The Podcast

Tim Cynova 4/22/21 Tim Cynova 4/22/21

Ethical Re-Opening Summit (EP.42)

In this episode, co-hosts Lauren and Tim discuss the upcoming Ethical Re-Opening Summit that they're producing on April 27, 2021. They'll be previewing some of the speakers and sessions, as well as discussing their hopes for the convening.

Last Updated

April 22, 2021

A year ago, many organizations flipped the switch to being entirely virtual workplaces almost overnight. As the world begins to re-open, we can't simply un-flip that switch. We're still living through the uncertainty of a global pandemic.

In this episode, co-hosts Lauren Ruffin and Tim Cynova discuss the upcoming Ethical Re-Opening Summit that they're producing on April 27, 2021. They'll be previewing some of the speakers and sessions, as well as discussing their hopes for the convening.

The summit brings together people who for years have been actively thinking and designing organizations to create inclusive and equitable workplaces. Speakers and panels will be discussion how we craft our workplaces that are unique to each of us, our values, our resources, our communities, and our missions. This time together gives attendees a moment to learn, share, and iterate on our own ideas and practices.

Co-Hosts: Tim Cynova & Lauren Ruffin

Episode Transcript

Co-Hosts

TIM CYNOVA wears a multitude of hats, all in service of creating anti-racist workplaces where people can thrive. He currently is Co-CEO of the U.S.-based non-profit Fractured Atlas, a 20-year-old organization that in 2013 committed to becoming anti-racist in its work and operations. Relatedly, he is a Principal of the consulting group Work. Shouldn't. Suck. that assists organizations of all sizes and sectors with the “how” of creating anti-racist workplaces. Tim serves on the faculty of Canada’s Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity and New York's The New School teaching courses in People-Centric Organizational Design; he's a trained mediator, and a certified Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR). He also co-hosts a popular podcast under the Work. Shouldn’t. Suck. moniker. Earlier in his career, Tim was the Executive Director of The Parsons Dance Company and of High 5 Tickets to the Arts in New York City, had a memorable stint with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, was a one-time classical trombonist, musicologist, and for five years in his youth he delivered newspapers for the Evansville, Indiana Courier-Press. Also, during a particularly slow summer, he bicycled 3,902 miles across the United States.

LAUREN RUFFIN is a thinker, designer, & leader interested in building strong, sustainable, anti-racist systems & organizations. She frequently explores how we can leverage new technologies to combat racial and economic injustice. Lauren is the co-founder of Crux, an international network & for-profit cooperative of Black artists creating stories in XR that hosts an online community & will launch VR distribution platform in 2020. Since 2016, she has served as Co-CEO & Chief External Relations Officer for Fractured Atlas, the nation's largest association of artists & creators. She is also the founder of Artist Campaign School, an educational program that has trained more than 70 artists to run for political office. Lauren graduated from Mount Holyoke College with a degree in Political Science & obtained a J.D. from Howard University. She has served on the governing board of Black Girls Code & is on the advisory boards of ArtUp & Black Girl Ventures.

Transcript

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Guest User 10/21/20 Guest User 10/21/20

The Work Towards Anti-Racism (EP.41)

In the journey towards creating anti-racist organizations, what exactly is included in “the work” we talk about so much?

Last Updated

October 21, 2020

In the journey towards becoming an anti-racist organization, the team at Fractured Atlas talk a lot about doing the work. But what exactly do they mean by "the work?" Is reading part of the work? Are workshops in diversity, equity, and inclusion part of the work?

In this episode we sit down with three members of the team who are deeply engaged in the work personally and professional to discuss this question. We're joined by Nina Berman, Courtney Harge, and everyone's favorite podcasting co-host, Lauren Ruffin. Read more about Fractured Atlas's journey towards anti-racism.

Guests: Nina Berman & Courtney Harge

Co-Hosts: Tim Cynova & Lauren Ruffin

Episode Transcript

Guests

NINA BERMAN lives in New York City and holds an MA in English from Loyola University Chicago. Before joining Fractured Atlas, she covered the publishing industry for an audience of publishers at NetGalley Insights. When she's not interviewing artists or sharing tips for navigating the art world on the Fractured Atlas blog, Nina makes ceramics at Center Point Ceramics Studio, hosts Planet Clambake on Newtown Radio, and is a member of the New Sanctuary Coalition pro-se legal clinic. Find her on Instagram at @nnbrmn.

COURTNEY HARGE is an arts administrator, director, and writer originally from Saginaw, MI who has been working in the service of artists for the last fifteen years. She is the founder and Producing Artistic Director of Colloquy Collective, an emerging theater company in Brooklyn, NY. Courtney is also a proud member of Women of Color in the Arts, and a 2016 alum of both APAP’s Emerging Leaders Institute and artEquity’s Facilitator Training. She holds a Masters of Professional Studies, with Distinction, in Arts and Cultural Management from Pratt Institute. You can find more information about her at www.courtneyharge.com and find her on Instagram and Twitter at @Arts_Courtney. Her credo (#HustlingKeepsYouSexy) is not merely a hashtag; it’s a way of life.

Transcript

Tim Cynova:

Hi, I'm Tim Cynova, and welcome to Work Shouldn't Suck, a podcast about, well, that. On this episode, The Work, there's a lot of talk these days about “doing the work” when we discuss social progress, in particular anti-racism efforts at our organizations. There are platitudes about how the work is ongoing, a lifelong commitment, et cetera, et cetera. But what exactly is the work? Today, I'm joined by some of my favorite people, Nina Berman, Courtney Harge, and podcasting favorite cohost, Lauren Ruffin. They each are deeply involved in the work, both personally and professionally, and we currently all have the privilege of working together at Fractured Atlas.

Tim Cynova:

Taking a quick moment here to say, if you're interested in learning more about our human-centered workplace design, I invite you to visit workshouldntsuck.co, where you'll find a wealth of materials and resources covering everything from shared leadership team models to virtual workplace arrangements, to today's subject our ongoing organizational journey toward anti-racism. You can find all of our bios linked in the description for this episode. So in the interest of time, let's get going. Courtney, Nina, and Lauren, welcome to the podcast.

Courtney Harge:

It's great to be here.

Nina Berman:

Great to be here.

Lauren Ruffin:

Hey, Tim.

Tim Cynova:

Nina, you were the person who tipped us off to tackling the topic in this way. In your role at Fractured Atlas, you've been quite active in recent months as we publish more about our organizational journey toward anti-racism, and in about every piece, we talk about the work. A while back you said, "I think we should try and define what we mean by this." What does "the work" mean to you? What's included in the work and what isn't? What's your current thinking on the topic?

Nina Berman:

So for me, we're now seeing all of these companies and organizations that had that very tasteful sand [inaudible 00:01:52] block of texts about listening and learning, and we're a few months after that. Now I think is a time to check in and say, "Okay, so where are we? Where are our colleagues across organizations? How are we thinking about making change?" And the language that we use to chart that is doing the work, and it's clear that it's something that's amorphous in a lot of ways, that's both internal and personal but also tangible and material and policy-based, both your work policies and larger government policies and things like that. So for me, it feels important to articulate what the work is because that's ultimately how we hold ourselves accountable to living our values.

Nina Berman:

My personal frustration, I suppose that sort of prompted this, is ... and I think you folks might feel a little bit differently, but I think sometimes people will consider posting on social media or reading an article, doing the work of anti-racism and I am not convinced that's true. So I wanted to think through originally what we could set up as some guidelines for thinking about what it means to do the work. So I enlisted all of you and we didn't come ... I don't think we're going to come to an answer, but it feels important to use this big and confusing term with a little bit more specificity to hold ourselves as people and as institutions accountable to our own politics.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. I mean, I think that whole ... I mean, when you prompted us with that question a couple of weeks ago, I've definitely been in my head about it because for some people posting on social media is a big deal and it can feel like doing the work. I'm actually wondering if, because we've ... So many of us have been isolated for the last few months, posting online is the thing that you can do to push people, and I'm not sure if I'm arguing for or against that being the work, but I'm just adding. I'm adding a point of complexity to muddy the waters further.

Nina Berman:

That's exactly what we want.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah, exactly.

Tim Cynova:

Yeah. I thought you'd get a better idea of what the work is. Well, this isn't the podcast for you. You're going to be more confused about all the options.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah, exactly. From social media posting to we went to book clubs, of course because everybody knows I'm a big fan of telling people to read a damn book, before you talk to me. But is that the work? I mean, up until we started asking this question, I was pretty convinced that it was, and now I'm flip-flopped again in the last couple of days, be like, "Maybe it isn't the work. Maybe I'm being too easy on people."

Tim Cynova:

Well Courtney, where are you with that? Because so we have posting on social media, we have book clubs, we also get throw into the mix diversity, equity and inclusion trainings. Is that part of the work? Or maybe is that a preface to doing the work? What are your thoughts on this right now?

Courtney Harge:

I think all of those things can be the work. Recently listening to this podcast, Brene Brown's podcast, and in it she was talking to Sonya Renee Taylor of the The Body Is Not an Apology, and they were talking particularly about radical self love, and particularly as it relates to diet culture and a few things. But something that really stuck with me was this idea of the alignment of the how you're doing something with the why you're doing something. That means any of those things or anything you're doing can be the work, can be something that is moving the needle toward a more radical and equitable future. But it very much depends on why you're doing whatever it is that you're doing. So if, Ruffin's point, you're posting on social media because you know that your audience, even if it's not huge, will be impacted by it, and because this is where you feel empowered to do something, that can be the work.

Courtney Harge:

You can be having conversations that are prompting or supporting other people to have conversations, or sometimes it could be saying, if you know your particular social positioning, simply saying something can connect people to who you are. So if you are a CIS person posting positively about trans rights, in a space [inaudible 00:05:52], a trans person may not feel safe. You are using your power to basically take some of the "negativity" that people may throw away from a trans person and providing some space, providing a space to amplify a valued voice. That can be the work. It can also not be the work if you're doing that to silence or take up room from trans people.

Courtney Harge:

I think because there is no grade the work actually is never done, there's no moment where you turn in. It's like say I literally did the work and here's your response because that doesn't happen. You have to, in essence, question and consider everything you're choosing to do. Some things you're just doing because you feel like doing them and some things you're doing because you think, again, it's going to get us to what I would hope is a better more equitable place, but there is no ... I don't think there is one right answer. I think there has to be an alignment of how you are moving the needle and why you are choosing this tactic to do so.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. I mean, you raise the issue of safety, and as a person who is on the record in several instances saying that protesting is not my ministry, being out in the streets with large crowds is just ... that's not the way I'm going to get saved. I've got this whole point, which is with all this work that I feel like I'm doing is the work, is there an element of because I'm not often risking my physical safety, does that mean I'm not doing the work? Is that a metric that we should measure by because people talk about it that way?

Nina Berman:

I think that in some ways, that talk, for me it really privileges ... It privileges able-bodiedness for one thing, and it privileges also a real kind of machismo, in my opinion. The like, I'm going to be at the front lines, this real soldieriness. I think it's important to consider that there is really important and powerful work that doesn't happen at the barricades or something like that. But on the other hand, I feel like sometimes people do let themselves maybe off the hook in some way where people are like, "Well, I have posted on Instagram and I have purchased a memoir. I have now completed my anti-racism work of the day. Back to the rest of my life." I think there has to be a balance, that when we consider what counts as "real work," how does that end up reifying norms about what is brave, what is important, what is good? But how do we also still push ourselves to engage in meaningful and real ways?

Courtney Harge:

I also want to add that. I think there are multiple ways to do the work. This is a war on many fronts, and so doing the work is like are you in a room and is a racism happening in that room and are you interrupting it? That can be it. But yes, protests are helpful and valuable, but you can also ... You can be in a meeting and somebody said a thing and interrupting whatever that is is also part of doing the work. I think where you show up and actively interrupt the systems of oppression in a variety of ways is also doing the work, but do have to be accountable for it. There is no one way to do the work. There is definitely a serious way to not do the work, which is to not interrupt the systems when you see them. But yeah, Ruffin is somebody who ... I love crowds, but I can't. All of the energy in a protest actually makes me ineffective. I go and would just receive the intensity of the moment and not actually be able to interrupt or engage thoughtfully.

Courtney Harge:

I also don't protest because I can't be effective there. But there are many places where I can be effective in interrupting the status quo, and so I try to make it a point to, if I'm in that room and I see a thing or I'm experiencing something or even if just asking the question to interrupt what we accept as the system, like that feels just as valid or maybe valid in a different way. But if racism or oppression is happening somewhere and you are interrupting it, you are contributing to doing the work. If you're in a room and no oppressive systems are present, and then you're just performing, that's different. But if racism has made it to any space, if racism can make it to fricking soap dispensers because of light sensors and all of that, then any place you are interrupting, it is valuable.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. Until we had this conversation, my personal take on why I didn't protest was almost that it was too easy. There are other skills that ... And that's not to say it's easy for everybody, but for me, where I'm located with my able body privilege and everything else, it's too easy. But the things I can do really think about strategy around legislation, and those things that are probably a better use of my skillset than I think is relatively unique. Then I went down the talented 10th route. Are you being elitist by thinking that's your position? And in the revolution is to write legislation, is that even valuable? I don't know. I mean, that's just the personal struggle.

Nina Berman:

I feel that. In some kinds of organizing spaces when a lot of stuff is happening a Catholic way, I'm like, "Oh, I can help streamline this and I can help give us a structure." Then part of me is like, "Oh, I'm not using my white collar creative class job to import those values into a space. But ultimately I do think that a big part of figuring out what the work is also means figuring out what your skills are, what you're good at.

Tim Cynova:

Much in the same way, if you're trying to achieve massive change any other way, you look to who has what kind of skills, what kind of resources and pull those together in the best configuration to give you the best chance to achieve that. Some of those things are our default, some of those things push us out of our comfort zone, but it's a mix of these things that I think informed the conversation, informed the work and ultimately lead to change and successful change. I want to spend a minute on is reading the work? Because we split, or at least we initially split, in a lot of different ways, and as we see a lot of books about anti-racism that have been back-ordered, people are doing a lot of reading right now, or have been doing a lot of reading during the summer, especially following the murder of George Floyd. Where do you stand on reading as part of the work? Yes, no, maybe, sometimes?

Lauren Ruffin:

So I'll give him my rationale for why right now at this second reading is the work, and it lies at the intersection of my own process of educating myself over the last decade or so, in particular around how the government has treated black and indigenous peoples throughout this history with extreme hostility and persecution. The need for people to read about that, or the fact that it happened, coupled with it's knowledge that you're not going to get in 99.9% of curricula at any educational level. So the City of Chicago recently started a police brutality curriculum because of the torture case they lost when they have police officers literally torturing people in projects in Chicago. But above and beyond that, we don't have any type of public school curriculum. It's not just the dedicated work of maybe one or two individuals in a school district, probably against the will of many, many more people in a school district.

Lauren Ruffin:

So that's why I think reading about specific points in history is the topic, because my approach to doing the work is so deeply rooted in the education that I've given myself in that space, which is part of why it's so firm and part of why it's so direct and harsh because we've not really framed [inaudible 00:13:14] books as a persecuted minority class, that's happened at the hands of the state. I think that's a really important distinction that I don't know that we talk about enough, and most certainly we get into disagreements with people who don't know that the City of Philadelphia dropped a bomb in a neighborhood, who really don't know about COINTELPRO and how the federal government murdered Fred Hampton in bed next to his pregnant wife. When we go throughout history and think about these things, we don't know that police departments grew out of state patrols 400 years ago. So to me, that's why I think the reading is the work because I don't know if we can have a conversation without people understanding that.

Courtney Harge:

I think the reading is the beginning of the work. What I get frustrated about with that, because one, I agree that reading in that path for education is helpful, at least a foundation for understanding. I find an inherent anti-blackness in having to read it to understand it. The lack of empathy frustrates me. When I both logically get that reading is fine, but there are some things that people are just telling you. We are saying this is what's happening, this is a pattern of persecution by the state, this is not the first time, and to look people in the face, to watch these videos of harm being enacted on black people over and over again, and we're like, "This is the status quo, this is not new, and this is what we need to address," and to hear, "Yeah, but is it ... Did somebody else write about it? Did somebody I respect wrote about it? Did they use the language that makes me feel comfortable to understand it?"

Courtney Harge:

I get frustrated, is the only word I can think about, to really cover that because it's like I still feel an essence of debate for my humanity. I could be in tears in front of you saying, "This is my reality," and you're like, "That's super cool, but where's my book club? So that me and my friends can discuss your pain with a glass of Chardonnay while a woman of color is probably watching my children." I get that whole process irks me in a deep spiritual place.

Lauren Ruffin:

Exactly, Courtney. I can't agree with you more which is why I'm at the point, for the last three years, when I'm about to talk to a white person about this, I say, "What have you read?" Because I'm not doing that shit anymore.

Courtney Harge:

Word.

Lauren Ruffin:

I agree 100%, and if we can't agree on what happened ... And to a certain extent, that's me having to do ... Again, that's back to my own education. There's a lot of shit that I didn't know about. It was never that I thought it wasn't happening because I grew up in a black family who grew up in the hood, from the hood of Baltimore. So I know about police brutality. I know how we've been tracked and how we've been treated. I just needed a litmus test because I wasn't going to engage in those conversations anymore because I get angry and I got a little bit of a ... When I get angry, it's hard talking me down. We don't even talk so much.

Courtney Harge:

Fully relate. I used to joke the way my mouth is set up, I would say a thing and then we'd get there, and the way my mouth is set up, it's not going to end up well, so let's ... We're going to go back to the space where it doesn't trigger that. Yes.

Nina Berman:

I think that this question of is reading the work, I originally was really firm on the side of reading is not the work, because I think that it is so often considered to be like an end in itself, you check it off your list. You order the book, you order it from an independent bookshop, from black-owned bookshop, and then you're like, "Great. I did it," and then according to your point, you discuss it and have a glass of Chardonnay. But if the reading is ... if you're reading as part of your political education, as part of what will truly shape you and shake you and change the way you move in the world, if it has material consequences for how you think, how you work, how you engage with other people, then maybe I'm softening a little bit because often you're absolutely right.

Nina Berman:

We are not taught these histories at all. I was taught that the Civil War was about states' rights and the North was way better [inaudible 00:17:18] like, boy howdy, not true on both counts. So being able to learn more and read more and listen more has been really crucial. But I guess I just don't want to give people too easy an out. If people are going to read books and really let them shake them, then good. But if you're just going to read and be like, "Huh, interesting," then I'm not into it.

Lauren Ruffin:

That's a good point because I'm over-educated. We have a country that has for generations been actively miseducated, and so we've got to spend some time ... Eight-hour diversity training's not going to fix that. The building's on fire. So some people got to read a book, some people ... There's a lot of strategies, and I don't know. For me and where I am in my engagement, you got to read something.

Tim Cynova:

Yeah. Well, let's flip right there because you brought up the eight-hour training. So are eight-hour trainings the work?

Lauren Ruffin:

At the outset, we say let's not put any of our friends out of business. Right?

Courtney Harge:

Right. Word.

Lauren Ruffin:

Let's just be mindful.

Tim Cynova:

That's right. That was the last time they had a podcast.

Lauren Ruffin:

I mean there are other people who are actively trying to preference out of business, like the government, but ...

Courtney Harge:

One, I'm going to say, yes, they are the work with the caveat that I don't think anything is unequivocally the work. I think it is the collection of behaviors with an aligned how and why. My yeses are mostly yeses. Even my nos might just be mostly nos. So I think diversity trainings, these eight-hour trainings, are the work for a few reasons. One, I think the shared conversation, the shared experience of people who have to work in a place, being able to have this conversations. I will say this, even if the trainings aren't the best, are valuable experiences. In discussing these dynamics, you frequently also get to see the dynamics play out in real time because you're dealing with what is very difficult for a lot of people to be able to engage with. A lot of the power dynamics and a lot of the microaggressions and a lot of the stuff shows up in those spaces in ways that can be named as they are happening frequently.

Courtney Harge:

Two, I think the shared experience of being able to normalize around language about what we mean when we say this, whatever this is, racism, oppression, just creating some shared definitions in space, create value for conversations, posts those trainings. Third, I think that these create a space for questions where things frequently have been resting on people's spirit, and there has not been a space to really say them, and so being able to pull them into this shared experience frequently creates value. I think those three things are true, regardless of the quality of the trainers, I've been in a few, I've facilitated some, I believe in the power of the work. But I think having the space to ask questions, having the shared experience for definitions and getting to watch some of these dynamics play out in real time in ways that allow people to name them creates value inherently, which is why I do think they are the work.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. I mean, I land on the side of they are the work primarily because I haven't ever been to one where I haven't learned something, and that goes back to the value that I place on learning, whether it's a new framework or an approach, or just an actual nugget of this is something that happened. I do worry because white supremacy demands that we come away from things with a checklist or a clear pathway. I don't know if any sector I've worked in has a conversation about this is one framework and then there's another framework, and then there's you can pull in stuff from ...

Lauren Ruffin:

In the art sector, we spend a lot of time thinking about arts civic diversity and equity training, which is often rooted in live performance in large institutions, the impressive damage they've done, and then with some folks like Equity Quotient and Keryl McCord focusing on the narratives, like the responsibility of graders to have focus on first voice in narratives. But I often think we walk away feeling like this is the way in the light. It's one option. I've been thinking a lot about how do we get people a smorgasbord of options with approach that you can pick and choose to find your own way forward. That might look a lot different than someone else's way forward.

Nina Berman:

I've never actually been a part of any of these workshops, maybe telling about my employment history or something or places I've worked. But I wonder any time you're bringing people together for a very intense and time-limited experience where people might engage really intensely with one another with themselves, and then you go out and you feel transformed, but then without anywhere for that to go, I worry that you end up just feeling like good about yourself for having sat through the workshop. But I also wonder if being in that space, it creates those grooves for those questions, those thoughts, those frameworks to sit so that the next time it gets brought up, that groove is easier to find a again, so that you're not completely reinventing the wheel. I guess I think that this ... I mean, this is a big question. Is there a limit to the amount of anti-racism work that you can do in a workplace when you're always and much more explicitly engaged in the framework of capitalism, which is built on the exploitation of black indigenous people? Is that a ceiling for us?

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. Well, we talked about that at our board retreat last year. Tim, I don't know if you remember that. We were doing the latter with Carol and it became pretty clear that just by nature of the work we're doing in financial systems, that we're probably never going to get to that, I think it was a level six, or whatever it was, and we were always going to be a little bit short because we do participate so heavily in the capitalistic financial system. To me, the question remains, we've not moved the needle on this, but what can we do in our role to impact that system?

Tim Cynova:

Well, yeah, Lauren, I think your point about financial systems and oftentimes doing the work on covering instances that are stumbling blocks, but maybe really baked into how the organization works and operates allows you to start to identify or talk about how you can untangle those things or what you could do about it. A lot of our colleagues in the foundation sector right now are talking about where their portfolios are invested, and are they invested in ways that are maybe actively working against multiple times over the work that they're trying to do by funding through program initiatives as organizations look at who manages their financials. Are you working with organizations who might have different values than you do and value other things?

Tim Cynova:

I guess spoiler alert, way after the fact, I view trainings as part of the work, within mind, to what end and where's intentionality. I also view reading as the work, especially I think reading as the work for white cisgender men. That is something that, because I view this as both personal and professional journey, I think that has to be part of it, especially in order to not further oppress, further burden people who are not white cisgendered, heterosexual men, that's part of the work. When you hear something, you have to go look it up, you have to read about it, learn about it so that you understand the context in which, particularly if you're leading an organization in the space that that organization works and operates how you understand what policies and procedures, what kind of effect they have on the team, and ultimately how you can be a part of co-creating that next thing, while understanding all the different dynamics at play.

Tim Cynova:

That's why it's a lifelong journey because white guys have a lot of time ... We have a lot to make up here. That's why I consider that part of the work, whether you drink Chardonnay while you're reading or not, but it's to what end and the intentionality that goes into that I think for me is foundational to be able to do everything else, to be able to pull apart an organization, look at all of the different component parts and then rebuild the hiring process and look at all of your different policies and how people work, which I think is more ... that is the work and I think the more impactful work. But I would say early on, trainings, reading, I would consider that part of the work as well.

Courtney Harge:

I also want to offer that ... I think that's a great question. I also think it is not quite the right question, and I say that because I frequently see people addressing anti-racism anti-oppression work and they're looking for the ... they're getting ahead of themselves, in that the systems ... Yes, if any industry hit a wall and the wall is probably capitalism and or American imperialism and or a few other things, there will be a limit. We have so much work to do before that wall. Don't even worry about it right now, and I say that because ... Be aware that it's there, but I have seen organizations be like, "Because we are still embedded in financial systems, we won't even ever be able to do it. So I'm going to not do the things that I can do."

Courtney Harge:

Part of the way the system works, the system builds things that make it convenient to continue to feed it, and if you start interrupting the things that feed it, if you make harder and harder to rely on the system to get to the ends that you want, then we can start addressing the system. COVID and the kind of subsequent fall of American democracy that we're witnessing as a result, all of a sudden, all of the things that fed the system are actually taking so much more energy and effort to maintain right now. It's still there, but people not working, all of a sudden they don't have the money to feed the thing, and all of a sudden the beast has to break so many other pieces to get fed that people are starting to question capitalism casually. But that is because the things that feed it, all of a sudden those systems, those chutes and ladders, aren't operating with the same efficiency they were operating before.

Courtney Harge:

So I agree that, yes, in any system, because all the things we have are built on, again, capitalism and American imperialism, all the fun things, everything is built to serve that, we have to start creating ways that interrupt in the levels and under our purviews that we can manage, that will interrupt it and make feeding the system as it stands, both inconvenient and inefficient, which will then prompt people to start adjusting the system or start questioning and interrupting the bigger broader system as it works.

Lauren Ruffin:

That's so spot on, Courtney. As you were talking and Tim was talking, I kept thinking power. Man, Tim and I spend a fair amount of time and need to spend more time interrogating how do we begin to see power throughout the organization? What does that look like? Because I think for me personally, anyway, when we leave Fractured Atlas at whatever point that might be, and we've not done anything to really rethink the hierarchy, which probably isn't necessary. It just is. Perhaps to me, the highest part of the work is when people start thinking about succession planning with urgency and how do we really begin to see power to black and brown people to run these organizations and to hold onto the power that's really been accumulated throughout the arts sector by white people in particular.

Tim Cynova:

Lauren, you're pushing down the work to what I believe is the work. How does this show up in organizations? Courtney, you're one of our rare return guests to the Work Shouldn't Suck Podcast. You previously joined us for episode four. This is episode 41. So somehow that happened. In that episode, you and our coworker, Nicola Carpenter were discussing a bit about the Fractured Atlas' journey and anti-racism, and more recently we were chatting about the work and things that organizations can do. You offered a helpful distinction for people to keep in mind that I found really useful. You said, "I think people confuse tangible with impactful, and impactful with visible. Adding pronouns to emails' signatures is tangible. Adding gender discrimination is impactful. Increasing in gender diversity at an organization is visible." First, thank you for articulating it that way, and secondly, what else do you have to offer about this distinction that you put forward?

Courtney Harge:

Well, thank you for reading it because I definitely forgot exactly how I made those distinctions together. So I'll support that. For it is people confuse what they want to happen, and those distinctions are important to me because a lot of times, particularly people who have not been marginalized and so this can be white people, this can be CIS people, this can be straight people, this can be able-bodied people, they tend to want visibility. They're like, "See, I did X and you can see the results." Frequently, marginalized people are asking for either tangible or impactful before visible. Visible is helpful, and so it feels that there are moments where you get into these conversations where somebody is like, "What can I do?" And it's like, "Well, what you can do in fact is talk to your racist uncle who may or may not be [inaudible 00:30:24] in charge of a school board and tell him to not be racist and create those policies." And be like, "Fix. You can have that. Maybe you can have that conversation."

Courtney Harge:

They're like, "Yeah, but what else?" It's yeah but what else, is almost always the things like you don't like the thing I told you because nobody's going to see it, nobody's going to know it, nobody's going to ... There's not going to be no plaque, no award, no ticker tape parade. It's like, these are things that would be impactful. Ending gender discrimination would be impactful, and there are many ways where you could just not. You could just not discriminate based on gender. That is actually surprisingly easy, in quotes, to do. But instead, we get the diversity stats of this is the number of women on staff and these are the number of women in these leadership positions or these are the number of gender nonconforming folks in these spaces. It's like, okay, that's visible, but one are those folks in fact agents of gender discrimination? Because women are in fact some of the biggest agents of the patriarchy. We can talk about that, but that's visible.

Courtney Harge:

You've put all these people here. It's like, "What is actually happening? What is the impact of what they're doing?" For me, those distinctions are like ... there's some stuff you can do that's just ... you can just make a change right now. Changing your email signature almost never really requires permission. You can just do it. That is a tangible thing that can make people feel safer and being able to converse and share their pronouns with you. Ending gender discrimination would be the most impactful if you could just stop doing that. People don't. But then again, people tend to go toward the visible. What is the thing that I can see? That is, again, as I said, a lot frustrating to encounter, but also I think people should be really honest with what they want to do. Do you want something that is visible because you need to feel better, because you need to be absolved?

