By Roanna Gonsalves
[This text was presented upon invitation, as a speech at ‘Voice, Agency, and Integrity – Diversity and Inclusion in the Arts’, the launch of the Beyond Tick Boxes report by Diversity Arts Australia, Riverside Theatre, Parramatta, on Friday, Oct 5, 2018.]
Good afternoon everyone. I was going to title this talk “What polyamory can teach us about the Australian arts landscape”, but, I thought, ‘it’s not the right moment yet’.
I had the privilege of participating in the Beyond Tick Boxes (BTB) symposium last year, and I’ve also read the report that is being launched today. Thank you Lena Nahlous, the Executive Director of Diversity Arts Australia, and Jackie Bailey from the BYP Group who have put in so much work to create this report. It’s an extremely useful polyphonic document that contains a multiplicity of voices, experiences, and suggestions for the transformation of the Australian arts landscape, to take it from its largely monocultural current state to a broader embrace of cultural diversity in the arts. Thank you, Lena, for inviting me to speak this afternoon. I would like to thank a number of people with whom I’ve had conversations that have helped shape my thinking about these issues: Lena Nahlous, Kevin Bathman, Rev. Jackie Bailey, Dr. Mridula Nath Chakraborty, Suneeta Peres Da Costa, and particularly Dr. Ruth De Souza and Dr. Bryan Mukandi for suggestions of key texts.
I would like to take this opportunity to use the report as a foundational document that allows us to throw forward into the future, to move beyond tick boxes, to move beyond diversity and beyond the inclusion of non-white artists, to move beyond a virtuous allowing of diverse artists into the hallowed halls of Australian arts practice, and to think in terms of recognising excellence. And recognising excellence in places where it has not been recognised before.
Here are some quotes from the report that stood out to me:
- “Attendees at the Beyond Tick Boxes symposium repeatedly described experiences of systemic discrimination among the gatekeepers who control whether or not a CALD artist gets to communicate their work to an audience. As one attendee expressed it, What is excellence? White.” (Pg 16 of the BTB report).
- “There is a lack of understanding amongst decision-makers about what comprises excellence in culturally diverse practices.” (Pg 18 of the BTB report).
- In one of the films we just watched, Maria Tran notes how she is often told that her films are cute, about her community.
To me, this points to a fundamental truth about the Australian arts landscape, that artistic excellence is seen as something that white artists, white writers, white performers, white arts practitioners, or white arts companies have. It’s something that exists east of Town Hall station, usually with ocean views, not here in Parramatta, where the “Third World-looking People” live, to use Ghassan Hage’s evocative term from his book White Nation. Oh no. The work being done west of Town Hall station, without ocean views, is perceived as just “cute”, “community” stuff.
Drawing on the work of the Indigenous author and scholar Aileen Moreton-Robinson, who talks about “the possessive logic of patriarchal white sovereignty” in her book The White Possessive: Property, Power and Indigenous Sovereignty, published by the University of Minnesota Press in 2015 (p. 176), it is quite clear to me that in Australia today, artistic excellence is thought of as a white possession. Artistic excellence is often seen as a possession of whiteness. It is through this “possessive logic of patriarchal white sovereignty” that the idea of artistic excellence is guarded and maintained as a white possession.
One of the ways in which artistic excellence is maintained as a white possession is by the continuing denial of artistic excellence in relation to non-white arts practitioners, and the denial of opportunities to achieve excellence through sustained financial support, in relation to non-white arts practitioners. The most recent proof of this is the revelation that the current NSW Minister for the Arts, Don Harwin admitted that money from a State Government funding round was diverted to the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, while eleven organisations missed out on the money. Mr Harwin said the money was for an “acoustic enhancement at the Darling Harbour Theatre at the International Convention Centre”, as reported by the ABC. He said, “What does the honourable member suggest I do? Let that great orchestra fail? Of course not.”
Of course we can’t let that great orchestra fail because that is what excellence looks like, and it is a white possession. But this suggests that we can let other artists fail, artists such as Dr Paula Abood (to use just one example of many). Dr Abood is an acclaimed Arab Australian writer, community cultural development practitioner, creative producer and educator. Her multi-platform arts project was one among many projects that didn’t get funding because of this diversion of money. Artistic excellence is a white possession in Australia. Dr Abood’s work is not perceived as fitting the criteria of artistic excellence as a possession of whiteness. And when a project is not seen as displaying artistic excellence, there is no urgency to sustain it or to uphold it, and so it can easily be dispensed with.
It’s absolutely fine that artistic excellence and whiteness are a couple. It’s essential to not let that great orchestra fail. Let it thrive, of course. But let other arts companies and artists thrive too. And here’s where polyamory comes in (I’ll let you draw your own links between these two ideas in your own time). Let’s begin to disentangle artistic excellence from the sole possession of whiteness. Let’s recognise excellence in the work of non-white arts practitioners too. Let’s understand that the terms “multicultural” and “artistic excellence” are not incompatible, but can and do form a productive coupling.
How do we do this? One way to do this would be by supporting the supporters, as I mentioned at the BTB symposium last year. Organisations such as Diversity Arts Australia already know how to recognise and champion artistic excellence when it’s not in the possession of whiteness. Support the work that they do in a sustainable way so they can focus on championing artistic excellence outside of white possession, and so contribute towards our collective movement forward at the edges of our most excellent artistic universe.
Thank you.
Read the full and free report here: http://diversityarts.org.au/event/parramatta-report-launch-cultural-sectors-must-act-reflect-australias-diversity/
Roanna Gonsalves is a writer, and one of the founding co-editors of Southern Crossings. Read more about her here: https://roannagonsalves.com.au
Photo by Ravi Shekhar on Unsplash