of the essential things to do to support each other and possibility in these times:<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to trust in ourselves and in each other, to trust in our values. This isn\u2019t a negotiable thing. Then I think that there is a question of clarity. It\u2019s an incredibly complicated world now, so many voices talking 17 to the dozen and trying to persuade us. By clarity I mean trying to remember what matters and what doesn\u2019t. We sometimes get caught up in things that that are really inconsequential and we don\u2019t notice or stand by the things that we should. We have limited energy. We have limited time. If we\u2019re going to have to to do this work and support it by by doing other work to earn a living, then we have to be very sure that the work we can do really matters. <\/p>\n \u201cThe last two that I had were more practical. One is mutual aid. I believe fundamentally in solidarity. It\u2019s always been central to this practice. It may well be that we can share resources. We can share premises. We can share partnerships. We can share networks and so on. Finally, some practical solutions. When we have tips, when we have workarounds, when we have solutions, when we have other ways of doing things, when we find cheaper alternative solutions, share them.\u201d <\/p>\n Please listen to the whole episode<\/strong>, because there\u2019s a lot more about what we see as needed now, and about our future plans for the podcast. We ended by inviting listeners to get in touch with us if there\u2019s something that that you\u2019re finding it inspiring, that you think other people should be able to read or see or talk about, or a person you want to meet on the podcast. Just drop me an email: arlenegoldbard@gmail.com<\/a>. And thanks for listening these last four years!<\/p>\n I love Al Green. Here\u2019s his version of Sam Cooke\u2019s \u201cA Change is Gonna Come<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n