Courtney Harge:

Because that's not fine, but that is real. I can engage with you. I can engage with you there. Somebody who started a theater company based on telling the stories of black women, I used to jokingly say I'm happy to take somebody's white guilt dollars. If you need to be visible, if that makes you feel better, because I know I'm actually going to do the work with it. I'm going to tell the stories, I'm going to empower people of color, I'm going to do some really impactful things, if you want to be visible and write me a big check because that makes you feel better, no, I don't think it's the work, but I will take that dollar. I will take the money. I will do that. But let's be honest with what you want, what you want is to be seen being helpful because the ways you can be seen being helpful can often be very different from the way that you are actually helpful.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. I mean, I feel like whenever people are like what can I do question, I want to be like, "You're not going to be happy unless I tell you to recreate Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech on the National Mall. Well, that's what you want me to say, but you can't do that. So [inaudible 00:33:13] you can't figure out the steps that it took to get there because all you see is the radical individual heroism that you think was that Civil Rights Movement at that particular time when it wasn't. It was actually thousands of primarily brown women doing things like handwriting flyers and cooking food and making sure people were taken care of during the movement that made that possible. But you want to jump right to the National Mall.

Tim Cynova:

Our conversations, there's always more to talk about than we have time, and this is no exception to that as we're starting to come up on time here. Let's start to land the plane by going with our closing thoughts on the topic for now. Nina, since you prompted us to have the conversation, maybe let's start with you.

Nina Berman:

All right. I think for me, I'm much less settled at the end of these few conversations we've had that I was when I came in and I think that's a good thing. I think broadly, one of the things that I'm taking away is when we're talking about terms like the work or other things that feel vague and important, we need to talk about what those words mean. I think that helps us become more clear about the features that we want to build with each other and where we see our roles in that building. I think for me, I'm thinking a lot about Courtney's suggestion that intent has a lot to do with whether or not something is the work.

Nina Berman:

Are you doing it for absolution? Are you doing it to tick a box? Are you doing it because you know that this is for a better future? I'm softening on whether or not reading is the work. So I'm grateful. I'm grateful for this conversation. But I think for me, it's more continuing to really ask what do we mean when we say whatever it is we're saying, and that you're not going to end up with something ... you're not going to end up necessarily with a really neat soundbite.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. I mean, language matters, for sure. The two words that always tie me up are, the two phrases are the work and the journey, or our journey. But no, and then power. We never seem to spend enough time on power in our conversations, and you and I actually ended up talking about power in a number of different ways in our conversations, Tim. So I always walk away thinking, what can we be doing, and how quickly can we do it to the see power throughout every community that we're in, including the Fractured Atlas community. That's where I'm at. Courtney, your turn.

Courtney Harge:

My final thoughts around this are it is a marathon. I don't want to say never, but we may not see whatever the end of this process is because, well, the opposition has a 400 year headstart, and so we're catching up even if we're all throwing everything at it. At the risk of sounding like I'm letting people off the hook, it is important to take care of yourself. But as people, it's almost like exercise, and I say this is not necessarily an exercise fanatic, but everybody talks about the January, the New Year's resolution, gym time, where he's like can't get in there, and people ... everybody is running the gym in January because they are so excited and like, "I'm going to do this," and they can injure themselves or they can not do things that take care of themselves and end up burning out and they disappear.

Courtney Harge:

So the gym is a very different place in January than it is from May. Fighting racism is like that. A bunch of people get really into I'm going to read everything and I'm going to do all of this work, and then three weeks later, or in this case, if you look at the difference between July and now and October, people disappear, they peter out. They're like, "It's too hard. I don't understand it. I can't." They just disappear, and it's like, you have to take care of yourself as you are doing this challenging necessary work. It is critical to our collective survival that we fix this. Knowing that this marathon means that you're going to have to take breaks, you can't actually fight it at every front all day. Being real with yourself, that maybe today I did not do what I needed to do, maybe today I did not do the work but I'm going to re-engage tomorrow is enough because it is continuous, it is everywhere, and we can make significant change, we just have to be willing to keep going.

Tim Cynova:

On that note, always amazing to be with each of you. Such a packed episode of information. For those of you who want to learn more about the things we've been discussing, Workshouldntsuck.co has a wealth of information and resources. Terrific insights, Courtney and Nina. Thank you so much for sharing your expertise and for being on the show.

Courtney Harge:

Thank you for having us.

Nina Berman:

Yeah, this is great.

Tim Cynova:

And Lauren, always a pleasure, my friend.

Lauren Ruffin:

Hey, always. Can't wait to do it again.

Tim Cynova:

If you've enjoyed the conversation, or just feeling generous today, please consider writing a review on iTunes so that others who might be interested in the topic can join the fund too. Give it a thumbs up or five stars or phone a friend, whatever your podcasting platform of choice offers. If you didn't enjoy this chat, please tell someone about it who you don't like as much. Until next time, thanks for listening.

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Guest User 7/3/20 Guest User 7/3/20

Live with Ashara Ekundayo, Esteban Kelly & Syrus Marcus Ware! (EP.40)

Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guests Ashara Ekundayo, Esteban Kelly & Syrus Marcus Ware. [Live show recorded: June 8, 2020.]

Last Updated

July 1, 2020

Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guests Ashara Ekundayo, Esteban Kelly & Syrus Marcus Ware. [Live show recorded: June 8, 2020.]

Guests: Ashara Ekundayo, Esteban Kelly & Syrus Marcus Ware

Co-Hosts: Tim Cynova & Lauren Ruffin

Episode Transcript

Guests

ASHARA EKUNDAYO is a Detroit-born independent curator, creative industries entrepreneur, cultural strategist, and founder working across arts, community, government, and social innovation spaces. Through her consulting company AECreative Consulting Partners, LLC she designs and manages multidimensional international projects and fosters collaborative relationships through the use of mindfulness and permaculture principles to bring vision to life and create opportunities “in the deep end,” often with unlikely allies. Her creative arts practice epistemology requires an embodied commitment to recognizing joy in the midst of struggle. // In 2012 Ashara co-founded Impact Hub Oakland and Omi Arts and served as the Co-Director, Curator, and the Chief Creative Officer who designed and bottom-lined the brand messaging and creative practice programming of the entire company. In December 2017, she launched Ashara Ekundayo Gallery as a pilot-project social practice platform centering and exclusively exhibiting the artwork of Black womxn and women of the African Diaspora to investigate and inspire social and spiritual inquiry at the nexus of fact, the Black feminist imaginary, and Afrofuturism through visual and performance installation. // She currently holds Advisory Board positions with VSCO.co, Black Girls Code and the Oakland Public Conservatory of Music, and has served as a Fellow with the U.S. Dept. of State Bureau of Educational & Cultural Affairs, Green For All, Emerging Arts Professionals, Schools Without Borders, and Institute For The Future. Ashara is also a Certified Permaculture Designer, Certified Foresight Practitioner, and a Graduate of Thousand Currents Leadership Academy and Rockwood Leadership – LeadNOW: California. Additionally, she holds an “Embodied Justice” Residency at Auburn Seminary in NYC, and an M.A. in Gender & Social Change from the Korbel School of International Affairs at the University of Denver. // Ashara’s commitment to social transformation is informed by an intersectional framework that aims to expand the influence and impact of arts and culture on racial equity, gender + justice, and environmental literacy. She is a womanist, a meditator, a mentor, and the mother of two sons and three granddaughters. T/IG @blublakwomyn

ESTEBAN KELLY is a visionary leader and compassionate strategist who inspires organizers by drawing on science fiction, social theory, and collective liberation. Uniting close friends and long-time co-organizers, Esteban was inspired to co-create AORTA culling together his creative energy and organizational skills for expanding food sovereignty, solidarity economy & cooperative business, gender justice & queer liberation, and movements for racial justice. // Esteban’s work is vast. In addition to working for AORTA, he is the Co-Executive Director for the US Federation of Worker Co-ops (USFWC), and a co-founder and current board President of the cross-sector Philadelphia Area Cooperative Alliance (PACA). // Internationally, Esteban has advocated for workplace democracy through the ICA (International Cooperative Alliance) and CICOPA (the international worker co-op federation), and for land reform and other social movements from Canada to Brazil. // After many years as a PhD student of Marxist Geographers at the CUNY Graduate Center, Esteban has left academia with a Masters in Anthropology. Most recently, Esteban worked as Development Director and then Staff Director for the New Economy Coalition. From 2009-2011, Esteban served as Vice President of the USFWC, and a board member of the Democracy At Work Institute (DAWI) and the US Solidarity Economy Network. He is also a previous Director of Education & Training and Board President of NASCO (North American Students for Cooperation) where he was inducted into their Cooperative Hall of Fame in 2011. He currently serves on the boards of the Cooperative Development Foundation (CDF) and the National Cooperative Business Association (NCBA–CLUSA), and is an advisor to the network of artist-activist trainers, Beautiful Trouble. // Firmly rooted in West Philly, Esteban’s skills and analysis of transformative justice stem from his decade-plus of organizing with the Philly Stands Up collective. Similarly, Esteban worked through a major food co-op transition as a worker–owner at Mariposa Food Co-op, where he co-founded its Food Justice & Anti-Racism working group (FJAR) and labored to institutionalize the Mariposa Staff Collective. In light of these efforts, Esteban became a Mayoral appointee to the Philadelphia Food Policy Advisory Council (FPAC), and works to advance education, systemic thinking, and anti-oppression organizing into all of his food advocacy work. // You can contact Esteban at: esteban(at)aorta(dot)coop and follow him on Twitter: @estebantitos

SYRUS MARCUS WARE uses painting, installation and performance to explore social justice frameworks and black activist culture. His work has been shown widely, including in a solo show at Grunt Gallery, Vancouver (2068:Touch Change) and new work commissioned for the 2019 Toronto Biennial of Art and the Ryerson Image Centre (Antarctica and Ancestors, Do You Read Us? (Dispatches from the Future)) and in group shows at the Art Gallery of Ontario, the University of Lethbridge Art Gallery, Art Gallery of York University, the Art Gallery of Windsor and as part of the curated content at Nuit Blanche 2017 (The Stolen People; Wont Back Down). His performance works have been part of festivals across Canada, including at Cripping The Stage (Harbourfront Centre, 2016, 2019), Complex Social Change (University of Lethbridge Art Gallery, 2015) and Decolonizing and Decriminalizing Trans Genres (University of Winnipeg, 2015). // He is part of the PDA (Performance Disability Art) Collective and co-programmed Crip Your World: An Intergalactic Queer/POC Sick and Disabled Extravaganza as part of Mayworks 2014. Syrus' recent curatorial projects include That’s So Gay (Gladstone Hotel, 2016-2019), Re:Purpose (Robert McLaughlin Gallery, 2014) and The Church Street Mural Project (Church-Wellesley Village, 2013). Syrus is also co-curator of The Cycle, a two-year disability arts performance initiative of the National Arts Centre. // Syrus is a core-team member of Black Lives Matter-Toronto. Syrus is a co-curator of Blackness Yes!/Blockorama. Syrus has won several awards, including the TD Diversity Award in 2017. Syrus was voted “Best Queer Activist” by NOW Magazine (2005) and was awarded the Steinert and Ferreiro Award (2012). Syrus is a facilitator/designer at the Banff Centre. Syrus is a PhD candidate at York University in the Faculty of Environmental Studies.

Transcript

Tim Cynova:

Hi, I'm Tim Cynova, and welcome to part two of our special two part series of Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show. On today's episode, Lauren Ruffin and I are joined by Ashara Ekundayo, Esteban Kelly, and Syrus Marcus Ware. Let's waste no time getting into the conversation. Ashara, Esteban, and Syrus, welcome to the show. Morning.

Lauren Ruffin:

It's good to see all of your faces. I'm going to kick it off with the question we've been asking people just to check in, which is, how are you doing right now? We've got a pandemic happening, in addition to, it's not even a resurgence because the movement for Black lives never went away, however we've been thrust back into the forefront. Really curious just to check in and see, how are y'all doing? Whoever wants to go first. It's hard to navigate on the screen.

Ashara Ekundayo:

I'll go first. My name is Ashara Ekundayo, and I'm really clear that it is morning, it's heck of early for me, how am I? I'm living right now, on the land called Oakland, California, which is the unceded land of the [inaudible 00:01:12] Nation, here in Northern California. We've been in the streets all weekend. When I think about how am I, I'm rejuvenated, and exhausted, and still angry. I'm still mad about the level of injustice that we're taking in right now, and consuming. But so inspired, by the artists and the creativity, and the brilliance of Black people right now. [crosstalk 00:01:38]

Lauren Ruffin:

Okay, good [inaudible 00:01:39], thanks.

Esteban Kelly:

So yeah, I'm Esteban and I'm based in Philadelphia on the Lenape people's land, and I feel I've been yo-yo-ing a lot the last week, not even [inaudible 00:01:54], within a given day, but really just at any point I can go from feeling really hopeful and inspired, and called to action, or to believe in a possibility that things can really change. And other moments, really sitting with grief for exactly those reasons that you were starting to say, that there's this layering of all the different things that we're living through.

Esteban Kelly:

It's not coincidental. Some of those conditions are agitating and exasperating, or heightening the intensity of some of the other ones, particularly as experienced by Black people. Not just in Philadelphia, or in the US, but around the world. I think where I land is, I think today I feel pretty good, I'm feeling very connected to my people all over the world, by which I mean my very close friends who happen to be a mini diaspora themselves, but also to Black people all over the world, and to that I aspire.

Esteban Kelly:

Just seeing, as far away as New Zealand, and in Bristol, and in Berlin, just all over, [inaudible 00:02:57] where part of my diaspora community is of friends. Just seeing how many people are leaning into this question of what it means to love Black people, and to show up for us, and to reckon with the conditions of how we're treated, not just voyeuristically, in Minneapolis, but Black people are everywhere, and we are suffering in similar ways all over the world.

Esteban Kelly:

I'm just sitting with all that.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

Hey everybody, I'm Syrus Marcus Ware, I am... How am I? I'm exhausted. I'm overjoyed by this moment of activism because I feel like activism is life giving, and quite joyful even when we're in the streets, even when we're raging, even when we're sobbing, the act of activism can be very life giving for me. On the one hand, I feel exhausted because as an organizer with Black Lives Matter Toronto, it's been non-stop. But on the other hand, it's when we come to the streets, when we resist from our homes, when we say, "Enough is enough." When we say that Black Lives Matter, when we do this organizing and fighting, it's a beautiful, beautiful, magical thing, and to have human beings coming together and screaming in unison a chorus of voices standing up for Black lives. That's a beautiful thing.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

I'm feeling tired, but energized from this moment. I also have been involved in a lot of direct action, and there's more to come. There was a police killing here in Toronto that we've been organizing around. These are heartbreaking times too, but also my heart is so full of listening to family members, listening to people tell stories about the anti-Blackness they experienced in their day to day life. We've heard a lot of that over the last week, and it's heartbreaking. It's so much to hold all of that.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

I'm just sitting here with a lot of complex emotions, but in general, I'm energized by this conversation being such a public one, and I'm energized by the fact that the conversation has shifted from bandaid reform to all out revolution. I'm here for it.

Lauren Ruffin:

Awesome. All three of you hinted, and I should say y'all are our first triad of guests, so moderating is a little different. You hinted at doing different work, or your work has shifted a little bit during this time, can you tell us a little bit, just basically about what you're doing right now, and where your focus is. And a background bio if you're interested in doing so. Again, whoever wants to go first can. I feel like y'all are staring each other down. [crosstalk 00:05:26]

Syrus Marcus Ware:

I think we're just kind of in awe of each other. I'm like, "Wow."

Lauren Ruffin:

I'm just so excited for y'all to hear this bit, and then really spend time together and fellowship a little bit.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

I can start, I just was speaking, I might as well just keep going. I'll say, I'm an artist and an activist, and an organizer. Oh my Gosh, I'm blanking on the question. I just totally lost it.

Lauren Ruffin:

You started, it was an I am, where do you work, what are you thinking on how you shifted your [inaudible 00:05:56], if it shifted at all.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

Yeah, I'm an artist, and an activist, and an organizer, I'm also just finishing a PhD specifically in prison abolition, and disability justice. My work shifted from everyday making art, working on my PhD a little bit, and doing some activism, to being full on 24/7, all hours of the day, responding to media requests, responding to the needs of the moment, supporting family members. It's just shifted dramatically, and that's what happens when these things ramp up, is that suddenly the demands become around the clock, and there's just so much.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

So, right now my work day shifted from being sort of a pandemic-ish 11 to 7, to now being 24/7. That's what I've been working on a lot, we're very involved in this conversation around defunding the police, and prison abolition, and trying to make justice for Black people by finally ending this system of police violence control, that extends from slave labor camps. We've been really engaged in this conversation around defunding the police. That's what I'm spending a lot of my day, that's my work right now.

Ashara Ekundayo:

I just said that, because I'm feeling all that and I'm really thinking about what it means to be a curator right now. My work is art curation and cultural strategy work and being a body, a person who's in a Black body, in a body that identifies as she, as well as they. My work as generally been about research, documentation, and archiving the stories of Black people through organizing work, art-ivism, if you will, and I would say in this shelter in place, in this time of this COVID pandemic, in this time of this uprising.

Ashara Ekundayo:

First of all, my mind has been blown so quickly into the reality that we are living in the future, that we have been looking forward to, for some of us. Reading about, watching, experiencing through literature, through film, through stories from our grandmothers. All of that spoke to we always thought, "We're not going to see that in our lifetime." And so, I've gone I think, from being someone who is directly organizing exhibition, to someone who has had to expand, and decentralize the so called power inside the, I wouldn't say the mainstream art sector, but inside the independent art sector, to looking at power. And to pulling this thread on a platform that I'm often called artist as first responder.

Ashara Ekundayo:

To see our work, and to know, and to understand that even the people who do not identify as artists, are pulling from their most creative divine self, to do this work. Also, this destination, this designation, this experience, and this platform really pulls the thread on amplifying the light, and the creative labor that has often gone unspoken, unthanked, unnoticed, by putting it right, and centering in the front. Putting it right in the front of our face. That is the artist that shows up first, when there's a catastrophe, a situation, any kind of idea that is operating the way we are right now, in a rupture, there is an absolute shift that has happened, that the artists are the ones who make it right for us, and speak for us, and redesign, and help us reimagine.

Ashara Ekundayo:

What I know is that my work has become pushed into the forefront of documenting and amplifying that work right now.

Lauren Ruffin:

Esteban?

Esteban Kelly:

Yeah, I can pick up from there. One of the things I've been noticing, especially in the last week is how my work and the different organizations, and communities, and the different spaces that I occupy are all starting to come together around this. In so many ways it's a relief to not have to pivot and be like, "Now I'm doing policy work. Now I'm doing transforming justice political education. Now I'm doing work around supporting labor organizers," which I mostly do through cooperatives with the US Federation of Workers Co-ops.

Esteban Kelly:

To see all these efforts coalescing, and it becomes easier to be who I am, and draw upon the stuff that I've been working on for a long time in community. I think that, above all else, is what is animating the moment. It's that, there's all this stuff that we've just been preparing for, but we knew this was coming, we knew the contradictions. It's been really interesting to see people who aren't part of my organizing life, get an opportunity or a window into things, this bread crumb trail that I've been leaving for years, and years, and years. I'm like, "Oh, look at this toolkit around anti Black racism, that my worker cooperative developed three years ago, that was just sitting in the wings." It's been hanging out on our website, some of you are downloading it, but people who are like, "Oh, I didn't even know that you guys created that, and I follow some of what you guys are doing." [inaudible 00:10:59]

Esteban Kelly:

Show and tell, is the book called Beyond Survival that actually just came out earlier this year, the subtitle is, "Strategies and stories from the transformative justice movement." And it goes back to organizing that I started doing 15 years ago, with a group called Philly Stands Up Collective. We have a couple chapters in here, but it's got contributions from this multi racial, mostly queer movement of people who have been experimenting, and testing out what a world looks like without prisons, without policing, because [inaudible 00:11:34] it's not just to insist upon, "Hey, we don't like this whole thing with the criminal legal system."

Esteban Kelly:

Knowing that that's going to hit a wall at some point, that it's going to have a crisis moment, what are the things that we can propose and explore, and say we recommend or test out? This starts to highlight some of those things, it just came out earlier this year. I think in terms of what I'm up to, it is straddling the political education, the resource sharing, be a cheerleader for people who are doing different kinds of organizing, and making sure that they're feeling replenished and encouraged. Especially for Black organizers to share their voice, and to lift up the white people in multi racial movements, who've been instructive, who've actually done their homework, who aren't like, "I got woke because I saw a meme two weeks ago."

Esteban Kelly:

But who actually are there to be a resource so that my phone isn't blowing up, because I've got a frontier to be pushing forward and I'm like, "You know what? Y'all can be connecting with these folks." Kind of making sure we're connecting those dots is an important piece of the organizing.

Lauren Ruffin:

One of the things I've been thinking about a lot, in particular over this weekend, is around just the rapid change in being the only person in rooms talking about, I grew up in a town without police, and people will be like, "What? Huh?" And I'm like, "So everybody should do that," [inaudible 00:12:53] all over the United States where there actually aren't police, where they straight up... you might have on police officer. I think there were, my township had none, the town itself had like two or three, maybe. And now everyone's talking about it, and what I think is so interesting that you all touched on is this is actually work that folks have been doing for so long, and we're at this perfect moment where white people who have never gone out to a protest, are going out to a peaceful protest with their kids, and finding themselves being tear gassed.

Lauren Ruffin:

Which immediately debunks the idea that Black people do something to deserve policing, and then there's this whole, you can immediately quickly plug into Twitter threads, or resources that movement workers have been building up over decades, to academic journals, there's a whole breadth of academic research, and it just seems like this watershed moment in terms of being able to rapidly radicalize a white population. Which is just crazy to me.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

Yeah, this is such an interesting time. Similarly, I've been a prison abolitionist for 25 years, I've been literally working on the ground, doing abolition work for 25 years. Now, to see articles in Cosmo about defunding the police, and about prison abolition, I wake up sometimes and I don't quite know what world I've woken up into. Except I know that I think I like it.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

Thinking about what it means right now, for this to be the [inaudible 00:14:25], for this to be the push that we've all been talking about. Ruth Wilson Gilmore talks about, and Julia [inaudible 00:14:30], so many scholars have talked about how the abolition of the police and prison system is just finishing the work of our ancestors, abolishing slavery. This is just a continuation of that work. Che Gosset made this beautiful Tweet yesterday that said, "Yes, pull down all of the monuments to slavery, starting with police and prisons." Recognize that those are monuments to slavery.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

I'm really interested in how this is being taken up. What I think about as an activist, of course, is that we know our messaging can be co-opted. We know our messaging can be watered down. We know our messaging can be shifted. What I don't want to see, is a reduction of the police budget by 10% for example, and then consider it done. That is not what we are fighting for, if we are in the streets right now in the middle of a pandemic, in the middle of a pandemic, we are going to fight for the entire percent, 100% of that budget.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

We're going to make sure that Black people are able to be in the streets, and be free. When we look at what's happening, Black people, in particular Black mad people, are just not safe in the streets because of policing. This is a system that is not working, it is not keeping our community safer and more secure. It is not creating a sense of justice for a whole bunch of people, it's instead brutalizing particular communities.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

The only way to live on this planet at this moment, with any human dignity at the moment, is to struggle against these systems of violence that are brutalizing Black and indigenous communities in particular ways. I'm here for this conversation, I am here for this moment, and I'm watching and seeing it unfold while also trying to push to make sure that it doesn't get watered down.

Esteban Kelly:

I think one of the dangers that I'm noticing, that I started seeing in real time last week over social media primarily, around that watering down, is around holding up on the one hand, the most extreme manifestation of these systems, that's very visible and that's very front of mind. Attendancy, particularly from white voices, to reduce things and say, "All we're asking for is to just stop murdering Black people."

Esteban Kelly:

Y'all, there's a whole system, there's a whole apparatus behind that, and this is what's happening on camera, of course it's errogenous that they're arresting CNN correspondents on live television for all the suburban moms to see. But that is not all we're asking for. Holding the line, making sure that the very people who are outraged about that, that we're bringing them along. That we're not necessarily alienating them, but that we're continuing to do the political education to say, "No, it's actually not enough to have the police be gentler, or to shrink their budgets a little."

Esteban Kelly:

Their budgets have tripled just in the last decade, so even a reduction of 75% is not adequate. What we need to talk about is the more fundamental structures of what is powering the systems, what are our models of justice? To make sure that every time we're saying, "Actually, it's about abolition," that everyday that gets de centered. It's almost like mindfulness meditation. We're like, "No, this thing," and they're like, "Totally, totally." And then [inaudible 00:17:28] like, "No, no, no. Come back, this thing. This is our intention, please return to it. And here's also why, here's some [inaudible 00:17:35] understand about why more surveillance and body cameras, and larger budgets is not the solution, it is not what's working.

Esteban Kelly:

It's also not about how we shrink an incarceral system, or how we make it friendlier, or gentler, that actually from the roots of the system itself, it is all messed up. In fact, the criminalization of Black bodies has everything to do with our economic system. Black people don't have wealth, don't have means, and this pandemic has only heightened the desperation of that. This can't be reduced to just being about the most egregious thing that you saw that woke you out of your stupor of being comfortable with the white supremacy system, it needs to be about actually reckoning with what is going on with Black people?

Esteban Kelly:

There is not going back to normal, normal was dispossessing Black and Indigenous people for centuries. What we need to do is come out of this reorganizing a lot of things. I'm so here for that journey, I'm not here to help educate white ladies about how to conduct themselves in their non profits.

Ashara Ekundayo:

Say that friend. Say it.

Esteban Kelly:

[crosstalk 00:18:38]

Ashara Ekundayo:

I am so done.

Esteban Kelly:

[inaudible 00:18:42] system. I will have those conversations with white people, totally. I am here for that.

Ashara Ekundayo:

I'm here for you. I'm here for you, I'm here for you. There's a meme going around, defund the police as a strategy, abolish the police is the goal, and fuck the police as an attitude. Okay, I resonate with that. That works for me.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

Could you say that again? Could you say that again?

Ashara Ekundayo:

Defund the police as a strategy, abolish the police is the goal, and fuck the police is an attitude, it's thee attitude. That's what we're thinking about, that's what we're moving through, and my comrades in New Zealand, [inaudible 00:19:20] brilliant art-ivist, poet, and author, was on her IG the other day, was talking about the slumber of white folks. Just slumber is not free, it came at the cost of Black lives. That's the truth.

Ashara Ekundayo:

What you're saying is really like, "Okay, y'all got here and now you want us to be embraced," it's like they're going out to some activity, like you said, take your babies to it, let's go and raise our fists. They're not able to really understand the intersectional oppression and systems that are interpersonal, intergenerational, internal, all of these things are at play. It's a trip.

Ashara Ekundayo:

My work is really about bringing back to the center, the lives, the creative labor of Black women, specifically. Who was at the center of queer women? Who is at the center? Who's ideas, and work is fueling this, and continuing to keep us afloat? We're able to be buoyant, and take a rest and come back, because Black women are always working. As they said, "Mama's always on stage," that old Arrested Development joint, and it's on all of the time. There has to be an on read of that, there has to be something in terms of creative labor, and artistic labor that centers our stories, Black people telling our stories.

Ashara Ekundayo:

One of the situations that's unfolded here in the Bay area, maybe some other places as well, is white artists, white creative collectives getting paid money to write Black Lives Matter, to actually put Black bodied art on all of the boarded up windows in downtown Oakland. I see you holding your face, because it's really something to behold. Over the weekend, one of the things that happened is that the strip in downtown Broadway in Oakland became a walking gallery. It's kind of glorious. You see a lot of white artists outside, and you have organizations and artists who went to those organizations and said, "Hey, can I get somebody to do some mural art?" They're putting up flowers, and fairies, and gnomes, and it's like, "No, this is an opportunity, we must center the radical imagination of Black lives right now. You being up here with one brown body, and 22 white folks painting.

Ashara Ekundayo:

There's a sister who has been championing this over the weekend names [Sequoyah 00:21:38] and I'll have to find her Instagram so that we can share it in the chat. Looking at this, it's called Paint the Void, this organization Paint the Void as though there was some void here in the Bay area. There's no void in our communities. Our communities are vibrant and rich in centering our creative labor. This idea, "Let's show this pain over," we just want y'all to stop killing Black people, there is a conversation that has to happen around power and privilege, and fear, and rage, and what that means for all of us who have some modicum of privilege, even being able to sit in front of a screen for an hour and talk about this.

Ashara Ekundayo:

What are we willing to give up? What does that mean to actually decentralize the power, and what does it mean to be in revolution? Not actually white culture, mainstream capitalist extractive culture in the sense of, "Oh, that's the dream," but actually not have that in Black face, but actually have a true evolution. What does that mean for us? Make a plan and lay it bare, because it's been laid bare.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah, I think all of you are touching on between the watering down, and movements being co-opted, just how easy it is for a general population to drift away from a mission, it's like, "Oh, shiny thing over there," and sometimes the calls coming from inside the house. Can we talk about 8 Can't Wait? Can we explain the problems in that proposal that's being put forth, which is it seems at it's face to not be diametrically opposed to I think, what all of us are aligned with, which is prison abolition and police abolition work.

Esteban Kelly:

Maybe I'll start with just a tiny piece of that which is one, I think that part of what is important about the role of artists, organizers, poets, creative people, is making sure, and it's not your responsibility if you're a creative, do your thing. That's your role as an artist. You're not charged with doing this, but I think what it helps us do, is pop open our capacity to expand and imagine so that when my folks are proposing these mind blowing things, ideas that we can de center white supremacy, that we can live in a world without prisons, that workers can own their own jobs and workplaces, that all different bodies, body types can be liberated, that disability injustice can be at the center of how we reconstruct our society.

Esteban Kelly:

That all has a place to land, that it's like tilling the soil so that when those seeds sprinkle in and land, all we're waiting for is that nice little rain to come in, and be the thing to help to catalyze the growth of those seeds. Artists help to make that case, including within our own communities. Including for Black people who have internalized, as a survival strategy, there's no way to get through your day to day without being like, "What are my strategies to just get through, and to get by?"

Esteban Kelly:

Some of that needs to be having some sort of faith in the education system as it is, in our public spaces as they are, and all the different forms of, at least in the US, a lot of elective Democratic officials, under who's watched this is all happening, this is happening in places like Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, so don't try to turn this into a Trump thing or a red state thing. All of those things need to be taken into consideration when we're strategizing not just about who we're calling in in a multi racial movement, but how internal to ourselves? We have to do this work for each other even within movements. That's what accountability is, is being accountable to our ancestors, and finishing that work as you were saying, that Dr. Gilmore pushes us in some of the most, I think, powerful ways.

Esteban Kelly:

To insist upon, we're not just saying, "A world without prisons because of minor drug offenses," and blah, blah, blah. Ruth Wilson Gilmore insists upon us saying that we got to start with rapists and murderers and think about, "What are our strategies for solving those problems around domestic violence?" A lot of my work in this area comes from working with sexual assault situations within my community, without in any way, relying on police and systems. Kind of experimenting with community accountability.

Esteban Kelly:

I think that's part of what artists are able to do, is to keep us open to that world of possibilities, and I think we then train that on these moments where some reformance moves start to come, because of course they're going to come. Someone always wants to say what is quick and easy. When you have mass global mobilization, we're all conditioned to have something that's cathartic. Something that feels good, that feels like a win.

Esteban Kelly:

I think that's an important lesson to our movements. Are we setting people up to feel disappointed because the thing that we're telling everyone we're fighting for, is so unattainable, and therefore everyone is right to be scooped into, "Hey, we painted Black Lives Matter on the street, so we're all good now." Actually training people, whether it's Instagram influencers, or well meaning multi racial people, training them that we need to listen to the right voices. That we can't be tokenizing just any Black people. We can't be tokenizing any political platform that seems like it's achievable in a win therefore, but that we actually need to...

Esteban Kelly:

In fact, this past weekend, the statement that I made on Instagram, that I think was reposted the most, especially by white people, was one where I was saying, "Listen, you're not going to know, something is going to feel cathartic in your body, and you're going to be like, 'Great, this thing feels great. I see a cop kneeling,' or whatever." You're not going to know what Black liberation looks like, so just trust. Retrain yourself to start listening to us, and not in a tokenizing way, start listening to movement leaders, who've been doing this work and this organizing for decades.

Esteban Kelly:

We will tell you. Trust that we will tell you. We will tell you when things are helpful and are winning. What's happening in Minneapolis with their city council saying, "Actually, we've done a full hard look at re accessing law [inaudible 00:27:33], 8 Can't Wait style policies," and we're like, "No. The only way to actually do business is to defund the police." That is really helpful and important.

Esteban Kelly:

When we look at cities that have three out of four, six out of eight of those platforms that have been put forward from 8 Can't Wait campaign, and still extreme police brutality and impunity from police unions especially, allows for the murder and the violation of the rights, and the bodies of Black people in those communities, than we know that that's not what's going to get us free. That it needs to be something that is more fundamental.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

I'm so picking up on what you're putting down, I've been really moved by that Tony [inaudible 00:28:10] quote that the role of the artists from a repressed community is to make revolution irresistible. To literally make revolution irresistible. I'm an artist, and that's been my driving goal is, "How do we use our creative practice to make revolution irresistible?" I think that's what we're seeing, we're seeing creative activism right now that are helping us.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

I think as you say, it helps to break down a very complex idea, into a digestible format, because people are able to take it in in a different way through an artistic media. I'm very, very interested in that, and that action of making revolution irresistible. I think right now what we're seeing, we need to take leadership, just turn to any of the incredible Black artists who are making... when we think of the work of Emery Douglas, and what he was doing for the Black Panther party, as a revolutionary artist for the movement, he was putting out work weekly, daily, posting it in the streets, trying to address the social issues that were happening to people in their communities.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

I think we're seeing artists doing that now. Creating a massive amount of things, even, yes, painting on the streets as a creative activism. It's a way of sharing a message in a way, rather than giving a lecture, or hosting another webinar, it's a direct way to do it. I'm very, very interested in the activism arts that's coming out of this movement, and this movement.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

When we think about abolition, I think it's so important to recognize, yes, I think you touched on that, there are literally ancestors, generations that have been working towards abolition. We need not reinvent the wheel, we don't need white people to co-opt this, and say, "Here's what we need to do." We've already laid the foundations, turn to the amazing and incredible work, of again, Dr. Gilmore, [inaudible 00:29:54] The amazing work of Vivian Salama, and Giselle Diaz coming out of Canada. There's incredible writing and art, and music and stuff about abolition that we can turn to right now.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

Artists have been monumental and influential in shaping this movement for decades. We need just to turn to them and say, "Hey, how do we amplify your message right now?

Ashara Ekundayo:

That's right, listen to artists. There isn't any movement on the planet that hasn't been led, and fueled by artists. There's always going to be a chant, a song, a movement piece, there's going to be a poem that empowers this move. It's how we remember ourselves, our humanity starts in that place. We all come out as artists, and [inaudible 00:30:35] all who can feel a genuine dance to it before they can walk. Any child who can make sound, will sing before they can form sentences, and speak, and communicate. We all come out this way.

Ashara Ekundayo:

This whole idea that, "Let's be artistic and cool. Let's all learn how to make murals, and do art." That's good, and there's actually strategy behind that, there's actually process behind that. It's not like, "Oh, I'm feeling really angry, I'm going to go paint up the wall, tag the wall," there is actual strategy to graffiti art. As you say, I'm picking up what you're putting down, and appreciating that, and calling the names, organizers, Dr.Gilmore, Dr. [Opara 00:31:18], folks here in the Bay area. Shout out to [inaudible 00:31:21] who provost here at Mills College in East Oakland.

Ashara Ekundayo:

But also shout out to the revolutionary artists, you mentioned our beloved baba, Emery Douglas, but also Joan Tarika Lewis who was the first artist of the Black Panther party, a Black woman who's work was not co-opted and not amplified in the way in which Emery's work was. But that she is still alive, and living, and is also a musician who put down her instrument, and picked up a pen, and picked up a paintbrush, and picked up desk work, and then put it back down so she could be on the front lines of the revolution with the other women who were leading the Black Panther party, and this legacy that we have that they laid out for us of love, of radical revolutionary love, and how to take care of each other. How to take care of ourselves, throughout the communities, throughout the United States, and throughout the world.

Ashara Ekundayo:

Those models are what we're picking up right now. Just want to honor her work, and honor the work, see Black women, protect Black women, trust Black women, hear Black women, and pay Black women. I don't want us to lose this opportunity to really center the economic implications of being a cultural worker, and being an artist. Sometimes they are not the same thing, but right now there is an opportunity for those of us who are cultural workers, and who are cultural activistic organizers to actually be able to participate at a high level in economic security, and sustainability of our communities, of this movement.

Ashara Ekundayo:

There isn't any movement that happens on this planet without money. That has to be part of this conversation as well.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

The Combahee River Collective in the 1970's, they said if we make the world safer for Black women, we are necessarily making the world safer for everybody. I would expand that to a 2020 imagining and say, "If we make the world safer for Black trans women with disabilities, honey, this world would look radically, radically different, if the world was actually safe for those people."

Syrus Marcus Ware:

Thank you so much for bringing in the incredible amount of underfunded, unfunded labor of Black women in this movement, in this organizing for decades. Thank you.

Lauren Ruffin:

My last question before we land the plane is, we talked a bit about sustainability and movement work, like how do we sustain ourselves to do this work? As I said earlier, the thing that has been front of my mind all weekend is how long people have been doing this work. How do we sustain people's activism over a long hot summer, into a fall election, in the states anyway? Without having them get distracted. What are some concrete strategies that we can use? That's something that's been top of my mind.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

So much of my artistic practice is about sustainability of activist lives, I write love letters to activists, I draw giant portraits of activists, I do things to try to help make sure that they can continue the work. One of the things I would say as an artist but also as an activist who's been on the front lines, is we need to remember that we need breaks. We need lots of breaks. I've been following the NAT Ministry, that Black account on Instagram that reminds us that [inaudible 00:34:21] are part of our reparations, part of our justice [inaudible 00:34:25].

Syrus Marcus Ware:

So making sure that activists are taking times for breaks, and for rejuvenation, having people that they can check in with on a regular basis, maybe a weekly basis, maybe a standing call where you can just be like, "Oh, by the way. Here, this is what happened this week, this is what I need to process, this is what I need to age with." Making sure that they have supports around them to be able to continue doing the work.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

There's an activist here in Toronto named Tooker Gomberg who passed away, who just before he did wrote an open letter to all activists, and in it he says, "You have to build up networks of care and support while you're well, around your activism so that then if things get too much, if you start to get pulled down, you have supports ready to help you in that moment." Take care of yourself, we take care of each other.

Esteban Kelly:

Yeah, I think it's also recognizing that there's a diversity of tactics, and there are certain tactics that are more sustainable or easier to sustain than others. It is very difficult to sustain tens of thousands of people on the street, all summer long, year after year. We know that we're in crisis, we know that our movements will call for that level of turnout, and much more frequently than in recent US history. That's good. We do need moments of that, but in between...

Esteban Kelly:

First of all, on an individual level, assess where you're at, and sit it out if you need to sit it out. But in between, it's actually really easy to sustain things like political education. It's really easy to stay plugged into listening, to Black leadership, and Black voices. To educate yourself, there's reading lists all over the place, especially nowadays. And even for people who have the privilege of being able to work remotely, or be part of workplaces that they can return to safely with PPE, some of what we've done at [inaudible 00:36:08] my worker co-opt that does political education and training, are around toolkits and trainings, and curriculums for designing sustainable workplaces. So that, it is not one set of work to create a just feminist, work environment with workplace democracy and a separate set of work to work on your mission.

Esteban Kelly:

You can bring those things together, the work itself should not be draining. You don't need to figure it out all on your own. That's there, and it includes things like, "Here are some suggested readings for non Black people of color to be in solidarity, and to be engaging with movements." You can always learn about history, I'm constantly having my mind blown about just recovering our own political histories that have been lost to me because of the cultural particularity of being a historical United States all the time. Just being like, "Reconstruction? What?" Or like, "The Civil Rights movement in the 20's and 30's did what? Ella Baker, what?"

Esteban Kelly:

There's a lot, just find whatever you are passionate about, there's something that will not be boring to you, particularly, but that is still an important contribution in your own consciousness elevation in the movement, and I think that's something we can do to sustain ourselves in between these moments of things popping off.

Ashara Ekundayo:

I would add, some of the sustaining work that has been going on, is around relational aid, also called mutual aid. I believe that that is something that we can continue to do in different ways for each other. We take care of each other, as we have all said. I've had the experience as a cultural worker who works as a consultant most of the time, I've had the gift of other artists, actually Black women artists say, "Hey, I sold a piece of art, and I got a check, if I have money, then you have money as a curator." You create space, that's your superpower, and we are relational in how we sustain our financial well being.

Ashara Ekundayo:

Taking care of each other, when you see somebody put up their Cash App, or their PayPal or whatever, cash them out. It doesn't have to be a lot of money, it can be a little bit of money, it's like, "Hey, I've got $100, I can give you 10, maybe that 10 will buy you a meal this week." Thinking about how to share our resources that are financial as well as you have a circle of folks that you can touch, maybe you all give each other foot rubs. Whether you need to ping your homie, your comrade and say, "Hey, did you take a nap today? Can I bring you some greens from my box garden outside my window? What can I do?"

Ashara Ekundayo:

Those kinds of things I think help to sustain our humanity with each other, and it's really about showing love to one another, showing each other that we care, that we're listening deeply, and that small is all. As our comrade Adrienne Maree Brown has gifted us, with emergent strategies and remembering that everything does not have to be big, and grand eous, it doesn't have to be a giant mural on the street. It might just be a little tag on the bus stop, that I saw walking by on my way, with my fist in the air, and my sign in the hand. I have the opportunity to notice those small things, and see beauty. And to be able to remember that there is joy and pleasure that is also necessary and part of this movement making, part of this revolutionary body, part of us understanding and knowing each other.

Ashara Ekundayo:

That joy has to be part of this movement.

Lauren Ruffin:

That was beautiful. We're going to close on that, that was just really... Thank you, thank all of you for your time today.

Tim Cynova:

This concludes our special two part series of the Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE. Morning(ish) Show. If you're new to the podcast, you can download all 25 season one episodes from your favorite podcasting platform of choice, and re watch Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE. Episodes over on workshouldntsuck.co. If you've enjoyed the conversation, or are just feeling generous today, please consider writing a review on iTunes so that others who might be interested in the topic can join the fun too.

Tim Cynova:

Give it a thumbs up or five stars, or phone a friend, whatever your podcasting platform of choice offers. If you didn't enjoy this chat, please tell someone about it who you don't like as much. Until next time, thanks for listening.

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Guest User 7/2/20 Guest User 7/2/20

Live with Oscar Abello & Vanessa Roanhorse! (EP.39)

Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guests Oscar Abello & Vanessa Roanhorse. [Live show recorded: June 5, 2020.]

Last Updated

July 1, 2020

Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guests Oscar Abello & Vanessa Roanhorse. [Live show recorded: June 5, 2020.]

Guests: Oscar Abello & Vanessa Roanhorse

Co-Hosts: Tim Cynova & Lauren Ruffin

Episode Transcript

Guests

OSCAR PERRY ABELLO is Next City's senior economics correspondent. He previously served as Next City’s editor from 2018-2019, and was a Next City Equitable Cities Fellow from 2015-2016. Since 2011, Oscar has covered community development finance, community banking, impact investing, economic development, housing and more for media outlets such as Shelterforce, B Magazine, Impact Alpha, and Fast Company.

VANESSA ROANHORSE is an inclusive solutions-driven problem solver committed to liberating all peoples and delivering impactful mechanisms for social, environmental and economic change. She launched Roanhorse Consulting (RCLLC) in 2016, an indigenous women-led think tank. RCLLC works with unheralded communities, businesses, organizations, and individuals to achieve and aspire their self-determination through forging communities of practice, strengthening indigenous evaluation methods, creating equity through entrepreneurship, and encouraging economic empowerment from within. RCLLC co-designs wealth and power building efforts that directly invest in our leaders, support meaningful data collection informed by indigenous research approaches, and helps build thoughtful community-led projects that enforce values that put people at the center. Vanessa is a 2020 Conscious Company Media’s World Changing Women in Sustainable Business awardee and is a 2020 Boston Impact Initiative Fund-Building Cohort fellow. She is a retired member of the ABQ Living Cities leadership table and is a Startup Champions Network member. She sits on the boards of Native Community Capital, Zebras Unite and the New Mexico Association of Grantmakers. Vanessa is one of 8 co-founders of Native Women Lead, an organization dedicated to growing Native women into positions of leadership and business. She is a mom of one, living with her family in Albuquerque, NM. Vanessa is a citizen of the Navajo Nation.

Transcript

Tim Cynova:

Hi, I'm Tim Cynova, and welcome to part one of our special two-part series of the Work Shouldn't Suck Live Morning(ish) Show. On today's episode, Lauren Ruffin and I are joined by Oscar Abello and Vanessa Roanhorse. Let's just jump right into the action. Oscar and Vanessa, welcome to the show.

Vanessa Roanhorse:

Thanks.

Oscar Abello:

Thanks [inaudible 00:00:24] Good morning.

Lauren Ruffin:

Good morning. When we first started this show we were really talking about work and leadership among the pandemic. The pandemic continues to drag on, and now we have the additional burden of carrying and speaking out about how black lives matter, police brutality, and it feels like people are really, really feeling all of this pressure. With all of that being said, how are you doing, both of you?

Vanessa Roanhorse:

I'm okay. I'm okay this morning. It's like, it depends, right? How do you wake up... I think that waking up, side of the bed thing really matters. Today is a good day, it's Friday, it's beautiful, some good stuff happened this week, some sad stuff happened this week, with work and family and... I don't know, I guess it's just overall exhaustion, just general tiredness, trying to do all of that. But also just really happy to have this opportunity to just be in this group of four, to get to catch up with Oscar, who has been killing it with articles lately, and then get to see your face, Lauren, and just kind of have a different way of waking up, which I'm grateful for, or else I would just be still in my room working my way at the computer, nicely showered and dressed, like back in the day when we used to do that.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. And Oscar, how are you doing?

Oscar Abello:

I am also excited to be with you all this morning, and talking with Vanessa. I'm also, I guess, focused in terms of what I have to do today, just because generally speaking journalists are always on deadlines. And so today I have to be writing about the first worker-owned holding cooperative, that recently made it's first acquisition as a holding cooperative. It's based in Baltimore, and it started out with a bunch of formerly incarcerated workers who created a staffing company. There's a whole story, you can read it on Tuesday or Thursday. But, I'm really fortunate, or privileged in some sense, that those are the kinds of stories I generally write about. So, in this time, I don't have to shift my focus, it just becomes even more urgent, and the context becomes even more powerful. And these folks with these ideas are pushing forwards. Even that, everything that's happened.

Lauren Ruffin:

During this time, I keep saying this time, we all kind of know what that means, we didn't share your bios with the audience, because I think it's important for you to talk about the work you're doing right now, and if that work has shifted. I know, Vanessa, you and I stay in touch a little bit more closely, but I know the work that you've been doing with Roanhorse Consulting has shifted in a number of different ways. Do you want to share a little bit about your bio, your background, and the types of work that you'll typically do?

Vanessa Roanhorse:

Yeah. So, Vanessa Roanhorse, I'm [inaudible 00:03:18] from the Nation, the Navajo Nation, grew up here. Live here in Albuquerque, New Mexico. So, we have a small, indigenous women led consulting company, and we've been really trying to push at the boundaries around creating products, programs, supports to help move and curate meaningful, relevant resources to communities of color. We have a pretty strong focus in Indian country, and that work, for us, has been a variety of things, from policy to working with folks to systems map where they fit in the problem that they're looking to solve, to working with the State of New Mexico to really ensure that we get our census count for urban natives. Oscar and I have actually had a number of conversations around Co-op Capital, which is a character-based lending initiative for under banked entrepreneurs, particularly [inaudible 00:04:12] entrepreneurs.

Vanessa Roanhorse:

So, we do a lot of interesting things, but because we work at such a hyper-localized way, and still kind of can pull up to that 30,000 foot systems view, when Covid happened, just naturally, because the team is native, all of us are Navajo, we knew immediately that it was going to get bad. We saw it with the Hantavirus virus when that came in and happened. We lived it, right? I grew up on the reservation, I know what that's like. So, our team completely... Almost 50 percent of our time went full-volunteer, essentially trying to map what was happening. A lot of it was like, who's on the ground working, what [inaudible 00:04:57] organizations are moving forward, how have they shifted their original work to now just be Covid relief, which was making sure there was PPE, people had food, they were delivering water, medicine, diapers, tampons, people were actually out there paving the damn roads themselves so that we could make sure supplies were going through. And so that was our charge, was we immediately went in, and then the last part was trying to make sure we could connect it to people with money, who had money to give. That's really a huge lift that we've been taking on since Covid started, really.

Oscar Abello:

Yeah, so for me, I'm the senior economics correspondent at Next City, which is a non-profit publication founded in 2003. The CliffsNotes version is, back in 2003, the narrative about cities was still very much, there's so much crime and drugs, and all the problems were because of cities. Smog, and all those older narratives about cities, generally. And our founders said, we don't want to create a publication that would look at cities as the places where solutions would come from, and we would go out and find folks in cities, living in cities, who are trying to solve problems.

Oscar Abello:

Over time, as the narrative shifted around cities to become, now cities are the cool place to be, now we shifted our focus, narrowed our focus even more on those neighborhoods, those parts of cities that, again, are still seen as the places where there's crime, there's drugs, all of the problems in society, the violence. We looked at those neighborhoods and we say, what are they doing about economic development? What are they doing about housing? What are they doing about education? And what models are they using? What allies are they bringing to the table? And, what work are they getting done? Those are the typical kinds of stories that we'll cover in any given sphere, and as the economics correspondent, I'm using writing about access to capital or access to jobs, and different business models or programs or policies that are effecting the economies of those neighborhoods. Who is driving access to capital, access to jobs, and how is it happening? For me, the systems piece that has come to it in terms of, there's no... I have to write a story. Someone has to have an idea, it's usually a group of people, that have an idea, and they have to bring other people [inaudible 00:07:27] that idea, and build something. And the more that happens, the more I get to write. And so, I've written 400 stories since 2015 about that.

Vanessa Roanhorse:

I just have to say, if anyone doesn't follow Oscar on Twitter, they need to. Because there's literally history threads that Oscar will put down, where he'll be like, here's what we think the problem is, now I'm going to take you on a journey in 140 characters, and we're going to go through in the Twitter thread. I have learned more in the Twitter threads on the history of certain things than I have, probably if I tried to read the whole, like, any kind of book. So, I just have to say, Oscar-

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah, I check in with Oscar every day, and Micheal Harriett. Those are my-

Vanessa Roanhorse:

I do too. No, I'm like, what's happening, what do I need to be focused on, or what not. Oscar is one of those threads I go to.

Tim Cynova:

And Oscar, your Twitter handle is @oscarthinks, right?

Oscar Abello:

Yeah, it's Oscarthinks. I really appreciate you sharing that, because as a journalist, we're supposed to think of ourselves as serving the public in some way, and not enough of us think enough about what does that mean. Who is the public, and what service are we providing? And, yeah, I think about Vanessa, I think about Lauren, I think about Jessica Norwood, or [inaudible 00:08:50] or Camille Kerr, or a lot of the folks that I end up writing about. Next to the aims of being sort of a trade publication in a sense that, the people it writes about tend to also be part of it's audience. Because we're trying to either transfer knowledge from one place to another, or at least transfer some kind of inspiration. I know that the fact that Vanessa is kicking ass in Albuquerque and Navajo Nation and other tribal nations, I know that that brings a lot of inspiration to others in different situations, but facing a lot of the same systemic barriers. Because, let's face it, if you don't look a certain way, if you're not a certain gender, in this country, we're all fighting that same, that beef with supremacy. And they have different contexts and different experiences of what it means, and that's why I end up having the opportunity to write all these stories, is because everyone's got their own way of responding and trying to tackle the beast that's in front of them.

Tim Cynova:

Oh yeah, when you said 400 pieces, Oscar, Lauren and I are just trying to write one. It's like four weeks on-

Lauren Ruffin:

I fail every day at writing the one thing I'm supposed to write. That's one of my few guarantees in life.

Tim Cynova:

We even teamed up to make it easier, and it's like, twice as slow.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah, exactly. I think most of us woke up this morning to alerts on our phones saying that the unemployment rate had dropped to 13 percent. Is that what... Have you seen that yet?

Tim Cynova:

Yeah.

Lauren Ruffin:

So, I have so many thoughts around data and our unemployment numbers in the United States, but would love to hear your two particular reflections on, perhaps, who is now employed again, and how in the middle of a pandemic and massive, massive street protests of unemployed people who are being brutalized by the police every day, how is it possible that we get an alert like that on our phones? I love that that's like, "Gotcha." It's not... I'm just like, how did this happen? It doesn't make any sense to me.

Oscar Abello:

Well, it makes perfect sense.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yes, it does. It makes perfect sense.

Oscar Abello:

The billing reserve balance sheet went from less than three trillion to almost eight trillion in about a month. So, that's six trillion dollars, literally out of nowhere, that went somewhere. Where does it go? Well, you can take three guesses, and I'll give you one guess, where does it go? It goes to the places that... To the default. What is the default? We know what the default is. And those are the companies that are suddenly able to start employing folks again, and we know who they employ. We know what it was like the last time, 10 years ago, we know what it was like the recession 10 years before that, we know what it was like the financial crisis 10 years before that, we know what it was like in the oil crisis 10 years before that. We can go all the way back 400 years in time and know what the pattern is, who gets the benefit first. And when I hear... When I think about an employment specific number like that, how it went down, I'm like, well, shit, someone had to get [inaudible 00:12:15] that's six trillion dollars out of nowhere, that had to go somewhere. And I'm not surprised that that's where it's going.

Lauren Ruffin:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). V, anything to add?

Vanessa Roanhorse:

Nope. Just how much that bit of information is so not reflective of what we're seeing, and so not like what's happening. It's just, it's all made up. At some point we just kind of laugh, and just kind of say this is not for me. This is not useful for me, this is not about me. I don't know, there's just a certain manner of like, mystical wizardry [inaudible 00:13:03] It's just sometimes, listening to Oscar, and trying to not get angry. I don't need more blood pressure issues. I don't need more... But it's just like these hits keep coming, and it's about, for me at least, trying to survive information. Trying to survive information, and pick what I can do within my hands around this stuff. And when I think about unemployment, I think about what we're seeing for our community members. It's bigger than just a job, at this point. We're just sitting here trying to figure out how do we make sure we get some money to pretend to try to put together water infrastructure? I mean, that is six trillion dollars itself, right there, just to do water infrastructure. So, I've just got to keep remembering, I am the prize, you know?

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. I feel like it took me a long time to understand what my grandmother used to say, which was, "Don't be somebody who's always working but not employed." And we would look around neighborhoods in Baltimore, where there were people working hard, who were never actually employed. And I just keep thinking about the number of people that I know, who haven't had a job in 15 years. Like, have not had a stable full-time job, since I've known them. And it's just, whenever I see those unemployment numbers, I think about just who is not being counted, and whose voices, and whose numbers just aren't even there any more because they've been trying to get a job for so long they no longer count as being unemployed, which is just this wild thing that our government does.

Lauren Ruffin:

V, you talking about water infrastructure makes me realize that a lot of the folks on either coast probably aren't aware of the unique situation. I shouldn't say... It's not. It is a situation that is shared by communities all over the US. You've got Flint, which is not far from a huge source of fresh water, which is just mind-boggling, and then Newark, which is also close to a fair amount of water, but a lot of folks don't know about the Navajo Nation's water infrastructure issues. Can you talk about that a bit?

Vanessa Roanhorse:

Yeah. Definitely can share. I'm not an expert, but I can be an expert because I grew up with water issues. So, Navajo Nation is, in terms of size, is close to the same square footage as the state of West Virginia. It's a sovereign nation, which means it has a relationship with the federal government, which is nation to nation. The states in which it sits on, which is the State of New Mexico, Arizona and Utah, actually don't have any rights to tell that nation how and what to do. Through treaties, we are to be supported and cared for as needed, as other folks in the country should have access to certain things. But if you can imagine, when Covid-19 hit, one of the statistics that people really freaked out about was, for that size, for close to 150,000 Navajo folks living on the nation, there was 13 hospitals, in total.

Vanessa Roanhorse:

And most of those hospitals were small hospitals, most of them were clinics, and there was just no way they could actually serve. We also have a police department that has to serve the State of West Virginia, and it's less than a hundred people, I believe. And those are just some of the human infrastructure pieces that we don't have. But when you get down to it, a lot of our community members have been hauling water, have been reliant on wells, and have to go and get their water to shower, to bathe, to clean, to wash their hands. And so when Covid-19 hit, we saw such a quick acceleration of cases, really because people have to go somewhere common to get water, and you have to use that... That water is so fricking precious, to have to wash your hands 500 times a day doesn't make any sense.

Vanessa Roanhorse:

Additionally, on top of that, we're a multi generational living community. Which means you're living with your great-grandmother, your grandmother, your mother, your aunt, your niece, your daughter, your granddaughters. And so we were seeing this challenge of, how do we still support this multi generational living? How are we going to help our community members who are the most rural be able to deal with trying to stay and use the stay at home orders, and be able to wash your hands and all of those things, when the other part that we were fighting is because we also lack internet infrastructure. People weren't able to get up to date information. There was a period in which there was a lot of people in Navajo Nation who had no idea there was a pandemic going on.

Vanessa Roanhorse:

And so between healthcare infrastructure, public health infrastructure, water infrastructure, internet infrastructure, road infrastructure, the thing that sucks is we have been living like this since we signed our treaties over 200 years ago. We have been demanding water probably since the time we started having to live on the reservation. And as everyone is just like, "Wow, that's so terrible. Why don't those folks wash their hands? Oh my god, how is that possible?" I'm sorry, America, but you all need to wake up. We have developing world conditions in our backyards, and we've always had them. And we need to stop denying and assuming that we are the most wealthy, the most cared for country, because we're not.

Vanessa Roanhorse:

And so that's been the big struggle for me, is having to keep having that conversation with people who are trying to blame us for the pandemic, who are trying to say, "Well, you guys should know better. You just need to do this, this and that." And it's just like, well, you haul water.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. It's wild to me that when I talk to people who've never really given much thought to what it's like to be disenfranchised, it's like they feel like the water pipes haven't gotten there yet, instead of realizing that they're not there on purpose. There was a system that made that the last place to get water infrastructure, or internet infrastructure. No, this is all happening on purpose. So I think flipping that paradigm is going to be really... It's so important.

Vanessa Roanhorse:

It is. And the last thing for me that I'm struggling with is, so we have Covid-19, I think we as indigenous people are trying to make sure we figure out how to show up for our black relatives, also our black indigenous relatives, and working, doing the internal work with us on our own people, and then this morning I wake up and Trump is moving forward to continue doing the fracking around Chaco, which is one of our sacred sites. So that's continuing. And it's just like, god damn. You can't hold it all up all the time.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. I did not see that.

Vanessa Roanhorse:

Yeah. They're open to a public period right now, but they're moving so... 91 percent of the San Juan Basin has already... Have gas oil leases. There's nine percent left, and this nine percent is what people are trying to save and protect right now. It sucks.

Tim Cynova:

Get Oscar in the green room, to Lauren's point that this is on purpose. We were talking about The Power Broker, New York City, LaGuardia, and how cities, New York city, where we both live, there are certain things that happen on purpose. And now even that is changing a bit. Can you talk a bit for the audience as to recommendation there, for those who haven't read The Power Broker, that maybe Chapter 18 is just the one chapter to read, since the book is more than a thousand pages long, there's a pro tip from Oscar.

Oscar Abello:

I'm going to make sure I give credit to Cea Weaver, the head of our board. What some remember as the [inaudible 00:20:39] State Housing coalition, now it's Housing Justice For All, Cea Weaver is the head organizer that basically put back rent regulation from the real estate industry last year. This tenant coalition, the state-wide tenant coalition eliminating some loopholes in New York State's rent regulation laws that allowed 200,000 or more rent-regulated units to be regulated out of rent regulations, so they became market rate. That's like a third of what... We have, like, two million rent regulated units, I think, in the city, and a third of them were lost since the mid-90s when those loopholes were put in place. So, Cea Weaver recommends, I think it's chapter 18, she recommends to read, in The Power Broker.

Oscar Abello:

And the reason she recommends it is, I'm not actually sure what is in the chapter, but the whole book Power Broker, which has been flying around circles in urban policy for years, and for some reason, I guess everyone has their book... I have my bookcase behind me over here, everyone else seems to have a copy of The Power Broker on their bookcase in my world of urban policy, yes. [inaudible 00:21:46] It's about Robert Moses, and who is Robert Moses? Robert Moses, let's say, he... Let me sum it up this way. Robert Moses in the 50's had many titles in New York City, one of which was the Chairperson of the Title 1 Slum Clearance Committee. And this committee primarily-

Vanessa Roanhorse:

Hell of a name for a committee.

Oscar Abello:

Hell of a name for a committee. And they summarily picked areas of the city and just said, these are the areas we consider slums, and we're going to provide federally subsidized capital to developers to bulldoze these neighborhoods and build all kinds of things. A lot of it was public housing, but some of it was Lincoln Center, some of it were highways. They bulldozed, was the Savoy Ballroom, where Harlem's rock community invented the Lindy Hopp. They bulldozed that neighborhood and put in a massive housing complex that today is privately owned, and recently was rebranded as Savoy Towers, like some sort of sick joke on Harlem. That's who Robert Moses was.

Oscar Abello:

If you want to read a story that lifts up Robert Moses as a hero of urban policy, you can read the Power book, but if you want to read a story of Robert Moses decimating communities of color and [inaudible 00:23:11] communities in New York, you can walk down the street in Harlem and ask people about Robert Moses. Or you can read The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Jane Jacobs talks about it too. Why is that perspective in Jane Jacobs book? People don't realize, I mean, Jane Jacobs being a white woman, wrote this book about this white man, or about white men, architects and urban planning. Here's one takeaway I take from Jane Jacobs book, she walked around Harlem and she talked to people about what it was like. The book is basically a reflection of, yeah, you know what, all these other people have the same thoughts I did. This Robert Moses is a piece of shit that we've...

Oscar Abello:

And the first couple of chapters of The Death and Life of Great American Cities is, yeah, you know, I walked around uptown, I walked around in these black neighborhoods in Pittsburgh and, yeah, everyone was saying the same thing I was thinking. How about that?

Vanessa Roanhorse:

You know, what's so funny about that book for me is, when I was living in Chicago, I had a colleague, I worked in a sustainability company, was a bunch of planners. They kind of approached sustainability through very much from an urban planner lens, and it was a very white organization. And I remember a colleague decided to have a lunch and learn, and he did a lunch and learn presentation on that book, and actually the book I have is from him, because he's like, "You have to read this. This is..." He gave it to me because he said he was so inspired by this guy, and he was like, "There are so many good tenets on how we should all think about power and leadership."

Vanessa Roanhorse:

And I've never read it, it's just been sitting there because it was a gift from him, and I will never read it now. And I'm so glad, because his version of this is everything that book was trying to do. I'm going to have to send this clip of this podcast to him, actually.

Lauren Ruffin:

Little moments of resistance, I love it. Oscar, you recently did a thread that educated me, of course, around the economic justice struggle in black communities, and how black communities have been innovating their own capital for a really long time. Can you talk a bit about that, because I just love how you put together... And again, how do we begin to shift the narrative around how black and brown people survive economically in the United States, because there is this idea that we aren't innovating, that we're not struggling, that we're lazy, and that people like me, who are able to be successful here are sort of a one-off, as opposed to the fact that I'm able to swim up-stream in white water. Just the sheer effort it takes. But I really appreciated that thread, and shared it pretty widely, so can you talk a bit about it?

Oscar Abello:

Yeah. It was Saturday, and I woke up thinking about the scale at which the uprisings had reached nationally. And I was seeing on Twitter, on... But mostly on Twitter. I'm a journalist, and we spend all day on Twitter. The headlines about the destruction going on, and some of the shade thrown at people, you know, some people were saying, "Oh, why don't they just protest peacefully?" And like, first of all, they have been protesting peacefully. Some folks were saying, "Well, if there's problems in the community, why don't they do something about it?" I'm like, they have. They've been protesting peacefully, and they're doing so much more.

Oscar Abello:

And how do I know that? Because I keep the receipts, and I have stories, and I check the demographics of every source I quote in my stories. I started doing that in 2015, and so I can tell you that I wouldn't... As of the end of 2019... I haven't redone the totals yet, but at the end of 2019, I had written 392 stories for Next City, and 180 of those stories quoted at least one black person. I had interviewed 897 people by the end of 2019, or quoted 897 people, and 279 of those people were black. I have it also broken down by gender, so if you want to know, 897 people total, 144 black women, 133 black men, two black gender non-conforming individuals.

Oscar Abello:

I started keeping those demographics because I just wanted to know as a journalist, was I contributing to the continued stereotype of white saviors, or would I be able to look back and say, no, I'm lifting up stories and sources and leaders and communities that look like the studies that I was writing about. Over time, it's... I had read a little bit about red-lining in college, but when you talk to 279 black people about economic development in their cities, you learn a lot about [crosstalk 00:28:26] and you learn a lot about how they view themselves in their communities as carrying on the tradition, sometimes spiritually, the tradition of resistance and rebuilding and regeneration, sometimes it's literally the family tradition. There are black CDFI leaders, black leaders of Community Development and Financial Solutions. Their parents worked for HUD in their early days. They might not have been so proud of the work they'd done for HUD, but they were working in community development in the 60s, they had kids, and now their kids are working in community development. They're trying to fix a lot of the problems left over from before.

Oscar Abello:

Then there's generations, examples of black community or black urban real-estate developers who's parents were in real-estate, or maybe they were a banker or something. For me, I'm drawn to stories about access to capital and managing capital, capital flows and how historically marginalized communities retaking power over capital. And so it was very powerful for me, to come across Collective Courage, the book by Jessica Gordon Nembhard a few years ago. And this was the book of the history of black cooperatives, written about black women, who herself was like, I didn't even know until someone flagged it for me when I was doing some research, and when I started reading about all these stories in the crisis, edited by W.V.[inaudible 00:29:52] about black cooperatives. And she started doing the research and she wrote a book about it. And one of the things that resonated for me was, what was one of the first, earliest examples of a cooperatively owned black institution? Insurance company. It was a cooperatively owned insurance company in Richmond Virginia.

Oscar Abello:

So to me, the tradition of black communities trying to regain power over capital, not to replace what has been stolen but just to survive. Because that's always the temptation to think about, if you're a historically marginalized community and you're retaking power over capital in some way, is that all you need? No, it's not. You had capital stolen, extracted. You've had oil, as well as capital, you've had that extracted from... You've had land taken away from you.

Lauren Ruffin:

I mean, yeah, I think about how Shirley Sherard and certain black farming coops, and literally having white people using capital systems to take land from black farmers.

Oscar Abello:

Yeah. And what it amounts to is, like, sometimes the response of policy makers or the ivory tower researchers is like, "Well, you know, we've got to teach black people, we've got to teach the native communities how to manage land and money." No. No, you don't.

Vanessa Roanhorse:

Or it's like, "Let's do another research. Do we have enough data?" Do we know this is what they need? Let's ask that question again. And between that and them moving capital to do more research, to make sure our numbers are right-

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah, I feel like the funder who's funding research right now for anthropological or societal studies of where they could direct their money should get pilloried in their community.

Vanessa Roanhorse:

They should be. I am a hundred percent with that.

Lauren Ruffin:

[inaudible 00:31:34] go there. When the world opens up let's take tomatoes to their office and throw them.

Vanessa Roanhorse:

I'm going to give them paper cuts and squeeze tomatoes on top of them.

Lauren Ruffin:

Paper cuts and lemons for you.

Vanessa Roanhorse:

Paper cuts and lemons for you, that's where we're going with this. Absolutely. I mean, I recently had someone say, "Can you put an assessment together for me on what we think the Covid-19 impact has been for native Americans?" I just sent them the death toll and presented per capita, and I was like, "There's your report."

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. That's it. What else do you need?

Oscar Abello:

Did you bill for that? Please tell me you billed for that?

Vanessa Roanhorse:

I did not, it was just a simple quick email. I cut and pasted it and I just responded and said there you go. And they've not returned my email.

Lauren Ruffin:

Well, good. Good. You didn't need them anyway. That's the beautiful thing.

Vanessa Roanhorse:

"What would this look like Vanessa", and I was... And they even suggested a three-phased approach.

Lauren Ruffin:

Oh no. Oh god. That's embarrassing.

Vanessa Roanhorse:

Anyways-

Lauren Ruffin:

Another clip to send to somebody, V. Oscar, when you share your demographics about the number of non-white men that you talk to, do you get the pipeline question? Like, where do you find all these people to talk to [inaudible 00:32:47] like that?

Oscar Abello:

Oh, I see them. Which I do.

Lauren Ruffin:

I know you do. Where do you find them?

Vanessa Roanhorse:

Like, god, yeah, Oscar, where do you find all of these great people?

Oscar Abello:

Well, I met both of you at one of those places. Sometimes I'm hesitant to say specifically where, because then I'm like, well, I've got a [inaudible 00:33:05] to protect. But [inaudible 00:33:08] I can't... But then I also flick back and I think, wait a minute, even though I need to keep my own pipeline of stories going, there's always more in those spaces than I'm able to cover. There's always more happening. Like, coming out of... I met Lauren and Vanessa at COCAP, [inaudible 00:33:26] organized by Common Future in a space in West Oakland that they've recently changed it's name, but it will forever in my heart be known as Impact [inaudible 00:33:35]

Oscar Abello:

It was a convening held by Common Future, led by a black male, Rodney Foxworth, with women of color were a majority of people who work at Common Future, and the convening, it must have been the fourth or fifth time for this convening, I can't remember how many times. But people of color like to gather in spaces too. If you want to find them and you want to listen to them, they're out there. They're going to community meetings, they're going to the city council meeting and testifying, they're having open meetings in their own neighborhood about, like, here's what's fucked up right now, and what we're trying to do about it. And it is not that hard.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. I feel like those spaces, Vanessa and I both, I think that we did the, let me go to SOCAP and be in this really white space, and feel depleted, and then let me go back across the bay to Oakland to just have my soul replenished again. I feel like that week is always a bit of, like, just whiplash.

Vanessa Roanhorse:

Yeah. I would agree with that. It was also that last round of SOCAP, COCAP, well, SOCAP, not COCAP, oh my god it's a mouthful, it was also the 40th year for the taking over of Alcatraz by the American Indian movement was that same week. Because it was 40 years that week when that happened. And you're in that SOCAP weird space, and you get to see Alcatraz, it's just a surreal experience. But I think a lot about, for me, the folks who are doing the coolest and the baddest work, thank god for the internet, you can find them. They're there. That's the other part that's so frustrating, is how many times people reach out to me, and I'm like, am I literally the only native person you know?

Lauren Ruffin:

Yes.

Vanessa Roanhorse:

Probably.

Lauren Ruffin:

I'm the only black person people know. That's why they call me.

Vanessa Roanhorse:

And we're just like, come on now. There's so many ways to do research, there's so many ways to find out what people are doing, and I think that's the part, is you know it's just laziness.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. Well, I also-

Vanessa Roanhorse:

It's just lazy.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. I also feel like I can't give you permission to access my community. I feel like inherent in that is this... And it's like, you actually have to go do that, and I can invite you into communities that I've created, but I can't give you access to all black people that I know, because they might not want you, or they might not want you today, and at a later time you're welcome. But I do think that's such a... The pipeline question, and how... I've also been thinking a lot about the work both of you... There's something different happening, by the way, right now, around this uprising. Because it's the first time that I've...

Lauren Ruffin:

And just what I'm saying on Twitter is white people aren't necessarily asking us to make ourselves legible to them, like ourselves, our history, our... And I felt like in a lot of the work in the organizations that I've been involved with, it's always us trying to figure out how do we have our narrative be legible to white people, how can we say what we do in a language they understand, or connect it to an experience they understand. And I feel like I'm now seeing white people to a certain extent start to pick up history, whether it's written history or oral history, and they're starting to process it and try to understand it for themselves, and then other white people are serving as translators. Which is just, it's a really interesting moment for, like, how is American history being rewritten in real-time right now?

Oscar Abello:

One of the headlines I woke up to this morning was apparently anti-racist books are selling out [inaudible 00:37:16]

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. It's a weird time. The number of white people who don't know about Fred Hampton, if you don't know about the MOVE bombing, who just don't... If you have not been paying attention, it's your own fault, but I'm kind of glad you're waking up now.

Oscar Abello:

Yeah. Every year it's an annual... The incarceration every year... It's about a month ago, right? It was the anniversary. They did this story in 2014, I think, and they said why don't more people in Philly know about the MOVE bombing? And they tweet it out on the anniversary every year, and every year there's a bunch of people responding like, "Yeah, why didn't I know about the MOVE bomb in Philly?" I didn't know until college. You know how I found out? This is another thing [inaudible 00:37:56]

Lauren Ruffin:

How did you... First, where did you go to college?

Oscar Abello:

Oh, it was just funny. I went to a predominantly white institution in suburban Philadelphia. It's nickname is Vanillanova. [inaudible 00:38:08] University.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yep, you did.

Oscar Abello:

Even there, you will find about eight black professors who are like, you know what, we're going to be here and educate these white folks about our history. I had five of those eight professors, by the way.

Lauren Ruffin:

Oh good.

Oscar Abello:

But it was a white professor who had a class, a liberation theology class, that she taught in conjunction with prisoners, at the time, life inmates, at [inaudible 00:38:35] State Prison, further out in the suburbs. So we got to go take classes with them in [inaudible 00:38:43] State Prison. One of those classmates was Michael [inaudible 00:38:46] who was [inaudible 00:38:49] was let out recently, but passed away or had a fa- I believe he was let out in... There was a loss in the family, might have been... Oh, I'm blanking out right now on the story [inaudible 00:39:03] but anyway, that's how I found out about the MOVE bombing. I was in class, I was in the liberation theology class, [inaudible 00:39:10] I was a kid at the time-

Lauren Ruffin:

One of the kids, yeah. Yeah. The article for this year that I read that stayed with me was someone posting, the MOVE bombing happened when a bomb fell out of a military helicopter. And I'm like, it didn't fall out of a... How are we giving the bomb more agency than people? What happened? Yeah, just wild. So much, so, so much in my head. Vanessa, are you going to say something? Now?

Tim Cynova:

I think for those white people who are unable to get print copies of the anti-racist books, Audible and eBooks, there's so many out there that are available in electronic format, but buy them out, because they'll get reprinted, and that's a good problem to have.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. This has been really, really good for my soul in a real way, and I think it's a really good starting point. Well, actually, it shouldn't be a starting point for anyone in our audience, they should already be doing the work, but I think this is just a really important wrinkle to add to the conversations that are happening right now, from both of you. So, I guess we'll start to land the plane, and I'll land it with the suitcase question, which is, throughout your life you've been carrying around a suitcase, backpack, something like that with you, with a whole bunch of behaviors and beliefs and thoughts and actions that you did regularly, and the question is, what's one thing that's been in your backpack for a really long time that's never going back in post-pandemic, post... If there is a post-pandemic. If there is ever an end to the sort of uprising that's currently happening as well, at the same time. And what's one new thing that you found that you're going to hold onto forever?

Oscar Abello:

I'll go first and give Vanessa time to think about it.

Lauren Ruffin:

That's kind. That is so kind.

Vanessa Roanhorse:

Thanks Oscar.

Oscar Abello:

I was talking about this yesterday with my sister actually, and it was the first time I have actually vocalized this. The thing that I am leaving out is, being a journalist, I do worry or think about... I used to worry about how many people are going to read my work. I think the impact of my work is limited if not enough people read it, if it's not good enough, if it doesn't reach enough of an audience. I used to worry about that. But yesterday, talking with my sister, something came up both that I've never vocalized before, but it didn't feel like an epiphany, I just had never said it. And the thing that I realized and I said for the first time yesterday was, I shouldn't worry about if my work is popular in this culture that is so toxic with racism and patriarchy and heteronormativism. I shouldn't worry about it because in some sense, what is popular is what appeals to what is the dominant culture, and I shouldn't worry about that anymore. I still want to be a better writer, and I still feel like I'm getting better every day or week thanks to my editors and thanks to feedback I get from lots of different folks, including Vanessa and Lauren and others, be it, sometimes, the feedback comes from Twitter, sometimes it comes from my DMs on Facebook or Twitter, or Instagram sometimes, even.

Oscar Abello:

So, I'm taking out permanently the idea that my work needs to be super popular in order to have an impact. And I guess what I'm putting into that, back to my backpack, is, maybe leave more from others to support me in material ways, because as a journalist you don't get to, it's shit. And it's hard. I was one of those folks, I'm a firstborn child of a Filipino mother, which means you don't ask for help, it just happens to you. So I don't know how to ask for help, and that's something that... I don't know if it's in my backpack yet, but I'm trying to find an asking for help tool and trying to get that into my backpack.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. Well, I know that you weren't fishing for a compliment, but your work has been tremendously impactful on my work, and most certainly I felt like I have spent a lot of time learning all the history I didn't learn in Catholic schools, and all the history I didn't learn in public schools that are predominantly white institutions. And your work has greatly accelerated my process of unlearning a number of the things that I have learned. So, thank you for that.

Oscar Abello:

You're very kind, and thank you for that.

Lauren Ruffin:

Vanessa, how about you. You've had plenty of time to think, so this better be dazzling in it's brilliance.

Vanessa Roanhorse:

I will greatly disappoint. I just have double down on what Lauren said, Oscar. I mean, your feed is the go-to feed, and damn it, I want you to get more work. So, I'm going to sit on that in my head for a little bit. So, what I think I'm going to be leaving behind, which is a whole lot of decolonization of myself, I went to an all pretty, white, very white girl boarding school in Connecticut that kind of messed me up for a really long time. But I think what I took from that was, I cared more for my white peers feelings, and I've carried that with me. I'm leaving that shit behind, because I can't do that any more.

Vanessa Roanhorse:

And my putting in, I'm trying to put into my bag care for myself. Someone who I have great esteem for who, she recently shared that she had had a stroke, and she wrote this beautiful piece, just about how her heart was literally and figuratively broken, and a whole piece about self care.

Oscar Abello:

I read that as well. And actually, that's a good... There are two people that I wanted to shout out in this space, one is Melissa Bradley who wrote the article that Vanessa just spoke about, who has done so much amazing work, and wrote a beautiful piece, you can find it on Medium. And then Rodney Foxworth, who this week put out a call for... announced at Common Futures, was immediately distributed $750,000 to communities in need, and called on other funders to do so. So, those are two Medium posts, as well, to leave people with as we close on this episode, which has been exactly what I needed to... Selfishly, again, but I don't hide the fact that I am a grabber of brilliance. I'm greedy for brilliant people.

Tim Cynova:

Yeah, if we can't do this for their own livestream, then when can we do this? So, Oscar and Vanessa, thank you so much for being with us today.

Oscar Abello:

Thank you Lauren, thank you Tim.

Vanessa Roanhorse:

Yeah, thank you. Thank you for the opportunity.

Tim Cynova:

Continue the Work Shouldn't Suck Live adventure with us on part two of our special series, when we're joined by Ashara Ekundayo, Esteban Kelly, and Syrus Marcus Ware. Miss us in the mean time? You can download more Work Shouldn't Suck Live episodes from your favorite podcasting platform of choice, and rewatch Work Shouldn't Suck Live episodes over on workshouldntsuck.co. If you've enjoyed the conversation or just feeling generous today, please consider writing a review on iTunes so that others who might be interested in the topic can join the fun too. Give it a thumbs up or five stars or phone a friend, whatever your podcasting platform of choice offers. If you didn't enjoy this chat, please tell someone about it who you don't like as much. Until next time, thanks for listening.

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Live with Elizabeth Streb! (EP.38)

Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guest Elizabeth Streb. [Live show recorded: May 12, 2020.]

Last Updated

May 14, 2020

Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guest Elizabeth Streb. [Live show recorded: May 12, 2020.]

Guest: Elizabeth Streb

Co-Hosts: Tim Cynova & Lauren Ruffin

Episode Transcript

Guest

MacArthur “Genius” Award-winner, Elizabeth Streb has dived through glass, allowed a ton of dirt to fall on her head, walked down (the outside of) London’s City Hall, and set herself on fire, among other feats of extreme action. Her popular book, STREB: How to Become an Extreme Action Hero, was made into a hit documentary, Born to Fly directed by Catherine Gund (Aubin Pictures), which premiered at SXSW and received an extended run at The Film Forum in New York City in 2014. Streb founded the STREB Extreme Action Company in 1979. In 2003, she established SLAM, the STREB Lab for Action Mechanics, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. SLAM’s garage doors are always open: anyone and everyone can come in, watch rehearsals, take classes, and learn to fly.

Elizabeth Streb was invited to present a TED Talk (‘My Quest To Defy Gravity and Fly’) at TED 2018: THE AGE OF AMAZEMENT. She has been a featured speaker presenting her keynote lectures at such places as the Rubin Museum of Art (in conversation with Dr. John W. Krakauer), TEDxMET, the Institute for Technology and Education (ISTE), POPTECH, the Institute of Contemporary Art (in conversation with physicist, Brain Greene), The Brooklyn Museum of Art (in conversation with author A.M. Homes), the National Performing Arts Convention, the Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP), the Penny Stamps Speaker Series at the University of Michigan, Chorus America, the University of Utah, and as a Caroline Werner Gannett Project speaker in Rochester NY, among others.

"Rough and Tumble," Alec Wilkinson’s profile of Elizabeth Streb, appeared in The New Yorker magazine in June, 2015.

Streb received the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation ‘Genius’ Award in 1997. She holds a Master of Arts in Humanities and Social Thought from New York University, a Bachelor of Science in Modern Dance from SUNY Brockport, and honorary doctorates from SUNY Brockport, Rhode Island College and Otis College of Art and Design. Streb has received numerous other awards and fellowships including the Guggenheim Fellowship in 1987; a Brandeis Creative Arts Award in 1991; two New York Dance and Performance Awards (Bessie Awards), in 1988 and 1999 for her “sustained investigation of movement;” a Doris Duke Artist Award in 2013; and over 30 years of on-going support from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). In 2009, Streb was the Danspace Project Honoree. She served on Mayor Bloomberg’s Cultural Affairs Advisory Commission and is a member of the board of the Jerome Foundation.

Major commissions for choreography include: Lincoln Center Festival, Jazz at Lincoln Center, MOCA, LA Temporary Contemporary, the Whitney Museum of Art, Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts, the Park Avenue Armory, London 2012, the Cultural Olympiad for the Summer Games, CityLab Paris 2018, the opening of Bloomberg’s new headquarters in London, Musée D’Orsay, the re-opening of the Théâtre du Châtelet, and the Louvre Abu Dhabi.

Born to Fly aired on PBS on May 11, 2014 and is currently available on iTunes. OXD, directed by Craig Lowy, which follows STREB at the 2012 London Olympics, premiered at the IFC theater in New York City on February 2, 2016. Streb and her company have also been featured in PopAction by Michael Blackwood, on PBS’s In The Life and Great Performances, The David Letterman Show, BBC World News, CBS Sunday Morning, CBS This Morning, Business Insider, CNN’s Weekend Today, MTV, on the National Public Radio shows Studio 360 and Science Friday, and on Larry King Live.

Transcript

Tim Cynova:

Hi, I'm Tim Cynova and welcome to the season one finale of Work. Shouldn't. Suck. Live! The Morning(ish) Show. On today's episode, Lauren Ruffin and I are joined by the super amazing human, Elizabeth Streb. It's impossible for me to distill Elizabeth's bio into just a few sentences, but I'll try. She's a MacArthur "Genius" Award recipient. She dove through glass, allowed a ton of dirt to fall on her head, walked down the outside of London's City Hall, and set herself on fire; although we learned that setting herself on fire was actually an accident. And these are just a few of the things among Elizabeth's long list of feats of extreme action.

Tim Cynova:

The 2014 documentary, Born to Fly is a must see. It chronicles her company of extreme action mechanics as they prepare for and perform literally breathtaking moments as part of the 2012 Cultural Olympiad of the Olympic Summer Games in London. We are so happy she's able to join us for the season finale. Without further ado, Elizabeth, welcome to the show.

Lauren Ruffin:

So really excited to have this conversation with you, Elizabeth. Our first question, for all of our guests and in particular, knowing that it's the night after your first virtual gala, how are you doing personally and how is your community doing during the pandemic?

Elizabeth Streb:

Well, I think that the community at large, my small community, which is Drive Extreme Action, our dance company, and also our SLAM lab STREB LAB for ACTION MECHANICS, where everything happens, including, 600 kids a week in an afterschool program, ordinarily, normally, rehearsals, flying trapeze, STREB rehearsals, shows. That's closed. We closed it middle, early March, like everyone else, trying to figure out how do we keep operating? We did get a PPP, so we're continuing to pay the dancers. I think I and my executive director, Christine Chen, we're dedicated to keeping our promise to the dancers and our employees, even though the income from the SLAM shows and one of the trans-migrations of our operation lie with the brilliant leadership of Christine Chen, our executive director, was to put all of the training online.

Elizabeth Streb:

So we had a whole semester, for instance, of KIDS ACTION and we'd already gotten the tuition. The dancers band together with the leadership of Christine and starting to send classes to the KIDS at home. Even the parents, because they were stuck at home too, would take these classes for KIDS ACTION and the kids were known to run off to the screen, kiss their teachers, and apparently the parents did that too.

Elizabeth Streb:

Things that they could do. We had very few people ask for the tuition back. We are trying to like grab the income we can. We knew that the shows weren't going to go on. All of the work that we were doing with the Kennedy Center, like River Run that they were doing with all around surrounding Tomanek and their opening of the new building and Brookfield Properties and the tape bridge. We went online, did all these other things online that had been posted on Instagram. And it's just an unknown. I'm not worrying about money. I think Christine, we always worry about money, but what can we do?

Elizabeth Streb:

You know, I think my attitude is we're doing the best we can. We're going to pay everybody for as long as the money holds up. So mostly we've gone up virtually as uniquely as good can do, being that I am a physical company. I made a piece for Zoom for the gala last night. They just really don't like Zoom. I don't see how they can't get timing right. And I thought work, how would you do it? But nothing was edited because I refused to do that. But the [inaudible 00:03:50], like I wanted them flying all around the nine boxes that was not going to happen.

Elizabeth Streb:

I'm adjusting, trying not to have an attitude about...My obsession is...our content is in the rhythm of action. Not words. We're not music and it's gone, gone, gone, gone. You know, so get humble. I guess those are the details. I think everybody's trying to make adjustments and dance companies are particularly hard because you're paying humans to do physical things outside or inside, and that's gone, but I can keep the paying humans for as long as we can.

Lauren Ruffin:

That made me think of the conversation we had on Friday with Lisa Yancey and Bamuthi Joseph where he talked about being a dancer and his work being his body. I'm wondering if you're rethinking or reframing your work during this time?

Elizabeth Streb:

In terms of the work, being their bodies?

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah.

Elizabeth Streb:

As humbly as possible. You know, I think that the dancers... We've had four-hour Zoom rehearsals to make this piece, horizon line. They're in their little rooms or rooms somewhere around Manhattan, the Bronx, and it's physically difficult, mentally difficult, spiritually difficult. Would we do it anyway? I don't get into regret or cope. You know, I expunged them from my vocabulary many decades ago. It's a present tense idea and philosophically, it's also a present tense idea. So there are things, a little detritus on the ground that we have that we can harness. And that's what we're trying to do. And the cheery attitude, no swearing at SLAM, because we mic our staff and the kids will hear you. And also you can increase your vocabulary if you promise not to swear. Anytime someone swears at SLAM, you have to give me a quarter.

Tim Cynova:

Just a bunch of people carrying quarters around in their pockets, just on the off chance that that might happen.

Lauren Ruffin:

I'd have to pay up front. Put me on layaway.

Elizabeth Streb:

Wow. I'm telling you about I've started swearing again, which my partner, Laura Flanders, is like, I can't believe you're like a sailor, a drunken sailor. What's happened? To not do that. And I think it really increases your vocabulary if you don't swear, but I'm hopefully not on the air.

Tim Cynova:

Research shows that people who curse are more likely telling you the truth, so whenever I actually say something, I usually follow up with a research, but...

Elizabeth Streb:

I never heard that. I think you're making an excuse.

Tim Cynova:

That's true. Yeah. I've never seen the research. I've just read the article that references it. Yeah.

Elizabeth Streb:

We're just gaining rumors.

Tim Cynova:

It's true, Elizabeth, that's exactly what's happening. When you talk about regret and hope. And we were in a meeting a couple of weeks ago and one of our coworkers remarked that this is the first time in their life when their faced, or we're faced with the uncertainty of a global pandemic, when they've sat to contemplate, the only thing you have to fear is fear itself. It took on new meaning for them. You are someone who I know does things that I could never do. Walk down outside of a building, jump through plates of glass, set yourself on fire. I imagine you have a relationship with fear that you've given a far more thought, or not, to what fear is. During this pandemic, I'm wondering what comes to mind as you think about that.

Elizabeth Streb:

Lighting myself on fire was for my girlfriend, my partner now. We recently got married after 29 years or something, but that was, I don't know; lesbians don't get married for God's sake or death to all. But for her 40th birthday, and that was probably almost 18 years ago, I set a fire. My dancers set a fire and I was supposed to land on it and put it out. It was called blaze away, trying to demonstrate to Melissa Etheridge. I'm the only one to walk across the earth. When I stood up, I'd been using sternal. I was on fire. So it wasn't like I'm going to set myself on fire. My character got set on fire. I think that here is a class thing, in my opinion, because then I got brought up in a very working class family. Then I went, I sort of snuck into the higher art world by default, by stubbornness.

Elizabeth Streb:

And I can see those girls, women, that were in rehearsal and go out to dinner and I would go to restaurants and cook. I was a chef. Then I even researched the famous choreographers in New York, their parents. One's a judge, one's a lawyer. My father laid bricks. I think that fear...what we consider fear in the dance world, especially because it's what you do to train your body to do things that are supposed to be new vocabularies, to you increase the profundity and the vocabulary and the language, the grammar of action; not just to perform the techniques you learn in ballet class, which is what they do. Why would I want to see around the job? What the hell is that? The idea that action has [inaudible 00:09:15] rather than experience has to be in terms of transference. So I always disagreed with everything the dance world promulgated.

Elizabeth Streb:

Fear for me was I noticed that people of higher class, higher fences, larger yards, they keep harm away way away from them. And I'm thinking, well, how bad could it be? And you just started moving closer and closer to the incident of disaster and you know about millisecond timing. And you know, you can get out of there, but if you don't go there or you're so worried about your own precious little speck in the universe that you just don't do things if we're going to arrest the attention of the viewers.

Elizabeth Streb:

I feel that fear is just a detail. It's something we learn and little girls do. Be careful, be careful, don't get hurt. I'll carry that heavy thing for you. I'm probably one of the few teenagers... I looked very, very straight as a young woman all the way to when I hit 40 and then the guys stopped bugging me, thank God. That's probably because they figured out I couldn't have their baby or something like that. But I mean, I have this really crazy attitude. I think that my fear thing is that in that zone, which is certainly not a zone you're ever going to meet catastrophe if you're paying utter and rabbit attention, you figure out techniques to move in a millisecond manner. You make a decision when everything goes to heck and a hand basket. You make a decision to save yourself. That's where the stuff of the action erupts from, not exercising your training and such.

Tim Cynova:

Thank you for that.

Lauren Ruffin:

It strikes me in this whole thing about fear. One of the most interesting things about the pandemic, for me, is how few people I know think about sort of the reality of death and people are really panicking about that. I feel like I've made my peace with the idea of my demise, which is inevitable in a way that a lot of my colleagues have it as the pandemic made you reframe your thoughts on your own mortality or do you feel like you've always had a pretty good sense of that and a pretty good understanding of that?

Elizabeth Streb:

I'm not so worried about myself, I guess.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. Yeah.

Elizabeth Streb:

I did get COVID. We just got tested and I had COVID. We have a little cabin up in Smallwood, New York by where the real Woodstock happened. I was careless when we left New York- went to a restaurant, went go party, went to the movies, and I got slapped with it. I actually had that thought, Hmm, I'm 70. Uh-oh, I'm going to go out with a stupid thing. I'd rather be falling off a tall building or something. Not to get me with this damn [inaudible 00:12:02], or whatever the heck it is.

Elizabeth Streb:

I guess I understand people being afraid, but I think the whole other thing, Laura, is this thing about what it's bringing out about race. Like what the heck. Or class and poverty. And for me, if there's anything that's going to switch the lens on fairness in this world, and certainly in this country, maybe it's this. Maybe the good thing out of this is just to figure out how to have empathy for everybody. I'm working on trying to have my attitude about wealthy people, have a way a little. I think they're stingy, but what else can I say?

Tim Cynova:

Well, before we get to a comment from Andrew Taylor who was just live chatting, in this moment, it feels like we have an opportunity to do things that we might not have been able to do in our lives. The globe essentially shut-down, and to get to a future where everyone can thrive, what do you think it will take that we need to do now before maybe it just falls right back into what it's been for generations?

Elizabeth Streb:

That's a very complicated question, because mostly, I don't know. I don't think it will go back. I just don't see how it can go back. We live in New York city. You guys probably do too. We have a loft in SoHo that I had in the seventies. It's devastated, and it's as high of real estate monitoring and you know, people just hanging on to things and seeing how much they can get. It just was destroying businesses here and certainly all over New York for quite a while before COVID hit.

Elizabeth Streb:

Laurie Garrett, who I was mentioning, is an amazing health political activist doctor said, it'll be 36 months. It'll be three years before they get a vaccine. That's what she thinks. She was very involved in the AIDS crisis, also; although it wasn't a pandemic. I just don't see. Then, because this keeps mutating, this virus with the children's story the other day, that 73 children, who knows. It could be like the dinosaurs and the asteroid and no more anything. It could be that. I don't know. Also, climate change and nobody was paying any attention to that. So do people learn their lessons? I don't think it'll ever go back to normal, though. I don't think people change past the age of 20. Not really.

Tim Cynova:

Yeah. Well, we have a question from someone who's watching, Andrew Taylor. Andrew was a guest on our show last Friday. Yeah. Two weeks ago. I think he's all running together, but he says your work refuses the premise of human constraint, of gravity, of the horizontal, of the human body. How are you considering and questioning our current constraints of home space and the Zoom screen?

Elizabeth Streb:

Well, Andrew, we did, we put this out. I've got to get you on my mailing list. Again, you are, we've had great exchanges over the years, Andrew and I have you know, about education and about the arts and about life. What I think that the screen... I'm not comfortable with it, as you could see how long it took me, but Andrew, I am.

Elizabeth Streb:

I found myself getting fascinated by it. When I was making the horizon line dance for our gala, our Action Maverick's gala, it's missing everything I care about- physicality, danger, time. I sort of blame it on the physicists, because they've still never defined time. Not even defined it. It's based on the same thing. I asked Lisa Randall once, she's a physicist at Harvard, and I said, well, what's your definition of time? Well, no, one's been able to really define it because well there's a problem with a minus sign. I go, really? ...Where you can go backwards in time, it's a theoretical particle, but I guess Andrew, I'm just a curmudgeon and I'm going to do it. I'm going to get into Zoom or Chrome. One of the things that is nine squares and we were not editing and it was two minutes long. And all I could do is positional things and images. We go faster than what images would provoke. They lasted about a half a millisecond. So it's everything I don't like. You know, someone's handed me this pale and I'm going to have to just get into it.

Tim Cynova:

Elizabeth it's going to be exciting to see what you come up with, because if anybody can make this work, I'm excited to see what comes out of that. I have recommended that I've lost track at how many people need to watch Born to Fly, the documentary I was fortunate to see it in New York when you were there about the 2012 Cultural Olympiad. Lauren and I have talked about her love of the Olympics and how typically she would shut down every summer and winter for years. What's your relationship with the Olympics, Elizabeth? Do you usually watch it? Do you not? Do you have favorite sports? Where you're like, I'm going to just slide people down the spokes of the London Eye and that's going to be far, far more interesting than anything else?

Elizabeth Streb:

Well, I was really pretty cool. You've got to admit. I have a rigger named Robin Alliance with unusual rigors in London, and he created these gizmos that snapped onto the spokes, all 32 of them. I choreograph this whole dance on the spokes. Profundity is it kept changing...the slope changed its relationship to gravity and every little movement on that thing. They could fly; go 200 feet down the radius. It's 600 feet in the air. Once you're off the ground, 65 feet. It was a new vocabulary. His relationship with gravity was different than I was in trans. We walked down city hall, but we were tied somewhere up in the roof.

Elizabeth Streb:

I remember it stopped and Leonardo had to go over and unwrap a cable and there was like this thing, right? And I was at the top of the roof of the city hall in London, getting ready to go. And there was this, a rigger was up there, Robin was. I went, I think there's a problem there. It's all this tangle. I think it's not correct. No, no don't worry. You know how, how hard we're [inaudible 00:18:21]. Fair enough. We get a third of the way down and there's a round well.

Elizabeth Streb:

But Olympiad was a once in a lifetime bungee jumping off the millennium bridge. Anyway, in reference to the Olympics. I watch every Olympics. My favorite sport is downhill skiing with the women. And you know, this is like in the wind. This is the other thing. Talk about time. You win by a quarter, right? It's a hundred thousandth of a second. And all you can do to be that good is have guts and just be skiing your home like Lindsey Vaughn. I mean, it was just like cracking all of her falls. I don't like it that people fall and get hurt, but I love watching how they survive those falls going at that speed, 70 miles an hour. Is that right, Lauren? Something like 70 miles an hour?

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah.

Elizabeth Streb:

What other sport do you like, Lauren?

Lauren Ruffin:

So I always forget the name of the sport. I didn't know it existed until a couple of years ago.

Tim Cynova:

Biathlon, right?

Lauren Ruffin:

Biathlon. When these, I mean, white people invent the most amazing sports. You're skiing, long distance, and then you have to lay down in the snow and shoot at targets. It is amazing! And if I had known that sport existed, when I was a kid, I would have like thrown my basketball into the wind and become a bi-athlete.

Elizabeth Streb:

See, that's like, we're fast Twitch people like anerobic. I don't like it. I want it to be over in two minutes and then suffer all the way. But not an hour or whatever the heck goes.

Lauren Ruffin:

As I've gotten older, I've become a more patient athlete.

Elizabeth Streb:

You have?

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. I was always a sprinter and a basketball player, and now I can do things for 45 minutes an hour that are not me chasing a ball, which is very strange.

Elizabeth Streb:

That's amazing. I'm very impressed by that.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah.

Elizabeth Streb:

I love surfing, but it's not an Olympic. Where's my book. Oh, I have this great book called Sharks. That's perfect. Very hard book to find. Yeah. It's not Natalie Jackson, but it's my Bible. I can't even held it up as a gala last night. I go get this book. But I think physical ideas like that, like surfing. I also love sports that go on for generations, but they get no notice whatsoever. And like when people surf the mavericks, those are the waves that are like 60 feet high, 40 feet high. And you fall off of that and you just die. So I like things that have death as the other edge of them, I guess.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. I do want to get it. Yeah.

Tim Cynova:

Meanwhile, I went cross country skiing for the first time on a totally flat land or broke my ankle. So, you know. [crosstalk 00:21:11].

Elizabeth Streb:

You're not even attached to the ski, and you're not going to cry real cute for that.

Tim Cynova:

Yeah. Clearly I'm not pushing the envelope hard enough.

Elizabeth Streb:

Well you just decided to bail out and didn't want to do it anymore.

Tim Cynova:

I have an aversion to what I would call low friction, sports, ice skating skiing. I am more of a cyclist and runner where there's some traction there, but I don't know. I was in Canada a couple months ago. Everyone was so encouraging about how easy cross country skiing is. I thought might as well try it. And then first time out ever in my life, a mile, broke my leg.

Elizabeth Streb:

That's terrible.

Tim Cynova:

Good story. That's the only time I'm going to go skiing. And we're coming up on time though. I think it's time for the suitcase question, Lauren.

Lauren Ruffin:

Elizabeth, I'm going to miss talking to you. It's good that someone else can give Tim a hard time besides me.

Elizabeth Streb:

It's my job, Tim. And I love [inaudible 00:22:11]

Lauren Ruffin:

Oh, thank you. So throughout your life, you've been carrying a figurative suitcase with you. Habits and beliefs and things you love that have been in the suitcase for a long time. Now we're in a pandemic. So what's one thing that's been in your suitcase for a long time that you're tossing out, never to go back in again. What's one new habit or belief or love that you were going to put into the suitcase forever.

Elizabeth Streb:

This is really a quintessential impossible to answer question. I won't take any of the books out. That's why my suitcases are so... I know on my iPad, but not, not reading on a virtual machine. Now we're saying this right as I've got this huge suitcase. We're in New York, and we're going back tonight or tomorrow. I have packed a million other things in there. So I know it's a mess. Or maybe I take body lotion out, which is bad for a seven year old to do, but it's wrinkling. Anyway, what can I do then? I think that exercise equipment I take out. I've got to get back to exercising, but I'm not in the mood. So that goes out. I think that what I would leave in or put in?

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah, something new that you're going to put in.

Elizabeth Streb:

Well, what I've been putting in is certain types of books. I almost got the Rome prize, but then I was rejected. I was going to take a year off and go and just be. The thing that I'm putting in is time that I wanted to go back to when I was just, nobody, sitting on a curb on Canal street. Reading, studying. That kind of time you need to read a book that's philosophical. So it would be philosophy, mathematics, and science. I have time to like read a page and then run. Like I've noticed also a lot of the quotes I used to just say this, this, this and Feinstein said, this guy said John Page, and woman said. Now I want to go back there and it's giving me time.

Elizabeth Streb:

So I'm putting time for study back in my suitcase. And the COVID is really the only implementer. I think that could have forced that on me. And even though in my mind, I wanted to go back to be able to see, could I come up with a new idea or am I done inventing? Does the world need another modern dance or perfection dance? Does it need it? Or are the 99 or a hundred I've made enough? What would be the next version of me giving back before I... The idea is that I would just burst into dust. That's my idea to die. I'm not going to take a lot of time dying. I just want to explode. I've used every single part of my microbes. I think that those are the things that I would do.

Lauren Ruffin:

Amazing.

Tim Cynova:

That is amazing. Elizabeth, you are a wonderful person and it's an honor to get to know you; to have known you for these years and to close our season one with this conversation. I can't imagine two other people that would rather have making fun of me for my inability cross country skiing than the two of you lovingly doing that. I assume it's lovingly. I'm going to take that as lovingly. Thank you so much for being on the show with us today.

Elizabeth Streb:

A real pleasure.

Tim Cynova:

And with that, we sadly and excitedly end with an immense amount of gratitude to all of our guests and viewers. We have reached the end of an amazing Season One of the Work. Shouldn't. Suck. Live morning show. Never fear, we have more audio only podcast episodes in the queue while we plan our next live season. You can also download all of the previous Work. Shouldn't. Suck. Live episodes from your favorite podcasting platform of choice and re-watch Work. Shouldn't. Suck. live episodes over on www.workshouldntsuck.co.

Tim Cynova:

If you've enjoyed the conversation or just feeling generous today, please consider writing a review on iTunes so that others who might be interested in the topic can join the fun, too. Give it a thumbs up or five stars or photo friend, whatever your podcasting platform of choice offers. If you didn't enjoy this chat, please tell someone about it, who you don't like as much. Until next time. Thanks for listening.

The podcast is available for free on your favorite podcasting platforms:

If you enjoy the show, please leave a review on iTunes to help others discover the podcast.

Guest User 5/13/20 Guest User 5/13/20

Live with Darren Walker! (EP.37)

Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guest Darren Walker. [Live show recorded: May 11, 2020.]

Last Updated

May 13, 2020

Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guest Darren Walker. [Live show recorded: May 11, 2020.]

Guest: Darren Walker

Co-Hosts: Tim Cynova & Lauren Ruffin

Episode Transcript

Guest

Darren Walker is president of the Ford Foundation, an international social justice philanthropy with a $13 billion endowment and $600 million in annual grant making. He chaired the philanthropy committee that brought a resolution to the city of Detroit’s historic bankruptcy and is co-founder and chair of the US Impact Investing Alliance.

Before joining Ford, Darren was vice president at the Rockefeller Foundation, overseeing global and domestic programs including the Rebuild New Orleans initiative after Hurricane Katrina. In the 1990s, as COO of the Abyssinian Development Corporation—Harlem’s largest community development organization—he oversaw a comprehensive revitalization strategy, including building over 1,000 units of affordable housing and the first major commercial development in Harlem since the 1960s. Earlier, he had a decade-long career in international law and finance at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton and UBS.

Darren co-chairs New York City’s Commission on City Art, Monuments, and Markers, and serves on the Commission on the Future of Rikers Island Correctional Institution and the UN International Labor Organization Commission on the Future of Work. He also serves on the boards of Carnegie Hall, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, the National Gallery of Art, Art Bridges, the High Line, VOW to End Child Marriage, the HOW Institute for Society, the Global Steering Group for Impact Investment, and the Committee to Protect Journalists. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is the recipient of 13 honorary degrees and university awards, including the W. E. B. Du Bois Medal from Harvard University.

Educated exclusively in public schools, Darren was a member of the first class of Head Start in 1965 and graduated from the University of Texas at Austin, which in 2009 recognized him with its Distinguished Alumnus Award—its highest alumni honor. He has been included on numerous annual media lists, including Time’s annual list of the 100 Most Influential People in the World, Rolling Stone’s 25 People Shaping the Future, Fast Company’s 50 Most Innovative People, and Out magazine’s Power 50.

Transcript

Tim Cynova:

Hey, I'm Tim Cynova and welcome to Workshop. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE! The Morning(ish) Show, even more so today. We are so excited for our episode. Today we're joined by Darren Walker. Darren is the President of the Ford Foundation and as a genuinely awesome person. Fun little story: As I was just sharing with Darren in the green room, when he agreed to be on the show through our mutual friend. Our mutual friend, she said, "yeah, good news, tonight Darren is going to be on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah." And it was immediately this moment of like, Oh dear God, what have we gotten ourselves into? Uh, so, so we'll see. Most of you know, Darren and the terrific work that he and the Ford Foundation do. If you have any questions about bios, links, they're all in the description to this. So let's just get going. Without further ado, Darren, welcome to the show.

Darren Walker:

Thank you for having me.

Lauren Ruffin:

So Darren, the first question that we always ask our guests are, how are you and how is your community doing?

Darren Walker:

Well, I am fine, all things considered. When I'm asked that question, it has to be in consideration of all the things going on around me. I'm doing fine, but the world is not. And I recognize my privilege and the level of security I have, which insulates me in some ways from what every day people have to deal with, which is how to make enough money to pay rent. And I have a decent livelihood so that you and your family can live with dignity. That today is a real challenge in this city and in this country as a result of this horrific pandemic, that is wrecking havoc on the lives of the people who are always most vulnerable, Black folks, Brown folks, Queer folks, people who have been marginalized historically. And in this increasingly unequal world, the inequality that is revealed as a result of this calamity is, I think it brings into stark relief of what we always know.

Darren Walker:

And we know who is going to be harmed the most, what communities are going to be discriminated against the most. This is not a new phenomenon, it is a recurring nightmare for some folks. And so Darren Walker is doing fine. All things considered

Tim Cynova:

Darren, what does it look like right now? Just from a practical standpoint for work at the foundation, I assume you all are working remotely or from various places. Have you done that before? Is that actually the case? How are you coordinating with the team?

Darren Walker:

Well, we are working remotely and it's actually been pretty seamless because we had in place a very robust business continuity plan. So in case there was some shock we could very quickly pivot and work remotely. We have the equipment and the resources. So relative to our grantees, this has been a very easy transition. Now that's not to say that people aren't emotionally traumatized, that people are not feeling the various roller coaster of emotions that one feels. But relative to our grantees, relative to the nonprofits who are out there operating without endowment, without wealthy boards, without the equipment, we made the transition quite easily. But we are concerned about the state of the field, particularly in the areas where we work with the lens of racial equity. And a concern about the organizations and institutions that serve our community and how resilient they will be in the face of what will be a, not a sprint, but a marathon of challenges of postponed fundraisers, of canceled seasons, of a revenue source that evaporates, how are these organizations going to survive?

Darren Walker:

It's essential that they survive because without them, we have no culture in America. We have no justice. The nonprofit sector has been the one leg of the stool that consistently fought for justice, have fought for the rights of those who are most forgotten and left behind. And then the art, it is those organizations who have often provided the creativity, ingenuity innovation, that has made possible the larger American, creative, artistic experiment. So without these organizations and the communities they are embedded in and represent, it's hard to imagine how we're even going to have something called American culture.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. And so you just mentioned organizational resilience and how fluent we can support that, but how are you approaching your own resilience and self care while you're in quarantine and during this time?

Darren Walker:

That's a great question, especially for an admitted, acknowledged, extreme extrovert. For those of us who have had enough coaching and Myers-Briggs testing and all other sorts of personality disorder testing, I can tell you that it is very challenging to live in an apartment and basically not have any social engagement for two months and counting. I am a person who thrives, who desperately needs engagement with other human beings and to be denied that is very challenging for my own emotional health. And I have thought through the technology and the genius of Zoom and FaceTime to find proxies for what I need and it simply isn't possible. Because you go from one Zoom to the next Zoom and by the end of the day, you are spiffed and you don't feel like you've had any real human engagement.

Tim Cynova:

One of our previous guests, Caroline Woolard described every day as blurs day and every hour as Zoom o'clock, as it feels like you're going from one to the next. And speaking of Zoom recently Hannah Drake published a piece on ArtPlace America, their blog titled, We Will Not Zoom Our Way Out of This Crisis. And one of the memorable quotes from her piece that I found was, America, as we knew it has changed and similar to the USB port on my Mac book, it's not coming back.

Darren Walker:

That's right.

Tim Cynova:

And this got me to think about systemic change, systems change. And before the pandemic, it feels like probably for a lot of people, that there was a fairly abstract concept. Even if you talked about systems change and systemic change, but the pandemic, the surface for a lot of people, I think the systems and the systems in particular, as they're not working and they're falling apart. As you think about systems change in the current context, what comes to mind?

Darren Walker:

What comes to mind is the design of these systems. So the systems that are failing us were designed, choices were made, these systems don't exist in isolation. We made choices to have an economy that delivers far too much inequality and far too little opportunities. We made a choice to have a criminal justice system that disproportionately locks up Brown and Black people and poor White people. We made a choice to have a housing system that places, Black folks, Brown folks, people who have historically been discriminated against, in disadvantaged geography, this place far from opportunity. So these systems that we have designed, we now need in this PC world to redesign them, not renew them. I heard someone quite prominent say on television, we need to renew our American dream and we need to renew our economy. I do not want to renew our economy. The dictionary defines renew as restart something that was interrupted. I actually don't want to restart that economy. I want to reimagine the economy in a way that delivers more shared prosperity.

Darren Walker:

And so how do we design that economic system is the question that I believe is a critical question. Before we dive in the deep end of the pool and just bring forward the old tools that did not work for most of us.

Lauren Ruffin:

I can't agree more. I spend so much time thinking about how capital flows through our economic system. And one of the things that's really been sitting with me for the last two or three weeks as we saw the paycheck protection program rollout and EIDL loan come out. Some of the data suggests that 95% of Black businesses were locked out of those funds, 91% of Latin Mexicans businesses, these small businesses that are the engine of Black and Brown communities in terms of training apprenticeship, just community building. And I've been thinking about that and also in the longer term context of traditional loans drying up, CDFIs not giving and banks not lending to Black and Brown small businesses. It strikes me that philanthropy has all of a sudden become perhaps the one place that Black and Brown businesses and ideas and innovation can be funded. I don't think we talk about the sector in terms of the importance, it is in writing capital for these businesses ideas.

Lauren Ruffin:

Are you in Ford thinking about work in that lens and looking at your work as being a critical underpinning of funds for these businesses and for these ideas?

Darren Walker:

Well, first of all, that's a great observation. And the question about what Ford is doing, let's just go back in history. So the fourth foundation helped to create America's first community development financial institution, the CDFIs the emerged out of the 1960s, and an effort at what was then called urban renewal. And a number of interventions that the foundation played a role in that thought to mitigate and redress, the red lining that had occurred that made it impossible for Black businesses to receive loans or Black homeowners to get mortgages, et cetera. So there are a number of things, including the community reinvestment act and the local initiative support corporation, the affordable housing movement that the foundation was involved in. But what we have been stymied in is scaling these challenges, scaling these opportunities. And the challenge is that you fast forward, as you just were describing very well, what happened with the PPP program and the Cares Act B for B Black businesses.

Darren Walker:

And of course, as you probably noticed in the most recent round of PPP, there was an acknowledgement that in a first round Black businesses and CDFIs had been ignored. And so there was an effort that was driven in part by the Congressional Black Caucus who heard from Bayer constituencies, what was actually going down in their communities. And they insisted that there'll be some recognition that this needed to be righted, and so there is now a recognition of that. Now, whether it will actually flow to our communities and our businesses remains to be seen. And this is why a number of us are funding accountability efforts to follow the money and to measure and assess and survey Black businesses to understand whether or not any of those funds are actually flowing into our communities. I think the foundation, you are right, when you say philanthropy could, that's right, philanthropy could do a whole lot of the things, but will philanthropy do it?

Darren Walker:

So you asked the right question. I would say, the jury is out. Are we willing to pay out more at a time of an existential threat, when it is no longer defensible to simply say, we pay out our 5% because that's what the government requires us to do? Is it defensible to say, we are looking at our investments strictly from the standpoint of maximizing returns? I don't believe it is acceptable. And I believe that in this PC world, some of the things that we in philanthropy were able to sustain in the BC world they're going to be reckonings. And people are going to expect and should expect in this moment to not have the answer be what the answer was in the BC world.

Tim Cynova:

Darren, what do you think is going to take? Getting ready for this interview, I meditated and reflected a lot of, if I were in your position or one of your colleagues positions running a foundation, would I increase the payout? Would I just go bigger, go home? Be like, if our commitment to social justice is this, and this is the time, would there be a plan that would cause me to say, let's just cash it all out and go big and, Oh, we're going to do our best right now. Thankfully you and your colleagues are far smarter in mortality than I am, so I'm not having to make those decisions but I wonder what it would take for the community to say, well, this is our moment. This is why we've been around forever or for however long, let's make the most of it.

Darren Walker:

Well, I think you are right, that it will take prayer and meditation and more to actually get the sector to fully embrace all of the leverage capability our institutions have individually and we as a sector. So I do believe that philanthropy is filled with thoughtful, committed, passionate people who want justice, who want to fight poverty, but there's also this thing called the market and we allow the market to trump the imperative to do what is best. And so what I say to our fellow legacy foundations, who like the Ford Foundation are charged with transitioning into the future and future generations and preserving the endowment, all of those very important, but do share a responsibility, is that there may not be a future for our endowment. There may not be a future for this democracy if we let slip away from us the one opportunity we have to actually begin to get things right in this country and in the world.

Darren Walker:

And so, while I appreciate as a former banker, the importance of fiduciary responsibility, I think that the four foundations endowments will be better served in the long run if we have a healthy flourishing democracy. I believe that we have to go beyond the 5% and look for ways to substantially increase, certainly in this year and probably next year, most definitely the level of giving, the level of investing.

Tim Cynova:

We're coming up on time and want to make sure we get the suitcase question in, because it's just a fun question to ask. Before we get to that last question, you co-authored a piece in the Chronicle Philanthropy about a week or two ago, titled, In Covid-19 Crisis, Philanthropy's Attention Must Focus on People With Disabilities. In previous episodes, we've had the amazing opportunity to chat with Deana Haggag at United States Artists and stylists Marcus Ware. And wanted to have an opportunity for you to maybe encapsulate or what resonates from you about this moment in time. And one of the things I think we're hearing is, how can this not just be a short-lived trend?

Darren Walker:

Well, I think we have come to understand the long standing prejudice, discrimination and bias against people with disabilities and the invisibility of them in our quote unquote "strategy". Our are strategies that were designed to broaden the circle and bring more justice and we forgot people with disabilities. That reflects our ableism that reflects our bias and we need to, we progressives, we foundation people, need to own our culpability in marginalizing this critically important community. And even more important is our mission, of our justice, our reducing poverty and inequality. How will we have more justice in this country if people with disabilities remain discriminated against? In seeking employment, housing, the right to live independent dignified lives. We've got to take on those costs of it and make sure we support them with the bigger, that we support LGBTQ and African American and Latino and native, et cetera.

Darren Walker:

This community cannot be left behind. In fact, we can't have justice without this community being at the center of our work. And so for me, it's been liberating to be liberated from my own ignorance and my own sense of myths that we progressives have about feeling that we know what's right and what's wrong. And right in front of us fits a community that defines and knows what it feels like to be left out and left behind. And they have been invisible to large foundations. And only recently have we large foundations come to understand how critical addressing the issues that affect people with disabilities is to our mission.

Lauren Ruffin:

Thank you for that. I feel like I was in church for a second. I might've been saying, Oh, a little too loud.

Darren Walker:

That's right. I need you to stand up and do it [crosstalk 00:00:19:45].

Lauren Ruffin:

I was, I had that moment. So I guess we should go to our last question. I know we're out of time.

Darren Walker:

What is the last question? I hear it's a famous one.

Lauren Ruffin:

The last question is getting famous. Both of our viewers there [crosstalk 00:19:57]. So throughout your life Darren, you've been carrying a figurative suitcase with you, of behaviors, habits, things you really love. The pandemics maybe made us question all of these things. My question is, what's one thing that you've been carrying around in your life suitcase for a long time that you're throwing out and you're never doing it again? And what's one thing that you're putting in your suitcase, one behavior, habits, this thing that you've never really done before that you've started to do that you think you're going to carry with you for the long haul?

Darren Walker:

I think the one thing that I'm going to leave behind is this notion of the critical importance of working in an office and the need to be face to face. I fought tooth and nail about telecommuting and working remotely, because I said that we needed to build a community at Ford and to build that community and culture, people had to see each other face to face every day in the office. I have been disabused of that ideology and so I now understand that we can have an organization where people work remotely some of the time, not all of the time, but that they can work remotely effectively. If there is something that I want to do that I don't do enough, I think it is making sure that I own my right to be at the table. I have found that I, for my entire life as a Black man a Queer man, a man with my economic origin, I have often felt humbled to be at the table, to be included.

Darren Walker:

And I find that among a lot of people of color and women in rooms of power and influence to be grateful to be in the room. And I now have come to understand that we're in the room for a reason. And that is not to be grateful. That is to make sure that we are speaking truth to power and that we are interrogating our own beliefs and our own biases and prejudices and ideologies that get in the way. And so I am going to hopefully be more assertive about being in the room and doing the work that I'm there to do.

Tim Cynova:

Amazing. Darren, it has been an absolute pleasure getting to spend time with you. Thanks for going long on this interview. It's been a true pleasure. Thank you so much.

Darren Walker:

Thank you guys. This was great fun for me. Let's do it again.

Tim Cynova:

That's good. Take care. Thank you.

Darren Walker:

Bye. Bye.

Tim Cynova:

Continue the Work. Shouldn't. Suck live adventure, with us on our final episode of season one, when we're joined by Elizabeth Streb. Miss us in the meantime, you can download more Work. Shouldn't. Suck episodes from your favorite podcasting platform of choice and re-watch Work. Shouldn't. Suck live episodes over on workshouldntsuck.co. If you've enjoyed the conversation or just feeling generous today, please consider writing a review on iTunes so that others who might be interested in the topic can join the fun too. Give it a thumbs up or five stars or phone a friend, whatever your podcasting platform of choice offers. If you didn't enjoy this chat, please tell someone about it, who you don't like as much. Until next time, thanks for listening.

The podcast is available for free on your favorite podcasting platforms:

If you enjoy the show, please leave a review on iTunes to help others discover the podcast.

Guest User 5/10/20 Guest User 5/10/20

Live with Bamuthi & Lisa Yancey! (EP.36)

Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guests Marc Bamuthi Joseph and Lisa Yancey. [Live show recorded: May 8, 2020.]

Last Updated

May 10, 2020

Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guests Marc Bamuthi Joseph and Lisa Yancey. [Live show recorded: May 8, 2020.]

Guests: Marc Bamuthi Joseph and Lisa Yancey

Co-Hosts: Tim Cynova & Lauren Ruffin

Episode Transcript

Guests

LISA YANCEY is a strategist, social impact entrepreneur, community builder, and visionary who believes that people build legacies in a lifetime. Originally from Atlanta, Georgia, Lisa Yancey is the president Yancey Consulting (YC) and co-founder of SorsaMED and The We’s Match. With 18 years of practice, YC has served over 100 nonprofit organizations, grantmakers, and individuals. Advising across arts and culture, public space, and justice-based sectors, YC specializes in strategic organizational development, economic modeling, evaluation and assessments, board development, leadership coaching, and executive transition support. SorsaMED is a biotechnology company engineering cannabinoids infused with nutrient-enriched microalgae for therapeutic pain management, with a specific concern for sickle cell anemia sufferers, especially youth. The We’s Match is dedicated to the wealth, scale, and wellness of Black women entrepreneurs. We match these entrepreneurs with resources and capital for business growth and success. Lisa’s dedication to supporting equitable outcomes for systemically disenfranchised people is the seamless thread that binds these companies. Three essential philosophies drive Lisa’s work. One, we must disrupt patterns that either sustain or are complicit to inequities that challenge any person’s or group’s ability to be their full selves. Two, we will never accomplish sustainable goals looking solely in the short-term. She touts, “It is imperative to assess and set generational impact goals (20-25 years from now) that connect to present-day efforts.” The third is best captured in Lilla Watson’s declaration, “If you have come here to help me you are wasting your time, but if you are here because your liberation is bound with mine, then let us work together.” Lisa believes, “I am one of WE.” Lisa matriculated from Boston College Law School and Emory University. She is a former dancer and choreographer. She is also a member of the New York State Bar Association. Lisa currently lives in Mount Vernon, New York, and serves on the board of Fractured Atlas.

MARC BAMUTHI JOSEPH is a 2017 TED Global Fellow, an inaugural recipient of the Guggenheim Social Practice initiative, and an honoree of the United States Artists Rockefeller Fellowship. He is also the winner of the 2011 Herb Alpert Award in Theatre, and an inaugural recipient of the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award. In pursuit of affirmations of black life in the public realm, he co-founded the Life is Living Festival for Youth Speaks, and created the installation “Black Joy in the Hour of Chaos” for Creative Time. Joseph’s opera libretto, We Shall Not Be Moved, was named one of 2017’s “Best Classical Music Performances” by The New York Times. His evening length work, /peh-LO-tah/, successfully toured across North America for three years, including at BAM’s Harvey Theater as a part of the 2017 Next Wave Festival. His piece, “The Just and the Blind” investigates the crisis of over-sentencing in the prison industrial complex, and premiered at a sold out performance at Carnegie Hall in March 2019. Bamuthi is currently at work on commissions for the Perelman Center, Yale University, and the Washington National Opera as well as a new collaboration with NYC Ballet Artistic Director Wendy Whelan. Formerly the Chief of Program and Pedagogy at YBCA in San Francisco, Bamuthi currently serves as the Vice President and Artistic Director of Social Impact at The Kennedy Center.

Transcript

Tim Cynova:

Hi, I'm Tim Cynova and welcome to Works Shouldn't Suck Live, the morning-ish show. On today's episode, Lauren Ruffin and I are joined by another amazing duo of humans, Marc Bamuthi Joseph and Lisa Yancey. Lisa is a strategist, social impact entrepreneur, community builder and visionary who believes that people build legacies in lifetime. She is the president of Yancey Consulting and co-founder of SorsaMED and The We's Match, and is one of the most incredible people that I know.

Tim Cynova:

Bamuthi is a 2017 TED global fellow, an inaugural recipient of the Guggenheim Social Practice Initiative, and an honoree of the United States Artists Rockefeller Fellowship. While managing a successful artistic career. Bamuthi also proudly serves as vice president and Artistic Director of Social Impact at Washington DC's Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Without further ado, Bamuthi and Lisa, welcome to the show.

Bamuthi:

Hey.

Lisa Yancey:

Hey.

Bamuthi:

[inaudible 00:01:01]. Good morning, ish.

Lauren Ruffin:

Good morning. So it's so good to see both of your faces here this morning. Our first question to our guests is always, how are you and how is your community doing during this pandemic?

Lisa Yancey:

I'll start on that one. I am wonderfully well. I'm just grateful for health, let's start there. The fact that I can be here and have this conversation with each of you. My community and my communities because they're plural, grateful are well. My family is primarily in Atlanta with the crazy governor, I can just say that. They're actually doing well, so I'm happy about that. And I'm happy to be in New York with, I feel like one of the best governors that's showing up in that state and showing what to do. So all is good here.

Bamuthi:

I'm in Oakland, California, so my geographical community is also benefiting from progressive political leadership. I would say that when I think about community in terms of racial demographics specifically, I would say that our community is reeling. Just given the proportion of infection in the black community, the impact of COVID on the prison population, and of course the trauma of Ahmaud Arbery's killings and murdering in Georgia. So these are complex times, for sure but all of these factors of ... and the intersectionality don't stop.

Lauren Ruffin:

I've been thinking a lot about the racial timeline of this pandemic because it does seem to me that the reactions ... and I'm holding two things at once. One is that we have very, very little data about this virus, real tangible data, but the data that we have says that it's obviously just killing black and brown people primarily because of poor health opportunities and preexisting conditions.

Lauren Ruffin:

As people are realizing that black people are dying, it's like, let's open this thing back up and just let them continue to die, and the lack of value on black lives even during a pandemic seems to really be coming to the fore right now.

Bamuthi:

Beautifully said. I don't want to be reductive and I don't want to say that I speak for the entire black community but-

Lauren Ruffin:

You don't?

Bamuthi:

[crosstalk 00:03:07] direct response.

Lauren Ruffin:

That's why we invited you here, to speak for all of us.

Bamuthi:

Thanks. Normally, that's what I do. That's part of the gig of being a black intellectual of the arts. [inaudible 00:03:20].

Lisa Yancey:

I think that in this piece of the conversation is that the fact that it didn't just start with this pandemic. I'm very mindful in all of our conversations that this Black Lives Matter, this is pre and unfortunately it is pre. And so, what we expect, so Lauren, you're surprised, people are still devaluing lives. It's not a surprise for me because this isn't necessarily the kind of disruptor that's going to create a-ha in human value and equity.

Lisa Yancey:

I know that where I am, I don't like to lose hope because hopes not strategy. But for lack of a better word, where I'm hoping that we do the work for enhance mindfulness of our preexisting conditions and the results of that enhanced mindfulness, of staying present to the inequities that consistently exist. The weaponization that happens simply to support the enhance mindfulness that just because we start seeing where we are work globally, we can all be impacted by a virus that the inequities still exist and continue to and that what we're going to do about it. So, not leave it at COVID cause it didn't start with COVID.

Lauren Ruffin:

So Lisa, I know that you run a number of organizations that are remote and dispersed, but mostly I know less about how you work. But I am curious about as folks who manage, has the pandemic shifted your style of work or your leadership style?

Lisa Yancey:

I thought the pandemic has done ... because as you know, I've worked remotely before COVID-19. Yancy consulting is 19 years old this year and so there's this notion of being mobile in the part of work. What the pandemic has done, it's like now everyone is remote. So at least there were moments where you had meetings in place in different places and so it created a different rhythm of how much time I spend in front of a computer talking to people, the energetic exchange. That is a part of the communication that happens when you're facilitating and provoking and opening up and ideating together. We have to find how to find that energy in this modality, that's changed. I feel like my day starts on Mondays and don't end until that day [inaudible 00:05:42]It just starts and I'm like, okay. After I opened up our conversation, like it ends. And so I'm feeling that and density of engagement that's different

Lauren Ruffin:

What about you Bamuthi?

Bamuthi:

As a performing artist so much of my value, so much of my currency is in my body. I spent the better part of really the last 20 years moving from space to space because what I do hopefully is transformed space with word or with movement. Chemistry and just kind of the chemical transformation of sweat of idea launched into intimate spaces. So part of my work is gathering people, but the work where I feel probably most fulfilled is in embodying ideas and transformation. So without my physical body present, with gigs canceled because my physical labor and my physical presence has been my currency in the marketplace. Not only have I had to practically reevaluate, but also philosophically reevaluate just what the value of my body is.

Bamuthi:

Which given the earlier part of the conversation is itself a charged concept. But it's true. So I think that's been the thing. It's just working with presenters, with producers, with organizers to try to figure out if I'm not going to be physically on your stage, how much are these same words worth? We're all trying to figure out the economy of that together. Then COVID is impacted me specifically in terms of administrative job because the Kennedy center has furloughed just about 70% of its staff for what I would call physically responsible reasons. So many of us are in transition also trying to figure out what the value of our work is. What's the difference between the work and the job. Without the job, how does the work continue. Without a place, without context like this and how do some of the things that we were doing in social impact at the Kennedy center still resonate if that is in the container for our principles. So currency, the body, the ephemerality of all these ideas and just trying to figure out how to put a kind of value statement on these valued to principles.

Tim Cynova:

I want to highlight some love coming from our chat. "Some of our greatest minds and hearts here. Thank you for the comment. I totally agree."

Bamuthi:

-singing

Lisa Yancey:

As you were talking, bare with you. So those who know me know that I have a background in dance and those who know me as a facilitator know that often I talk about how I moved from my body and the center of where I feel it starts in my cavity. And I know that those who may not move in the body, cause there are a lot of visual based and other types of discipline-based artists and creators and innovators, engineers, entrepreneurs probably listen to this as well and create different modalities. As you were talking [inaudible 00:08:51] I was thinking about how this idea of this sheltering in place even [inaudible 00:08:57] I feel that this notion of social distancing as oxymoronic. Like social but be distant, what does that mean? Again what does it mean for those of us who are socially quarantine distant by themselves, i.e. me. In a home where you live and move in the body and you engage energetically in space.

Lisa Yancey:

And so there's a work element of those who practice and in their practice their currency is directly connected to their physical being informed. And then there's the regular human, "where are my people at? Can we hang, and have drinks, and laugh, and kick it, and decompress in mining all the craziness." Cause that's a part of our emotional equalizer and anchoring. That body piece is lost too. So we can talk about our work and our leadership, but we're straight up humans and this too, and how all are managing the post-traumatic realities that's going to happen as a result of this.

Lisa Yancey:

That those of us who are actively and consciously mining our balance and presence are just kind of putting in our bodies. Like its in our bodies, we're holding this in our bodies and so where are we going to have those release? Great, thank God for D-nice and other kinds of dance party. [inaudible 00:10:16] I'm like, I'm dancing around in my own house still by myself and being excite about someone else clicking a join with a heart. So these technologies becoming this translation where our translation would be verbal, physical sweats, emotional passion. That's not being fed. That definitely is playing into all that we do.

Tim Cynova:

I totally second the comment about the dopeness, that is Lisa Yancy here. Well Lisa can I tag onto this one because you and your incredible colleague Jolita have been hosting weekly online community gatherings every Friday. You described them as spaces that are designed for individuals to ideate, be heard, find breath, just be, just sit. You've been doing this for a number of weeks. What's resonating from these convenings that that you're bringing together?

Lisa Yancey:

I think the biggest thing that resonates from those conversations is love. I want to just say that. There's so much love internally. We decided we wanted to facilitate a space that is open for anyone who may or may not want to join, it as a no pressure zone. Typically when I work, I say language likes ... one of the agreements is," silence is not consent". So I expect you to actually use your voice to hear, but in this space you can be completely wherever you are in silence and that we all bring intellectual assets that is not just ... doesn't live in one place. So how do we aggregate and accumulate all of those assets that we hold from all of our experiences. It's been a beautiful space where across ... What, they're four time zones in the United States? At least three times zones show up every week and from all over. People coming together just to talk about whatever they want to talk about. We don't lead with titles. You just show up however you are and just comes together so it's love. It's lots of love.

Lisa Yancey:

When you get to the end of the week when you've been here zoned out, you've been to much. It doesn't feel like I'm in another, it's not another, it is like our home and that energy that I referenced earlier that's being compromised where I can't kick it with my girls. I can't ... I'm a traveling human. I am a wondering earth person and I've been grounded. I feel like I'm in the corner, someone put Lisa in a corner. Lisa don't do well in corners. But these conversations allow us to be across space and [inaudible 00:12:40] I'm grateful for everyone who joins and the ideas that get shared in that thing.

Tim Cynova:

Bamuthi, one of your TED talks, a quote is, "soccer is like the only thing on this planet that we can all agree to do together. It's like the official sport of the spinning ball." I'm wondering, I think that was maybe two or three years ago that you gave that talk. You also talked about creating a sports space. Political action curriculum for youth that uses, among other things, the politics of joy. As you think about that talk that you gave a couple of years ago, the politics of joy coming together around something like soccer or share to humanity on this globe. What's resonating for you right now in this moment?

Bamuthi:

The program that we did was in partnership with the Guggenheim and it came out of my residency there and the company of [Pilloton 00:13:30] and I were able to work in schools and around the country from Maui to Raleigh, North Carolina to the Bronx. I'm working with immigrant youth around what we call the politics of joy. And part of the impetus there was my first blood memory of joy was scoring a goal on the soccer field when I was maybe five or six years old. I don't know if any of you watch professional football or ever seen the reaction of an amateur or professional football player after they score. It's probably the closest thing to total mania that we can kind of share in public. So the premise was if we can locate or co-located an exposure to culture in that same space where joy is kind of ingested and manifested, then we're creating a kind of psychic continuum. Where folks who have been marginalized because of their immigrant status or because of their first generation status can understand that the culture that they bring, the culture that they love has some continuity in terms of a sheltering from the outside world.

Bamuthi:

When I think broadly about the politics of joy, Lisa mentioned the club quarantine and the versus concerts have been great. The whole Baby Face versus Teddy Riley thing tomorrow night. Jill Scott versus Eric about Duke. That's the appointment viewing at this point. Those are the spaces where we can feel like we do have some level of cultural synthesis besides the cutthroat politics. I welcome the opportunity to continue to design those spaces to move them from kind of the secular tactile space to the virtual space and then eventually back to kind of the live co-located space. In that design of live co-located space is going to be really important. Lisa mentioned, talked about a collective trauma that we're experiencing and some thing that I think she and I both believe in is that we can design our way to joy. That the arts sector and the vector of arts spaces have been the places where we've decided that design is most resonant and most viable. So that's the thing that I look forward to building, hopefully in intention around the community design where joy isn't so political. That joy is the healing act that ameliorates the trauma that we're all experiencing.

Tim Cynova:

We have a question. I'm going to throw it up here and read it. What if interdependence becomes trendy, just for this moment? Do you have recommendations for how we can fold interdependence into the DNA of our institutions and organizations? Thanks for the questions. Thanks for the amazing chat that's going on right here. Our guests can't see this, but it's exciting. So back to the question.

Bamuthi:

Lisa and I worked on this project, a fledgling project, where we essentially were co-visioning, the unification of a performing arts center, a performing arts organization, and a visual arts organization in Brooklyn a number of years ago. I had the privilege and the opportunity of suggesting what the administrative structure, do you remember this Lisa?

Lisa Yancey:

Yep, totally.

Bamuthi:

The administrative structure might be in, we talked about an executive director, but we talked about a director of the political imagination. We talked about a director of art framed economies and we talked about a director of creative excellence. We said that the curation of this art space would need those three working in concert with their community. So creative excellence, art framed economies, and the political imagination.

Bamuthi:

So to respond to the question, which I think is a poignant one, we cannot extract out of this moment the DNA or the genetics that precipitated it. But we can be future thinking about how we reorganize leadership structures and the purpose and mandates, certainly of our performing arts center, but just our cultural centers period. So you might've had a director of the performing arts, you might've had someone that curated dance and those positions are going to be incredibly necessary. But if the proscenium theater or the gallery is still the beating heart of your organization after this is over, then you're doing it wrong. We have a new mandate to bring people together in a different kind of way. So we can't be politically inert. We can't not think about our financial acuity as it relates to our organizations and we also have to spark not just the political imagination, but the creative imagination too. I don't think it's as much of a DNA question as it is a mutation. Now that we're all X-Men, what's our superpower going to be.

Lisa Yancey:

An exploit men. So what I'll add to this adultness of a movie is what he's saying is this notion of trend period. There is nothing that is singulary reliant on itself. Nothing. Everything relies on something else. I think one of the first anchors to even getting to a place where you can reimagine structurally whether it's leadership, whether it's departmental engagement, whether it's cross culture and community, whether it's residency, if you don't hold as an anchor value, the notion of the interdependence and togetherness as a core alliance for your whole existence, then your thinking has been completely compromised. Anything else that follows from that is shallow and can't even be recruited because you can't even to identify where you are in relationships with others and where collectively you hold strength. I've had two conversations this week while with an individual an amazing artists. We talked about togetherness and the importance of togetherness and how this is amplifying and could be amplifying the opportunity for us to strengthen our practice and valuing of togetherness, not as a hobby.

Lisa Yancey:

Not as a thing you do on the side. Not as a program, a separate party. But the togetherness as a core understanding of how you function and where your value proposition as an institution and as individuals and those institutions live.The other conversation was about the connectivity tissue. One of those conversations is that ... it was a conversation of different cohorts that are allied solidarity, but still within the silos of those various different areas and what we haven't done and strengthening from an infrastructure place, the practice and tools around the connectivity tissue of that interdependence. So interdependence is language without tools. We need to strengthen the tools of how we apply interdependence that's beyond an intellectual framework and that the value of how we understand whether we're hitting our [formers 00:20:30] indicators or whatever thing, our milestones, whatever that thing is. If it isn't hinge on what's happening with others within the ecosystem of your existence. Then it's compromised. It's shallow. It is not maximizing its potential results. I think our work is to build the tools and the language and the constructions for that connectivity tissue to not just be an idea.

Tim Cynova:

Sorry, what to toss it to the social impact question. I just want to take a moment. There are moments of my life when I think, "how the hell did I get here?" This just happens to be one of them, where you realize, I don't know what sequence of events led me to be able to be sitting and listening to this conversation but this is really amazing. With that over, it's a two parter here. Both of you work on social impact. The question here is, "Can you please define what that has meant and the opportunities and the pitfalls?"

Lisa Yancey:

Way to Go Suhly.

Bamuthi:

If I may, how we define social impact at the Kennedy center, I define impact more by our processes than outcomes. So I think a community engagement paradigm, which is where I've lived in the performing arts sector, kind of the intersection of performance curation and community engagement generally that has been measured. The effectiveness has been measured by how many folks are in the room. But what I've learned from elders, mentors and through experience is that it's impacted and much less about how many people, but how you treat people. How materially the processes have enough integrity that folks are able to organize without you. So providing conduits in a healthy way, in a way with integrity for folks to be empowered in their bodies, particularly in marginalized communities. I think they're in, those are the opportunities and the pitfalls. The larger an organization is generally the further away it is from skin in the game. There is no impact on an institutional level if there isn't shared risk and shared accountability.

Bamuthi:

So I would say that. I would also say that I'm currently making a work. I'm making an opera, Bill T Jones is directing this commission it a new performing arts center in New York. The opera is scheduled to premiere, I want to say in 21, 22. I have no idea whether building an opera right now is the right thing to do, because the opera that I'm writing requires like 60 people to be on stage and you'd imagine hundreds of people in the audience. So impact work means I think, deploying artists in a different way so that maybe instead of making work for proscenium, some artists are being deployed in systems innovations through the lens or through the conduit of these institutions. So that we're thinking as artfully about what happens outside of a theater using the resources of the theater as what happens inside of the proscenium stage as well. Impact is about redirection of creative resources to rethink our shared culture.

Lisa Yancey:

What I'll add. When I think about impact, ultimately I think about whomever the system wasn't designed for. Are they having the ... do we, because I've [inaudible 00:23:57] live in what we often in our language called margins, but I want to just give it a little jargon, ultimately impact me is that everybody gets to live the life they imagine themselves.

Tim Cynova:

Amen.

Lisa Yancey:

Full stop. Impact means that everyone, everyone gets to live the life that they imagined for themselves. That opportunities are presented for you to show up in your whole self with all of your differences. With all of our differences, none of it being a measurement and defining of what is or isn't normal. All of those constructions is compared to some kind of creative singular center and I believe that social impact is when we have an inclusive society where everyone has the opportunity to live their best lives.

Lisa Yancey:

In terms of pitfalls and opportunities. I think that we are in, we have been, I'm [inaudible 00:24:49] on my language about elevating COVID and this pandemic as more than a disruptor as fracturing, some vague understanding. But there have been and consistently has been inequities and different realities that has compromised people's ability to live their best lives consistently, systematically, pragmatically, emotionally, health, lots of them financially. So in terms of opportunities and pitfalls, I think that we've been moving in an opportunity to de-center the singularity of things. This no binary, black, white, gay, straight, female, male. We've been doing that work. To untangle and embrace more fluidity and even getting language and tools around intersectionality that we need to continue to do to eviscerate the centering of anything. Even the idea of inclusion [crosstalk 00:25:41] because inclusion center something to be included in. That in itself is problematic, because you're saying your outside and you set this thing as the standard of which you want to become a part of.

Lisa Yancey:

That's problematic and so I think the opportunity is to just continue to interrogate all of those constructions that doesn't allow for the fluidity and variety. The pitfall would be is to fall into a place where even in our language that feels like we are just begin to mirror the same type of exclusionary practice that sensor's a single thing. It can seem like an unintended consequence of being righteous and still hold behaviors that we haven't shed enough of. Stay transparent and embracing of difference.

Lauren Ruffin:

A couple of things are really clear. One, as Tim said, amazing conversation. Two, if we get renewed for season two by our distributor, y'all will have to be our first guests up. There's so much more that we got to talk about, but we do have to wind this episode down. So I'll leave you with a question, a little dreaming question, I suppose. Your entire life you've been carrying around a suitcase, a figurative suitcase that's got all of these habits, behaviors, things you've always done to center yourself. So the question is, what's one thing that has been in your suitcase for a long time that's coming out? What's one new habit behavior thing you do, practice that you're holding dear, that you're going to put into that suitcase for the rest of your life coming out of the pandemic?

Bamuthi:

I know one thing that's coming out of my suitcase is dumb ass Facebook friends. You know, I've been on social media more because I'm at the crib. You know what I'm saying. I'm shocked by how many of my Facebook "friends" are conspiracy theorists. Listen, I voted for Elizabeth Warren in the primary here. You know what I'm saying? I was set to ride for Bernie, but Mike Flynn is free and unemployment is at 15%. all y'all that are just like riding for you got to earn my vote people and all the conspiracy Plandemic people got to go. Yelling at Facebook, dumb ass Facebook.

Lauren Ruffin:

Unnoticed.

Bamuthi:

They are gone. What am I keeping? Smoothies. The mornings are a little bit longer, they're a little bit more luxurious and there isn't the need for coffee like there used to be, so smoothies. Getting rid of you my conspiracy theorist marginal ass. Okay. Yep, go! I'm kidding here.

Lisa Yancey:

What I'm taking out of the suitcase is oppressing the more urgency idea that just got to get done. It's got to happen. They have to ... I have to deliver this thing out because for a whole bunch of reasons that could be a whole another point. I won't go to that. But I'm putting in and keeping that has replaced that sense of urgency is the stillness and you said luxurious, Bamuthi. A luxury, I actually want to take it out of it being luxurious because it feels like it's exceptional. Like its something that happens on occasion. I want to keep in my long conversations with my family, my nieces and nephews that I didn't ever have time for. Now have Sunday conversations with my nephew every Sunday. No matter what. I find these WhatsApp me, I am available no matter what. I could be in a meeting and someone who I care about almost, I'll answer it and, "just like a minute I'll call you back." I don't just leave it. I'm keeping in the human connections as the priority and the work. Time is in the service of us. So remembering that not getting lost in deliverables, but staying connected to love even if it feels like it's a whatever. I've never been the one to call like professional, unprofessional. But this notion of, I always have time for you, because I love you and you'd love me back. That's what I'm keeping.

Tim Cynova:

Amazing. God, I don't know how to wrap this up, but profoundly thankful for the time that you've been able to spend with us today. Wish you could see the chat that's going on, a lot of love that's being sent your way, Bamuthi and Lisa, thank you so much for being with us on the show.

Lisa Yancey:

Thank you for having us and asking us.

Tim Cynova:

Yes.

Lisa Yancey:

I love anytime I can be with Bamuthi.

Bamuthi:

Love you Lisa, be safe.

Lisa Yancey:

Bye, love you.

Tim Cynova:

Continue the Works Shouldn't Suck Live adventure with us on our next episode when we're joined by Darren Walker. Missing us in the meantime, you can download more Works Shouldn't Suck Live episodes from your favorite podcasting platform of choice, and re-watch Works Shouldn't Suck Live episodes over on workshouldntsuck.co. If you've enjoyed the conversation or just feeling generous today, please consider writing a review on iTunes so that others who might be interested in the topic and joined the fun to. Give it a thumbs up or five stars or phone a friend, whatever your podcasting platform of choice offers. If you didn't enjoy this chat, please tell someone about it who you don't like as much. Until next time, thanks for listening.

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Guest User 5/8/20 Guest User 5/8/20

Live with Alexis Frasz! (EP.35)

Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guest Alexis Frasz. [Live show recorded: May 7, 2020.]

Last Updated

May 8, 2020

Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guest Alexis Frasz. [Live show recorded: May 7, 2020.]

Guest: Alexis Frasz

Co-Hosts: Tim Cynova & Lauren Ruffin

Episode Transcript

Guest

ALEXIS FRASZ sees culture as both a context for and a driver of social change. She is a researcher, strategist and advisor to partners in culture, philanthropy, and the environmental sector, helping design and implement strategies to drive transformative change. Her perspective on systems change draws on her background in cultural anthropology, Chinese Medicine, permaculture design, Buddhism, and martial arts. She is passionate about bringing arts and culture into greater solidarity with broader movements working for social, ecological, and economic justice.

Alexis speaks, teaches, and mentors leaders in the U.S. and Canada on integrating creative and civic leadership, and is faculty in the cultural leadership program at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and the Creative Climate Leadership program run by Julie’s Bicycle. Her research (with Holly Sidford) on socially engaged artistic practice has informed artist training curriculums and philanthropic programs worldwide. She is actively engaged in Helicon’s ongoing work to confront structural inequities in the cultural sector.

Alexis graduated Summa cum Laude from Princeton University with a degree in Cultural Anthropology and has pursued Master’s level study in Chinese Medicine. She is an advisor of the NorCal Resilience Network, the Headlands Center for the Arts, and The Artist’s Literacy’s Institute. She lives in Oakland, where she spends time in her garden and studies with integrated spiritual/psychological teacher, Jennifer Welwood.

Hear more about Alexis's thoughts on Basic Income.

Transcript

Tim Cynova:

Hi, I'm Tim Cynova, and welcome to Work Shouldn't Suck Live, the morning-ish show. On today's episode, Lauren Ruffin and I are joined by Alexis Frasz. Alexis currently serves as a co-director of Helicon Collaborative. In her work, she is a researcher, strategist, and advisor to partners in culture, philanthropy in the environmental sector, helping design and implement strategies to drive transformative change. Her perspective on systems change draws on her background in cultural anthropology, Chinese medicine, permaculture design, Buddhism, and martial arts. And, as you soon will find out, she is passionate about bringing arts and culture into greater solidarity with broader movements, working for social, ecological, and economic change.

Tim Cynova:

Her research with friend of the show, Holly Sidford, on socially engaged artistic practice has informed artist training curriculums and philanthropic programs worldwide. She's actively engaged in Helicon's ongoing work to confront structural inequities in the cultural sector, and we are honored that she's here to spend a couple minutes with us today.

Tim Cynova:

Without further ado, Alexis, welcome to the show.

Alexis Frasz:

Hi. It's good to be here.

Lauren Ruffin:

Oh, it's good to see your face, one of our favorite people to talk to.

Alexis Frasz:

Likewise.

Lauren Ruffin:

So, how are you, and how's your community doing right now, during the pandemic?

Alexis Frasz:

I'm good. I feel really lucky, I think as a lot of us do, who have jobs, who are healthy, so I feel pretty good. I'm a gardener. I'm a bit of a prepper, actually, so I feel validated in some ways. My friends are coming to me and asking for my canned goods, and my tips on how to grow things, so I finally feel like I have a purpose. Yeah, I feel good.

Alexis Frasz:

Of course, that's on a background of, really, being over the extent of the suffering that's in the larger community, so that's heartbreaking, too.

Tim Cynova:

Just on the prepper and tips, what's the most frequent tip that you give people? Before we move into the broader conversation, deeper conversation, what's the most frequent tip you're giving your friends right now?

Alexis Frasz:

Store food, store water. We're in earthquake country, so for us ... I'm in California, so it's really important to have extra stuff. My pantry before, I didn't have to make a Costco run. My pantry was full for months, which is just how I live. That's because I cook a lot, that's not all prepping. Yeah, keep things around.

Alexis Frasz:

Learn how to grow a garden, if you've got space. I know, Tim, you probably don't do that in New York.

Tim Cynova:

I had one of those electric gardens, like the hydroponic gardens with the pods.

Alexis Frasz:

Oh, yeah.

Tim Cynova:

But, it's a small apartment, and those lights don't go off at night, so it's like this floodlight coming into your sleeping space.

Alexis Frasz:

That's torture, too.

Tim Cynova:

Yeah, it lasted one or two pod rounds. We were like, "It's not worth those cherry tomatoes and fresh basil from this thing."

Alexis Frasz:

Right.

Lauren Ruffin:

I'm really enjoying the torture theme of this episode.

Tim Cynova:

It's really started off weird, Lauren.

Lauren Ruffin:

That's why the audience keeps coming back.

Tim Cynova:

That stresses me out.

Lauren Ruffin:

As a fellow prepper, I feel like every good prepper has an apocalypse team. When you meet people, you have new friends, and you're thinking if things go left in the world, who am I taking with me, do you currently have any openings on your apocalypse team? If so, what skills are you looking for?

Alexis Frasz:

Oh my God, that's such a good question. First of all, Lauren, you're in.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah, I know. I'm on everybody's apocalypse team. Entertainment and ax throwing, what else do you need?

Alexis Frasz:

Yeah, exactly. I mean, the weapons thing, I have to admit my apocalypse team tends more ... I studied martial arts, so I used to feel confident in that piece of it, but these days I'm pretty rusty. So, I think if we actually needed to, I've got a rag tag band of sailors, and cooks, and very caring, gentle people, so I think we might need some of that.

Tim Cynova:

If anyone needs a long distance cyclist on their team ...

Alexis Frasz:

Yeah.

Lauren Ruffin:

I mean, bike mechanics, that's a valuable skill.

Tim Cynova:

I didn't say bike mechanics, I said long distance cyclist.

Lauren Ruffin:

Well, you're going to have to get there.

Alexis Frasz:

Endurance. Endurance is key, too.

Lauren Ruffin:

I know I was pushing you.

Tim Cynova:

You're right, I could change flat tires for everyone. Just to keep this going.

Tim Cynova:

Speaking of systems change, we had the opportunity to chat a couple weeks ago, and one of the things that came up was that we talk about systems change a lot. People talk about systems change in various ways, and few people ... I shouldn't say few people. It feels like more, nowadays, people are actually starting to see systems that they might otherwise not have seen.

Tim Cynova:

I'm curious to get your thoughts, Alexis, this is something that you spend a lot of time thinking about, how the systems work, how the systems don't work, what we can do to use this as an opportunity to create better systems for us in the future, so that more people can thrive. I'm throwing out a really wide question, to get us off of the topic of me not being able to be a team member for your team, so we're going to take a hard left here, and come into a different topic.

Alexis Frasz:

Yeah, I do think a lot about systems change, and I think it's tough because right now is the moment when a lot of people are looking, and A, seeing that we live in a system. We see the systems around us falling apart, so we're aware of them in ways that we might not otherwise be. This is middle class or upper class people, I think that people who live with broken systems every day understand that they're broken, and they know that they're victims of them. But, more people are seeing that, and that's a real opportunity. At the same time, it's daunting to think about how to actually influence change in those systems.

Alexis Frasz:

But, I do think there's some really interesting things that are giving me hope right now, about that, because we're seeing ideas that were so fringe, even six months ago. Well, we had Andrea in talking about basic income, that I don't think people were taking that very seriously. Universal healthcare has been a struggle, the idea of eliminating debt has been something that fringe groups have been working on. But now, people understand why that matters, so I think there is this opening where people are suddenly understanding why those things affect us all.

Lauren Ruffin:

Earlier this week, maybe yesterday, the days are blending together, the Wallace Global Fund published a piece in USA Today that talked about the need to increase foundations giving to the 10%. I mean, you work with such a wide range of organizations, do you think that's another idea that might gain traction in the coming weeks and months?

Alexis Frasz:

I hope so. I mean, I think people who are promoting that are saying, "Well, what are we waiting for? Are we going to wait until it gets much worse?" I work in the environmental space as well, and people who work on climate change have been saying that for a long time because it's only going to get more expensive, the dollars are going to go less far the worse things get.

Alexis Frasz:

I really hope that is something that is taken seriously. I think there have been funders who have been spending down for a long time, so there's precedent for that. But, the majority are pretty conservative about wanting to preserve their endowments at times when the endowments are already shrinking because it's the market, often, that accentuates the conservatism.

Tim Cynova:

That article is really interesting, with some stats that I hadn't seen before. For those working in the space, it might not be new. For those unfamiliar with it, usually foundations give out about 5% a year of their investment corpus, and the idea, the Wallace Fund was arguing, up it to 10%.

Tim Cynova:

The really interesting thing that I found was, of the 85, 86,000 private foundations, with about $900 billion in assets, and for every additional percentage point, it's about $12.5 billion in added foundation spending a year. The article in the USA Today was arguing, or proposing, not an indefinite requirement to go to 10%, but if you do this over, say, a three year, where everyone had to give 10%, it would throw of an additional $800 billion, maybe it's $200 billion. My math this morning just isn't fast enough for this.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah, I think it was two, with a lot of zeroes behind it.

Tim Cynova:

Yeah.

Alexis Frasz:

Yeah. But, I think the other piece of that is, what are they going to spend it on? We work with a lot of foundations, and I think they do the best they can. I think right now, a lot of foundations are really struggling with that Hunger Games feeling, of who do we pick to survive and who doesn't get to survive. But, the reality is that the majority of philanthropy goes to the margins, it goes to the Band-Aids of the problems that are actually structural.

Alexis Frasz:

I think we also need to have a conversation about how philanthropy actually supports the systems change that we need, so that the problems don't exist 10 years from now, and not just spreading the money around a little bit further than they're doing right now.

Lauren Ruffin:

I'm holding a couple of different things, at the same time. One, being what we're seeing with PPP, and with government support. They said 95% of black businesses were locked out of the Paycheck Protection Program. And that, over the last couple years, a lot of friends, Ashford Schultz, Hebrews Unite, all these organizations have sprung up, talking about the lack of capital for limited minority businesses, generally. And it's becoming pretty clear that the philanthropic sector, as you know, and as the work Helicon's done, is remarkably discriminatory towards black and brown people, the data has not really moved a whole lot.

Lauren Ruffin:

But, at the same time with the disappearance of traditional debt funding, or CTFI money, it's like philanthropy might be the only place where small businesses, black and brown businesses, non-profits, can actually find capital for some of the systems change work. For me right now, this is one of those moments of urgency that I'm hearing, but I don't know if I'm seeing the dollars flow as quickly as they probably should in this crisis.

Alexis Frasz:

I don't know. You're probably right, I'm sure they're not flowing as fast as they could or should. Definitely, I don't think they're flowing to the organizations that are doing systems change in the quantities of money that need to be there for systems change. I think that we know the Center for Cultural Innovation, we know is spending some money on entities that are trying to prototype new models for getting capital to communities in different ways, and looking at worker cooperatives, for example, and things like that, that they're prototyping. The money needs to flow in much bigger quantities, and much faster to those types of things, to really make a systems change.

Tim Cynova:

I've been making space to meditate, and contemplate if I were in the role of foundation president, sitting on assets. I think, to your earlier point, those working in foundations are caring, they care about the work that they do, the people that they work with, and often times are working with systems themselves, that they're struggling with speed and innovation.

Tim Cynova:

But I was thinking, in this moment in time, this feels different. And would I, as the foundation president, argue for we need to spend as much money as we possibly can right now, to try and move the needle on this? First is, continue to drip it out in perpetuity, essentially. Essentially, go big or go home. What might that mean for us to actually effect change, rather than hitting around the edges if you will? I don't have a perfect answer, I'm glad I'm not in a foundation president role right now, but it has been this thought experiment that I've been wrestling with.

Tim Cynova:

If you found yourself in the role of being a foundation president with $10 billion or so, how might you approach that?

Alexis Frasz:

Unequivocally, I think now is the time to spend the money. I think both for the crisis that we're in, which is not just COVID. I think COVID is the spark that lit the fire, but we know that ... Naomi Klein, who I love, the comedian journalist who talks a lot about climate change and systems, talks about how NORML was a crisis for a lot of people. It is, and I think that, especially with climate coming down more on us, I think now is the time to make the changes that we need to make so that we can have the better future that we know is possible.

Alexis Frasz:

I think there's the crisis piece of it, but there's also the opportunity piece of it, as I was saying. I mean, I think there's a lot of things that are already moving that need a push, and with a push could really tip things. Whether it's politically, or in terms of the social safety nets that we have which never should be in the realm of foundations, permanently. That's something that the money will never be enough as we're seeing, even with the bailout bill. We need that to be something that's institutionalized in our system.

Tim Cynova:

We're going to circle back to a question from a friend of the show, a friend of ours. For those organizations just coming to a more systems view in this pandemic, what are some "ways in" to that thinking that you suggest from your own practice?

Alexis Frasz:

Oh, tough question from a friend. We're always part of multiple systems, so we've got our family system, we think in systems all the time, we're just not conscious that we are. But, we're part of our neighborhood, we're part of our organization, and the art system, and then the bigger system, so I think it can be interesting to map that, and just really understand who you influence, and what influence you're having.

Alexis Frasz:

I think the arts has been really interesting because they think of their own system as a system, but they don't see the lower down entities, like the artists, or the people, as part of their system, and they don't see the big meta systems. So, the arts tends to think it can influence its own system without attending to those other things. I think it's really, in some ways, just about listening and reflecting, first and foremost, about influence.

Lauren Ruffin:

Also, in the systems thinking, I've always found it helpful to really inventory all the assumptions that go into it, into what you think a system is. I'm wondering, are you seeing people making assumptions about what's going to happen next that are impacting their ability to act right now? So for instance, the assumption that we are going to open up again, or that things are going to go back to normal.

Alexis Frasz:

I do. I mean, I think a friend of ours that Tim knows, Josh Yates, and right of the beginning of this he said, "People are either relating to this as a snow day, a long winter, or an Ice Age." Depending on how you see it depends completely ... I mean, it completely changes how you act. I think we're all knowing now that we're not in a snow day, it's gone on too long. But, I think the idea of it being this is just a long winter, and then we'll open back up and things are the same, more or less. Or, is this a fundamental shift in paradigms of how we live?

Alexis Frasz:

I think those really do affect the way we're dealing with it. I think I'm firmly in the Ice Age camp, even though that's a dire metaphor because I think there's a lot of beauty that actually could come out of this. But, I think now's the time to start preparing for that. Some of that is, really, part of it is what do we want to keep, what's essential right now, and what do we need to let go of, either because it doesn't serve us anymore or it's just not going to work in the future that we see coming to be now.

Alexis Frasz:

There's a lot of grief in that, that I think needs to be acknowledged, and a lot of fear about the unknown, which is I think why people try to hang onto the thing we're used to, is its better than the alternative. But, maybe it's not better than the alternative, and maybe we can make a better alternative if we step into that unknown space, but it's scary.

Lauren Ruffin:

I'm also wondering along those same lines of Ice Age, what are some of the beautiful things that you think can come out of this, practically?

Alexis Frasz:

Well, some of it we're already seeing. It's like that quote of "the future's already here, it's not evenly distributed." It's the mutual aid stuff that is coming out of this, on a community level, where people are seeing their system, they're seeing that. That's always been something that, I think, vulnerable communities that haven't had ... Whether its rural communities, I'm from a really rural place, or communities of color, or immigrant communities have always supported each other that way so that's beautiful, I think.

Alexis Frasz:

I think that the many, many entities and organizations that have worked, both in the arts and not building the grassroots social structure, that is now being called on to support their communities, and we're seeing the relevance of that, and how that protects and cares for people. The awareness around the care economy, and the care work, I think is really positive.

Alexis Frasz:

Then, ideally, the bigger portico shifts, and shifts in systems that we were talking about before. I mean, I do really see that as a possibility if we push for it.

Lauren Ruffin:

The caring economy is ... I was talking to Jeff Solomon a couple weeks ago, and was lamenting the fact that I wasn't ... not lamenting, actually not being super close to my family. But, I was saying that if I were closer, the interactions we'd be having would be so much different. Now, I'm realizing that I'm using capital in exchange for care, so instead of bringing groceries to my aunt's house, I'm sending groceries. There's this weird thing that's happening about how care shows up.

Lauren Ruffin:

I'm also thinking a lot about what's happening on reservations right now. So many folks on reservations out here in New Mexico don't have running water. One of the interesting infrastructure pieces, because they don't have water, they've been doing water deliveries for years. There's been members of the community who are now working with Dig Deep and other organizations, but in some ways that system that was already in place as a form of long care mutual aid, is in some ways a guiding light, or one of very few positive spots in what's happening on reservations right now. I'm really hopeful about the strength of those systems, that have been an outcrop of the failure of government to provide running water in the United States. But, they're there, thank goodness.

Alexis Frasz:

Well, and you're making an interesting point because it's like, how do we not make those systems the only safety net that people have? But also, not try to replace them with capital or with government, so that people don't have those systems? Because there's something, beyond just getting your basic needs met, that comes from those. I mean, there's a sense of community trust, and camaraderie, and connectedness that comes from that. On both sides, on the giver and the receiver side, which often goes back and forth, so I think that's really beautiful.

Lauren Ruffin:

I was talking to a friend in the Bay Area who runs a large, regenerative food organization, a startup. She said something that surprised me yesterday, around our food system. In essence, everything I've read [inaudible 00:18:01] the US food system is completely screwed. But she said, actually, when you boil it down to its basics, in terms of most people being able to get the calories they need to survive a day, our system isn't working. She was like, "So many of us think about the system as being are you having healthy food, organic food, and everything else." She's like, "But in a crisis, you have to go back to the basic level, so it is working."

Lauren Ruffin:

I was so surprised by that perspective because she's a plant-forward, super healthy, organic person. Are there things that have surprised you, in the last few months?

Alexis Frasz:

That are working?

Lauren Ruffin:

That are working, things that your early prediction said this shit's going to ... That was my first curse word.

Tim Cynova:

Oh, God. Oh no, now I've got to go back and do it.

Alexis Frasz:

I was wondering about curses, because I curse a lot, too.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah, that was my first one.

Tim Cynova:

This is the benefit of us having a podcast prior to the livestream, because you can edit those things out before they go online. The livestream, you're living on the edge a little bit, which stresses me out.

Lauren Ruffin:

Poor Tim. But, are there things that you thought, systems that you were fairly certain that would break, that have actually held up?

Alexis Frasz:

Yeah, I don't know. I think, in some ways it's too early to tell. Right now, we're seeing the breakdown of more of them. I think, in some ways the artists that are coming together around mutual aid is so, just heartening. You guys probably know about the Level Up work that Taylor Mac started, the getting well known artists to do things online, and then have people pay for that. But then, giving the money to people who are not well known.

Alexis Frasz:

I think just the idea that none of these artists are rich, that they're going beyond asking philanthropy for the money that they need, to finding the support for themselves, and I think that's how artists have always worked. But, in this time, you would expect that to break down, and it didn't. If anything, I think it's strengthening.

Tim Cynova:

Alexis, what are you doing for your own resilience and self care right now? Is it similar, is it different, from what it was three months ago?

Alexis Frasz:

It's pretty similar. I mean, I think other than spending time with friends, but I meditate daily. I bike also, Tim, cycle. I'm actually supposed to be training for the AIDS Life Cycle right now, which got canceled but I'm still trying to keep up my fitness, and not let everything go all to waste.

Alexis Frasz:

It's funny, though, I actually have a problem with the word self care, just the concept as it's used in our culture. Because I think that it is typically presented as you do the things that kill you during the day, you work really hard or whatever, then you have to care for yourself. Then, that's separate from all the other things you do, which are caring for others, doing your work in the world. I think this is my edge, because I'm not always good at this, but for me it's about how can we have a more integrated life, where care is woven into it, and we're not burning ourselves out. That's part of the paradigm of our culture, it's that extractive mindset where it's like, I can burn myself out, and then I just rebuild myself up again, so I can do it again tomorrow.

Alexis Frasz:

I'm trying to make more space in my days, and I think especially with the Zoom life, we have to do that. Make more space in your days to go out in the garden, or take a walk, or talk to our friend, or whatever it is, and not feel guilty about that.

Tim Cynova:

I think this is one of the things that I'm hopeful for. At the same time that, now that people's lives, and work, and caring, and everything is all in one place for most people, and that can be really hazardous, and toxic if people now have homes that are toxic workplaces. It does, on a certain level, give people an opportunity to see all of these things together in a way that, when you went to the office, you could separate that thing. My hope is that people have space to question, why is it that I do all of these things in this way? Is this how I want my life to be? Where do I have agency to change things, in order to create ... We've talked about this, the three of us, before, a place where everyone can thrive, but that really aligns with our values, and sense of purpose if that's important to us.

Tim Cynova:

But, I think you're right, these often have lived in different buckets, and you try to make sure that they all work in concert, and now all those buckets are in the same place.

Alexis Frasz:

The other thing I'll just say about that is I think that, when we're talking about the world we want to create, if we're trying to really create the new, which I think we're in that space of the cycle, we can only do that from a place of being transformed internally, and being stable, being grounded, being heartful, all of that.

Alexis Frasz:

It's not just a because it makes us feel good thing, it's for the effectiveness of the work we're trying to do in the world, we have to work on ourselves and be transformed from that extractive lifestyle.

Lauren Ruffin:

Also, I have similar issues with the term self care. I keep thinking, going back to the mutual aid piece, it's been cool to see so many of my friends be awakened to how they can ... A lot of my friends are lawyers, lobbyists, people who are more accustomed to writing a check than to actually getting their hands dirty with work. And seeing them awakened to the pleasures of actually lending a hand in their community, that's not the requirement of pro-bono hours or anything else, has been so cool talking to them about it. I think that's just a really important component.

Lauren Ruffin:

I hope that service and community involvement becomes core to a lot more peoples how they spend their time during the day.

Tim Cynova:

Well, speaking of transformation from this moment, we're coming up on time. This means, Lauren, it's time for your suitcase question.

Lauren Ruffin:

Dun dun dun. It's starting to take on, as you introduce it, this ominous quality. It's just, your suitcase question.

Tim Cynova:

It's probably the mic I'm using, I'm sorry.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah, I like it. It adds a little something.

Lauren Ruffin:

So Alexis, you've been carrying around a suitcase with you for your whole life, there's stuff that's been in there for years, behaviors, habits, things you do every day, ways you work, that during the pandemic you realize you don't need anymore, and they're never going back in your suitcase. Conversely, there are probably some behaviors, and habits, and things that you have fallen in love with during the pandemic, and that you're going to do from now on. Can you give us one thing that's coming out of your suitcase, and one thing that's going in your suitcase?

Alexis Frasz:

I think coming out would be control, the idea that I can be in control of the world, and my world, so flowing with life a little bit more. Because right now, we just can't control anything.

Alexis Frasz:

Then, going in, I think what we've been talking about with this embodied living. I think being in my garden is just so incredible, and I think finding ways so that the energy in and of the practice comes into my life, my work life more and infuses it, I think is really a key piece of what I want to practice going forward.

Tim Cynova:

Awesome. Alexis, it's always wonderful spending time with you.

Alexis Frasz:

Yeah.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yes.

Alexis Frasz:

It's so good to see you guys.

Tim Cynova:

Yeah, thanks for being on the show.

Alexis Frasz:

Thank you for having me.

Tim Cynova:

Continue with the Work Shouldn't Suck Live adventure with us, on our next episode, when we're joined by Marc Bamuthi Joseph and Lisa Yancey. Miss us in the meantime? You can download more Work Shouldn't Suck episodes from your favorite podcasting platform of choice, and re-watch Work Shouldn't Suck Live episodes over on workshouldntsuck.co.

Tim Cynova:

If you've enjoyed the conversation, or are just feeling generous today, please consider writing a review on iTunes so that others who might the interested in the topic can join the fun, too. Give it a thumbs up, or five stars, or phone a friend, whatever your podcasting platform of choice offers. If you didn't enjoy this chat, please tell someone about it who you don't like as much. Until next time, thanks for listening.

The podcast is available for free on your favorite podcasting platforms:

If you enjoy the show, please leave a review on iTunes to help others discover the podcast.

Guest User 5/7/20 Guest User 5/7/20

Live with Danny Harris! (EP.34)

Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guest Danny Harris. [Live show recorded: May 6, 2020.]

Last Updated

May 7, 2020

Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guest Danny Harris. [Live show recorded: May 6, 2020.]

Guest: Danny Harris

Co-Hosts: Tim Cynova & Lauren Ruffin

Episode Transcript

Guest

DANNY HARRIS, a passionate advocate for livable, walkable and bike-friendly cities, has been named the new executive director of Transportation Alternatives by the non-profit organization’s board of directors. He will officially assume this role on Sept. 3, 2019.

Harris spent four years as program director with the Knight Foundation in San Jose, California, where he oversaw grantmaking related to placemaking, transportation, and affordable housing. He most recently served as senior vice president of Civic Entertainment Group in New York City, where he led teams responsible for high-profile product launches and events.

“Danny Harris is a proven leader and a practiced storyteller who understands the urgency of reclaiming our streets as public space for all New Yorkers,” said Steve Hindy, chair of Transportation Alternatives’ Board of Directors. “Danny is a broad thinker on cities, people, and the connections that drive us. I am confident that he will lead the organization to a new level of effectiveness.”

Harris is an innovator as well as an educator. He has taught at San Jose State University, was named a Vanguard Fellow by Next City, and received a citation from the American Institute of Architects. Harris, a graduate of Connecticut College and Princeton University, is a native New Yorker and currently resides in Manhattan with his family.

Transcript

Tim Cynova:

Hi, I'm Tim Cynova and welcome to Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show. On today's episode, Lauren Ruffin and I are joined by Danny Harris. Danny currently serves as the Executive Director of Transportation Alternatives, an organization working to reclaim New York City streets from the automobile and advocating for better bicycling, walking and public transit for all New Yorkers. Prior to Transportation Alternatives, Danny was a Senior Vice President at Civic Entertainment Group in New York City, a Program Officer at the Knight Foundation working in San Jose.

Tim Cynova:

He was a principal at Story Social, a full service creative design studio working at the intersection of storytelling and community building. And a co-founder of Feastly, an online marketplace for food experiences. And many years ago, Danny and I connected at National Art Strategies, Creative Community Fellows, where we also met fellow Morning(ish) Show guest, Kristina Newman-Scott and Gail Crider and where I may or I may not have been a very ineffective mentor for him. So, without further ado, Danny, welcome to the show.

Danny Harris:

Hi, everybody, thanks for having me.

Lauren Ruffin:

Danny, it's really great to catch up with you.

Danny Harris:

Yeah. Same here.

Lauren Ruffin:

So, how are you doing? How's your family and how's your community right now?

Danny Harris:

Thanks for asking. We're holding up. We're fortunate that we can be at home and we have two very small kids, we have a one-year-old and a four-year-old. And then otherwise we're transitioning as a staff to probably week seven or eight that we're working from home now and we're holding up together as a staff and trying to figure out, amid this really challenging moment, how it creates a space for one that we can continue to build morale while not being together and that we can continue to advance the work, especially given how important transportation is proving to be amid coronavirus, especially in New York City.

Lauren Ruffin:

Is the way that you're thinking about yourself and your role and your organization's role shifting at all due to the pandemic?

Danny Harris:

I would say everything is shifting amid the pandemic. I think the really difficult thing is that for advocates who have been in, you pick the field, from income inequality, to workforce development, to transportation, to race. I mean, you pick the issue, this has been probably the biggest magnifying glass on all of the broken infrastructure across our society and nation. So, the hard part is that advocates have been screaming, in many ways, into the winds for years or for decades about these problems.

Danny Harris:

And then something like coronavirus hits, and last night they shut down the New York City subway between one and five in the morning for the first time in, I think, over a hundred years, and had to bring 1,000 cops to take out 2,000 homeless people. So, think of every broken part of that system that played out last night for a four-hour period and that's just one small microcosm of all the other huge issues that this nation is facing and will continue to do so over the years to come.

Tim Cynova:

You are deeply committed, you have been for years, to creating livable cities. In your previous role, we met right before you started, you were the program director at the Knight Foundation working in San Jose. You oversaw the grant making for the placemaking, transportation, affordable housing. Your Twitter feed made it appear that you were everywhere all the time, thinking about these issues, visiting cities to learn about this.

Tim Cynova:

As you think about this moment in our history, systems that are breaking down, people for the first time, maybe seeing systems, how are you processing this? What are you thinking about and trying to prioritize now at this moment that feels like a once in a lifetime moment for maybe the opportunity to create real change where more people could thrive, where everyone could thrive?

Danny Harris:

I think the biggest tragedy in cities is that they stopped being built for people. And you can draw that back to cars being sold as freedom and independence or planners like Robert Moses re-imagining a city in an urban area and doing so with really strong and apparent racist undertones that we continue to see today. To the environmental impact of what it means to build, not just for cars now really, but for SUVs and light trucks.

Danny Harris:

I think that as a human, as an urbanist, as somebody who's lived in cities and suburbs my whole life, the biggest difference between the cities that work for communities and those that don't, is the ones that choose to build for people and they build for all people. Because the point is that, regardless of your age, ability, background, income, if you're able to walk out of your home or if you are in a wheelchair, if you're able to leave your home and find that you have a suite of options to get around, and those options are safe, they're dignified, they're equitable, they're sustainable, they're resilient, they're for absolutely everybody.

Danny Harris:

The problem is that too many of our cities have forced people to rely on cars to get around. Cars can be an option, they certainly should be for many people. But when you force people to buy a car, to spend AAA estimates about $9,000 a year in car related payments, to have communities like the South Bronx where kids are struggling with childhood asthma, we have fundamentally failed our communities in doing so. Cars don't pay taxes, cars don't pay for free parking in most places, and they're continuing to dictate the decisions we make. That is wrong and our future cannot be built for cars. It's failed us. We have to build the future for people.

Tim Cynova:

One of the things I've thought about what I'm seeing with the work that you and Transportation Alternatives are doing and just being a New York City resident as well is, what's the ideal number of cars in New York City?

Danny Harris:

I feel like it's one of these you go and you interview at a McKinsey and they ask you how many golf balls will fit on a 747? The truth is, I don't know. And also, the thing that you have to remember is that right now, because I spent a year also working closely with Ford Motor Company, car companies are not building for a future of cars, but cities are. So, I think your question is really about, it should be about whether it's mode shift goals, whether it's about vehicle miles traveled, there are all of these really sort of technical pieces.

Danny Harris:

But I might reframe your question as, how many options should a city be able to give to an individual to get around? And if the answer is that the majority of people only have one option, that city has failed and it needs to provide at least two options and those options should be, again, safe, they should be dignified, they should be sustainable, they should be affordable. So again, car ownership can certainly be a part of it, but I don't think we have a number yet of how many cars. We'll be able to mark our success if we can land on the aircraft carrier and say mission accomplished.

Tim Cynova:

This is the type of conversation that when Danny was assigned me as a mentor, I'm like I'm failing in my duties as a mentor here. Because it was like, yeah, what are you ... You're approaching this all wrong, Tim. I'm like, okay. Oh God, I'm so sorry. Apologies for decades to come.

Danny Harris:

I do have to give a huge [inaudible 00:06:56] Tim. So when Tim was my mentor, when I was a fellow and I was sitting and it was my first time sitting with you and a few others and I think you had said to me what I knew, but just was very bad at is like you were asking me for help and I was just giving advice for maybe 30 minutes and you're like, you should really ask for help. You shouldn't just be better about acknowledging it and getting support from people around you. And it's a very small thing, but it's fundamentally changed the way that I approach my work and I have a huge network of mentors and people that I lean on and I'm also much more comfortable with being vulnerable and asking for help. So I really appreciate that, Tim. So I take that away from you. Thank you.

Tim Cynova:

That's very kind. Lauren, you can take this one before it gets really awkward here.

Lauren Ruffin:

I'm sitting here trying to imagine how many golf balls fit on a Boeing 747.

Danny Harris:

There's probably an answer to that.

Tim Cynova:

There is, yeah.

Lauren Ruffin:

There's got to be, and I will know it immediately following this show.

Danny Harris:

There's a searching mechanism.

Lauren Ruffin:

I am curious. So, so much of the conversation does happen about sort of cars and that at the heart of Tim's question is, what should we be thinking about if not about how many cars? Are there other things that are contributing to sort of the poor quality of life, the way that we're moving around cities? I live in Albuquerque, which has notoriously few transportation options outside of a car and they just built a rapid bus line that everybody's really angry about. I'm curious, what are the other things that we should be talking about besides cars, if car companies aren't building for a future that has a whole bunch of cars?

Danny Harris:

I think we should be talking about options. Even if you look at what's happening in the debate around gun control, it's about responsible gun ownership, at least as you see it play out on the other side of the NRA. For us, it's simply about just giving people options. I think the problem is that the car companies and the oil companies were basically the dealers and then the people who have cars became the addicts and in many ways we're letting the addicts continue to sort of push at community board meetings and op-eds.

Danny Harris:

For example, last night I got a phone call from a local TV reporter and this is how it started. It said, "Hi, Danny. We know that there's a huge increase in speeding in New York and so we want to capture both sides of the story." What two sides are there to a story? There's speeding is illegal, speeding kills people. We have automated tools that capture people, so it doesn't matter what you look like if you go over 11 miles an hour, it captures your ticket. But this is a journalist who's trying to capture both sides of a story of people breaking the law. Like if you were walking around looting in the city because no one was around that would be seen as clearly disorder and that would be unacceptable.

Danny Harris:

But we give a pass to terrible car behavior. You can run over a child, you call it an accident. You speed well, nobody was on the road. Again, all of this is a mentality that basically empowers drivers, some drivers ... of a situation where 40,000 people a year are killed. So I just think in many ways in society, we don't take this seriously. We sort of write off car crashes as these accidents, all the infrastructure spending we say is necessary to widen our roads. I think in many ways, again, it's very simple concept, but if we prioritize around people. I have a one and a four-year-old, I just simply want to be able to cross the street with them or let them bike to school. That is not a radical concept, but in many cities or in places like Albuquerque, that basically brings out people with their pitchforks.

Lauren Ruffin:

Did you say 40,000 people a year die from car crashes in New York?

Danny Harris:

No, sorry. That's nationwide.

Lauren Ruffin:

Okay, got it.

Danny Harris:

That's nationwide, yeah.

Lauren Ruffin:

I mean, it's still a huge number, but ...

Danny Harris:

Yeah.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah, the biking to school thing. So our kids started biking to school this year and it's been fantastic for their independence, but in some places, it's a really radical notion that kids should be able to do that safely. Also, Tim, did you have another question or can I keep talking?

Tim Cynova:

You can keep talking. Yeah.

Lauren Ruffin:

Awesome. I love when that happens. Are there specific strategies that folks can do in their own towns? Advocacy organizing is a skill and there's a way to do it. Are there strategies that you'd recommend folks are seeing sort of upticks in poor car behavior? How should people be organizing and thinking about this as we rethink the world?

Danny Harris:

Sure. I think the first thing, the instinct of many is to focus on enforcement and that's what our mayor in New York likes to do is to throw cops at the problem. The problem is that this is really about design. So in most of our communities, well let me start with New York. In New York, about 80% of all of our public space is devoted to car storage and movement. So if you think of a city with 8.6 million people who live in small spaces, all of our playgrounds are currently closed. Most sidewalks are not six feet. We're giving away all this space for free in a pandemic when it's desperately needed for physical distancing. You can play out that scenario across almost any community of simply what's the equation of space that's given away to cars versus people?

Danny Harris:

The second stage of that is simply for people who are watching to look outside of your window in regardless of where you live. I live in New York city and I live by the FDR highway that runs along the east side. I hear birds in the morning and the air quality is amazing. I can see all the way out to the airports in Queens. My kids, I take them out in the morning, they can cross the street and I don't have to worry about cars everywhere. There are these fundamental quality of life elements that are better and many people are not able to attribute them to the absence of cars.

Danny Harris:

I think so many of our leaders want us to get back to normal and of course, we obviously want the economy and the nation to get up and running, but if we jumped right back into the way we were before, there's another looming pandemic on the horizon around climate change and we have seen how our nation has been incapable of addressing this one. That will be fundamentally worse and impact so many more communities in so many more devastating ways.

Danny Harris:

We need to get ahead of that, and a way that we can do that is to start thinking of streets as assets instead of liabilities, assets for economic growth, assets for public health, assets for income inequality, assets to address income inequality, for the environment. And right now we're just giving them away to, in many cases, its worse use, which is predominantly SUVs and light trucks that are looting our air, they're killing people and they're parking for free.

Tim Cynova:

A few years back when you were at the Knight Foundation, do you publish a piece titled "What Silicon Valley Doesn't Get About People. Poor planning didn't just aggravate the area's housing problem: It helped create the Valley's growing empathy gap." We've talked a lot on the show with leaders and organizations about the need for leaders and organizations to demonstrate empathy, humanity in the face of some incredible challenges that we're all facing and increasingly talking about worker dignity, even in the face of having to make some heartbreaking decisions. As you think back on that piece around planning and empathy and how we can use this moment for the future, what resonates with you, thinking back on that?

Danny Harris:

I think there are a few things. The first is what it means to be a good, I wouldn't even just say a corporate partner, what it means to be a leader in this age. And so I just sort of share as my own example. I have two brothers and one of them is a doctor and he's a pediatrician and now part of his job, as most doctors, is to do shifts at the ER. And so he has a newborn and he had to quarantine from his newborn and his family. And he's also just a very stoic person and he doesn't complain about it, doesn't post it on social media, is happy that people clap but doesn't see it as for him.

Danny Harris:

And on the other side of it, you have those from the brands to the CSR, to the foundations, even the nonprofits who are making it about themselves, finding a way to sort of tie up this crisis into the mission critical work or the way that their brand is doing X, Y and Z, or the very small percentage of their resources that they're putting towards these types of efforts. Now, I mean, as I'm sure with you and many people watching, I'm the child of my mom is a refugee. All four of my grandparents are refugees and this sort of story goes back and they all told stories about the experience, and where they were and what they did.

Danny Harris:

Now, basically the stories that we're going to tell our grandkids are, we stayed home and we posted on TikTok or we ran a CSR campaign and we gave away a hundred thousand dollars for a company that produces billions. These are not compelling stories that we're going to want to be sharing down the generations. I think now everybody needs to do what makes the most sense to protect themselves and their community. But people ask very fundamental questions of, especially in places like foundations, you had money, what did you do with it? How hard did you make it for people to get it? How much of the story that you told was about yourself instead of those on the front lines?

Danny Harris:

There are these things that I think we'll start to track over time. And I think the hope is that the leaders who are really getting it right, they're supporting the people around them. They're finding a way to support their counterparts in other cities. They're checking in with their staff and their community, and they're finding ways of being relevant, supportive. And I think like most organizations, given how quick this is changing in two weeks, you don't want to look like a fool because you said or you pushed the wrong thing, given the need for ventilators or whether COVID is going to come back or talking about opportunity when people are dying. So I think about all of that through the lens of my experience in Silicon Valley and just if I get another CSR email or hear what the aggressive action that Warby Parker is taking in advanced COVID, I'm going to lose my mind.

Lauren Ruffin:

I get those emails too. The Warby Parker ones really are really special. Yet another company that's not going to sponsor the show.

Tim Cynova:

Every episode we lose one more potential sponsor.

Danny Harris:

I have a list of grievances if you're looking for that.

Lauren Ruffin:

Okay. Got it. Several years ago I read this quote that stayed with me and as I approach my 40th birthday, it was essentially the best and brightest minds of my generation have been spent trying to convince people to click on ads, which is so true. So something you said really triggered that for me. It also strikes me that this question around what did you do in foundations and how corporations are really thinking about this right now.

Lauren Ruffin:

I had a great conversation a couple weeks ago with a friend who's a CEO of a large ed tech company and she went down to a four-day workweek and talked about how she did that to save money on payroll. But what it's unlocked is all the potential of her staff who are now in their communities doing things. And it strikes me that there's a climate change/transportation component to that too. Are you thinking about what a shorter workweek would look like as part of the work that you're doing in New York? Is how we think about work and capitalism and time spent something that you're working on and thinking about right now?

Danny Harris:

I think everything is on the table. The reality is that public transit is seeing a decrease of 90 plus percent, and so even as we start to get back to whatever a new normal is going to look like, one, not everybody's going to open at the same time. Two, not everyone's going to flock to public transit. Three, the number of people are going to realize that they can continue to work from home, they may not need an office, telecommuting, working at various hours.

Danny Harris:

I live in the city and my office is in the city and it still takes me three hours to go there and back. That's insane. I have little kids and I'm so happy that I can be with them all day. All of those things are really up for discussion, but it'd really, I think, be dependent about employers to start to make those decisions, especially ideally in partnership with their teams.

Tim Cynova:

Speaking about your team, you posted a really great video in the past 24 hours that your team made about their new commutes now. We can't show this right now, but I encourage everyone to go to Danny's Twitter feed, Transportation Alternatives' Twitter feed to watch this very creative, clever video to highlight some of the new commuting options that your team has been experiencing. I will just leave it as a cliffhanger, but it is well worth your time if you've not yet seen this video.

Tim Cynova:

Can you talk a bit about ... So Lauren's a cyclist. I'm a cyclist. We've had conversations about how many bikes are too many bikes to own. Lauren sees the sky's the limit on this one. I live in a tiny apartment, I just have one. I want to talk about Bike Match because this is something, the Bike Match initiative, that Transportation Alternatives has been involved in. What is it? How's it working, and how did it come about?

Danny Harris:

So in March, as things started to shut down, our Art Director, J Oberman, had an extra bike and posted it up on social media. And a few hours later somebody came and picked it up. And as he shared the story with our staff, they had this great idea of, well, why don't we create a platform to match bikes? So anybody who might have an extra bike or somebody who might need it. And that's how it started towards the end of March. And so if we fast-forward today we're at about 650 participants in New York, I think about half of all matches have gone to healthcare workers and we've helped to scale the network to 20 plus cities around the world.

Danny Harris:

So I think what we saw was a huge uptake in cycling and unfortunately many people who were concerned about taking public transit. And so it was just sort of a simple tool that we could give them in a way to connect with our membership who might have an extra bike or we started to engage with some brands who were able to donate at scale. The really nice thing about it, I mean beyond obviously the supporting people are kind of two really beautiful points. One is the moment of connection. So obviously as you go through all of the layers of how you have to go about doing it, it's two strangers meeting in a physically distant safe location, giving opportunity to somebody else.

Danny Harris:

And the second is the stories that we hear from people who get bikes. And so there was one person who is a healthcare worker and he hadn't ridden in 20 plus years and he just described the excitement of, he's an adult, riding down a hill on a bike, which he hadn't done in 20 plus years. He's an adult, he's a healthcare worker. He has a very stressful job and he talked about the glee and the wind and the speed and just the sense of freedom and it's a beautiful and touching story that people just need to get around it.

Danny Harris:

Wouldn't it be nice if in addition to having to get around you enjoyed it, it was good for you? It also came from somebody who loved that bike and wanted to see it get into better hands. So it's been really inspiring to see it play out and we want to continue to grow and scale it. We're now, I think, in 120 plus zip codes in New York and so we want to obviously continue to expand here and then grow it to more communities around the world.

Tim Cynova:

That's great.

Lauren Ruffin:

That's great. I'm sitting here thinking about which bike I would give away.

Danny Harris:

[inaudible 00:21:45] child.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah.

Tim Cynova:

Yeah. Lauren's got specific bikes and some in the queue to add.

Lauren Ruffin:

I think the Centurion would go. I've got an old, beautiful. Now I can't go. I can't let it.

Danny Harris:

We'll go back and see.

Tim Cynova:

We'll process this on a different podcast episode, Lauren. You can have time. You can have time like this one.

Lauren Ruffin:

I need time.

Tim Cynova:

That's such a heartwarming story. I may or may not have had maybe some tears welling up in my eyes just thinking about like the freedom and sort of ... Because as a cyclist ever since, that was my first opportunity to not be with my parents really when like you went on a bike ride as a kid, and since I had an opportunity to bike across the country and what that means and how at this time when it is so stressful and especially for healthcare workers who are on the front lines here, to be able to find that joy in something like that is really heartwarming.

Danny Harris:

And just because this is all of our soap boxes. I mean, I have a one-year-old who learned how to walk and a four-year-old who's learning to ride a bike, this is something that every parent goes through and you sort of imagine these are sort of the milestones of growing up. If we go back to the point that we shared before, imagine being able to give kids these incredible gifts and then have it taken away from them for decades.

Danny Harris:

Lauren, I don't know about you, it sounds like your kids can ride, but my daughter, when she gets that joy and glee of riding her bike, then it's okay, great. Let's put the bike away until maybe college or after college when you live in a city or unless we move to Amsterdam or Copenhagen because that amazing thing we got for you is now only limited in school yard. But you have an entire city that the kids can go off and explore.

Lauren Ruffin:

You're so right. In DC, I did a fair amount of work with public schools and helping kids get bikes, access to bikes and the joy on a kid's face when they get their first bike is-

Danny Harris:

The best.

Lauren Ruffin:

I mean, again, I'm a bike junkie so they know they're not buying a car, like they'll get an electric bike for their 16th birthday. So that's definitely ...

Danny Harris:

I'm happy we don't have to get the both sides of the debate on this TV show. The other side [inaudible 00:23:55].

Tim Cynova:

You'd be like another e-bike is another side of that equation? Yeah, one road and one off road. Lauren, we're coming up on time here, so it's right for the suitcase question.

Lauren Ruffin:

Okay. So, the pandemic has changed everything about us and how we live. And for most of your life you've been carrying around sort of a figurative suitcase of practices and behaviors and sort of things you've done. So the question is, what's one thing that's been in your suitcase for most of your life that you're taking out forever because of the pandemic? And what's one new behavior or habit or sort of thing you love that you're putting in your suitcase and you're never giving up moving forward?

Danny Harris:

I'm trying to give up regret because I had a lot of it. Something that you can sort of look at various stages and even with different successes or different opportunities, you can still hark back on either things you got wrong or things you didn't do or the things you didn't fully advance as much as they could. So I'm trying to let a lot of that go. The thing I want to carry with me, and I'm sure it's sort of an overused phrase, but it's really just about being present and grateful.

Danny Harris:

I feel even in the difficult moments of being at home and not sleeping and kids running around at all hours and not quite understanding what's happening. It's maybe for the best. I am so incredibly grateful that we have a situation that allows us to be employed, that allows us to have two beautiful children that we can be at home with, that we have a home and that we're also surrounded by an incredible community of people who are out in the front lines every single day for us.

Danny Harris:

So I think my hope is that as we get to the other side of this, I know we're at least in New York, we're all clapping at seven and the mayor is talking about a ticker tape parade every block in New York City. I hope we'll have a huge block party where they'll finally get to see their neighbors, who we see each other clapping outside of the window. We'll be able to embrace, and we'll be able to thank all those on the front lines. So that would be my hope for the first moment that we get to the other side of this, at least in my little corner of the world.

Tim Cynova:

That's great, Danny. Yeah. Thank you so much for being with us, grateful for the time and the work that you're doing.

Danny Harris:

Thank you both. I appreciate it. Thank you for telling stories.

Tim Cynova:

Continue the Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE adventure with us on our next episode when we're joined by Alexis Frasz, Co-Director of Helicon Collaborative. Miss us in the meantime? You can download more Work. Shouldn't. Suck. episodes from your favorite podcasting platform of choice. And re-watch Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE episodes over on workshouldntsuck.co.

Tim Cynova:

If you've enjoyed the conversation or are just feeling generous today, please consider writing a review on iTunes so that others who might be interested in the topic can join the fun too. Give it a thumbs up or five stars or phone a friend, whatever your podcasting platform of choice offers. If you didn't enjoy this chat, please tell someone about it who you don't like as much. Until next time, thanks for listening.

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Live with Diane Ragsdale & Andrew Taylor! (EP.33)

Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guests Diane Ragsdale & Andrew Taylor. [Live show recorded: May 1, 2020.]

Last Updated

May 5, 2020

Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guests Diane Ragsdale & Andrew Taylor. [Live show recorded: May 1, 2020.]

Guests Diane Ragsdale & Andrew Taylor

Co-Hosts: Tim Cynova & Lauren Ruffin

Episode Transcript

Guest

E. ANDREW TAYLOR, Associate Professor and Department Chair of the Performing Arts Department at American University thinks (a bit too much) about organizational structure, strategy, and management practice in the nonprofit arts. An Associate Professor of Arts Management at American University, he also consults for cultural, educational, and support organizations throughout North America. He recently completed a five-year sponsored research project for the William Penn Foundation on “Capitalizing Change in the Performing Arts.” Andrew is past president of the Association of Arts Administration Educators, board member for Fractured Atlas, and consulting editor for The Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society, and for Artivate, a journal on arts entrepreneurship. Since July 2003, he has written a popular weblog on the business of arts and culture, "The Artful Manager," hosted by ArtsJournal.com (www.artfulmanager.com ).

DIANE RAGSDALE is faculty co-lead of the Cultural Leadership Program at Banff Center for Arts & Creativity; and an assistant professor and program director for the Masters in Arts Management & Entrepreneurship MA at the New School in NYC, where she also designed and launched a graduate minor in Creative Community Development. She additionally teaches a workshop on aesthetic values in a changed cultural context for Yale University's Theater Management MA. Ragsdale is a frequent speaker, blogger, writer, and advisor on a range of arts and culture topics. She previously worked as a program officer for theater and dance at The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, ran a contemporary performing arts center and a music festival, held a variety of administrative posts, and began her arts career as a theater practitioner (she has an MFA in acting & directing). She is presently a doctoral candidate at Erasmus University in the Netherlands, where she lectured in the cultural economics program from 2011-2015. Her dissertation examines the evolving relationship between the nonprofit and commercial theater in the US over an 80-year period. She is on the board of Anne Bogart's SITI Company; on the editorial board for Artivate: A Journal of Entrepreneurship in the Arts; and on the Advisory Council for the online theater platform and journal, HowlRound. Among others, she wrote an essay ("To What End Permanence?") for the 2019 book, A Moment on the Clock of the World, published by Haymarket Press. She has dual-citizenship and divides her time between the US and the Netherlands.

Transcript

Tim Cynova:

Hi, I'm Tim Cynova and welcome to Work. Shouldn't. Suck. Live, The Morning-ish Show. On today's episode, Lauren Ruffin and I are joined by another duo of guests, Diane Ragsdale and Andrew Taylor. They each have extensive enrich bios that are available in the episode description, so I thought it'd be fun to look at the similarities. They were both early to the blogging game with Diane's Jumper blog and Andrew's Artful Manager blog being featured on ArtsJournal for more than a decade. They both direct and teach in university programs and led efforts over the past few months to rapidly transition curriculum processes and work to an entirely virtual context, and I'll offer even more importantly in my opinion, doing this while also being there for their students as they process the huge shifts in their lives in education.

Tim Cynova:

They are each sought after consultants with their own unique specialties, have both been gracious to appear on previous Work. Shouldn't. Suck. podcast episodes and they are genuinely amazing humans who we are honored to know and have the opportunity to work with. I'm not exactly sure which way this conversation will go, but I'm excited to find out. Without further ado, Andrew and Diane, welcome to the show.

Diane Ragsdale:

Thank you. [crosstalk 00:01:14].

Lauren Ruffin:

Tim gave both of you bios.

Andrew Taylor:

That's cool.

Lauren Ruffin:

And in particular one of the questions we've been opening with everyone is how is your community? And I know the two of you share community similarities that Tim highlighted, but would love to just hear how your students and how your colleagues and how you're fairing right now, how you're processing things.

Andrew Taylor:

You go Diane.

Diane Ragsdale:

Okay. Hi. I knew we'd figured that out. So I would say on the one hand, I work at two different institutions, The New School and the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Banff Centre had to lay off 80% of its staff. I'm not staffed there, I'm an independent contractor. But that's of course really tough to see. Just the sudden loss of... They're furloughed, I think. But I think the questions of when people come back. So people are dealing with that uncertainty. Certainly lots and lots of artists I know who have just had all of their gigs fall the way at The New School because the program is... I'm the program director for an arts management and entrepreneurship program for artists and they've lost those gigs and sometimes their day jobs, working in restaurants or other places. So that's been huge. And of course it's not a level playing field. Some students come from different parts of the world where they've been trying to get back to or concerned about family members. Everyone's in different situations. And so yeah, quite concerned about their welfare.

Andrew Taylor:

Yeah. And I guess that I'm noticing how many communities I'm part of and there's certainly the immediate community, I would imagine our students and our colleagues and the faculty, obviously my family and circle of friends. But then I think both Diane and I travel in multiple circles. So just seeing independent artists in this moment, performing artists, in my case, smaller midsize arts organizations, large scale, multi-venue performing arts centers, foundations, all these are different communities. And I'm noticing both how they're all suffering in their way, but they're also more disconnected than I imagined them to be.

Andrew Taylor:

That even among theaters and the artists in the theater, these are different communities in many cases and they are struggling to find their feet separately rather than together in many ways and obviously that's because we're so distant at the moment, maybe. But I think all the communities are struggling. I'm absolutely privileged and I'm continuing to be employed and that's extraordinary and I figure that's a responsibility too, so let's take it out for a spin, as are you guys, which is amazing.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. I'm also wondering along, Andrew, your point about how even within communities there's distinctions that raises the folks who are doing functions that are full-time job functions, but who are contractors. It feels like those legal employment designations that we take for granted in some ways, at this point you really do begin to see how disparate the playing field is.

Andrew Taylor:

Yeah, very much, in particularly through artists who are on gig schedules and their employers who are on salary. That tends to be okay-ish, although pretty inequitable anytime, but on a even keel economy at least there's a gig coming up and there's another gig after that. And the detachment of now institutions, as Diane said, furloughing and certainly canceling all contracts. So any gig worker's out and then even part-times are out. Just the floor falling out from some people and being shaky for others. But just seeing the inequity in the structure so obvious even though it was there before is pretty striking.

Lauren Ruffin:

And Diane, I know you're working with a Canadian institution. And the government's been providing a different level of support than we have in the United States. Are any of your colleagues there feeling like this is an opportunity for them to perhaps pivot their work or think about how they engage with their work differently because they are getting that financial support?

Diane Ragsdale:

I would say it depends. In Canada, it often depends on what province you're in in terms of what kind of local support et cetera you can get, so that's also not a monolithic response by any means. I would say that even with government support organizations are having to pivot and are definitely looking at doing so. One of the things that's interesting to me, Banff of course is a place that is a destination. People want to go up the mountain and be in that place. And so those big question marks, like what does it mean to run an institution where place is so critical and people want to gather there in this time?

Diane Ragsdale:

But even in the U.S., one of the things I really, in the performing arts center front, for a long time I've worried about the coupling of mission and venue or facility and a conflating of that. And I'm struck by at this moment how many of the questions seem to center around when do we get back in the space? What are we going to do with the space? How is the space going to work? And I think, is that the right question or should we be asking maybe questions like, what's the role of art in the time of COVID and after COVID and artists and teaching artists and what are the ways we might be in the world? And without the frame of the building I think being so front and center, the lens through which all questions have to be asked.

Tim Cynova:

Well, and speaking about buildings, you both work for universities and have both gone through what I can imagine has been an incredibly challenging rough time as everyone almost overnight and sometimes overnight had to transition from what was very place-based and in most cases to now being virtual to each other. So I'm wondering how that's going for you. And also, as you speak with the students and think about your own courses that you're teaching and what you hope that the students you're working with might take from this or learn in a way, if only to just be human and understanding, but what is the role for our curriculum and training arts administrators of the future at this time?

Diane Ragsdale:

You go, Andrew.

Andrew Taylor:

Okay. Thank you. Yeah, the whole university pivoted to online and distant work and I talked to some of our tech people. They said they were planning some more online work, but they figured it would take a year and a half to transition us all before the reality came and we pivoted in four days. And I guess what I keep noticing is technology doesn't create things. It exposes them. It reveals them. And what it revealed to me is my colleagues are extraordinary, kind, generous, compassionate, and that's the stuff that it revealed. It also revealed all sorts of the fault lines in a badly constructed syllabus. It's a weak approach to developing and designing the course suddenly became so obvious to everybody.

Andrew Taylor:

In terms of our students, I think the message is around really understand how a system is connected when it's falling apart. I mean that's when you see it. It's invisible otherwise, and I just encourage them, watch, just describe what you're seeing. Don't judge, just describe what you see and you're going to start to see the problems that were always there, but now they're so obvious we can't even pretend they're not there. Which on the good side and the bad side. So on the positive, compassionate, connected, people are so passionate about their work. And on the downside, inequitable structures overly coupled, as Diane was saying, to capital, physical and economic. It's just all revealing itself.

Andrew Taylor:

And then on it's side they're all terrified because they came to grad school to get working strong and powerful jobs and that way they could make a difference in the arts, and that whole infrastructure is getting really fuzzy lifting right now. So fear and revelation there. That's it. That's the Bible.

Lauren Ruffin:

There's a book on that [crosstalk 00:07:31].

Diane Ragsdale:

Do you want me to weigh in on that one too?

Tim Cynova:

Yeah, please.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah.

Diane Ragsdale:

One of the things, just from a practical standpoint as a assistant professor, program director, that sort of realm, I've been struck by how symbolic or performative the spaces are for faculty at universities or maybe it's just my university, but I've had this in other places as well, which is we go to our offices and we sit in them sometimes, but I have a bookshelf this big, you have a drawer that can fit about eight files. I share an office with eight people. If we each have a student in to talk, and if one of those is teaching a lesson, you really can't actually have a decent conversation, can't really work and do the things that faculty do.

Diane Ragsdale:

And so in a weird way, being home these last 30 days and adapting to that, I'm like, I don't know why I would ever go back into the office again because I'm so much more productive at home because the environment is so much more conducive to things that assistant professors do, which is read, write, prepare lectures, have one on one conversations with people that are sustained and need to be thoughtful. But there is a symbolism to it, which is people just like to know there's somebody sitting in the office. So, that's one thing.

Diane Ragsdale:

I agree with everything Andrew said in terms of how much is revealed. And I've really seen, I think The New School has really stepped up in an awesome way during this time, and The College of Performing Arts. I've been so impressed with my colleagues and everyone, the students and their gamesmanship and willingness to keep going with this, even though it's clunky. If you can imagine in a conservatory trying to teach lessons and do ensembles and all of that and they're going with it.

Diane Ragsdale:

One thing I've observed though is that moving to technology, it's like the flipped classroom is less about the tech and more about the disruption of power dynamics. When you have to do this day after day, you begin to feel what it means to cede power to the students in terms of their being able to, I think, have more agency in their learning journey. I've always heard that saying that the flipped classroom is about going from the sage on the stage to the guide on the side. And I've always said that. I don't think I've ever really done it until now and now it's like, oh, okay, I get this. It's really their thing now and I'm there to support it. And I think that's a really good thing that's come out of this experience.

Lauren Ruffin:

This is a random question, but I realized... Tim blinked rapidly, so I know random questions make you a little nervous. But early on in our show, Tim, you were sharing that you were curious about what professors who are working with ensembles or multiple groups, and I realized I don't know how or if that ever resolved itself until you've mentioned it, Diane. So how is that working out practically?

Diane Ragsdale:

Well, some of that work, I think it can't happen really practically. One on one lessons we found actually are translating really well, and certainly smaller ensembles. I have a student who, for their graduation, for their capstone project, students had to do independently produced projects. One of them is doing a podcast musical, his name is Alexander Ronneburg, and he's been able to completely rehearse online and make click tracks. And then a lot of students and faculty as well are really adapting to this and figuring out ways to continue to work. I don't know that the large ensemble yet has been solved. I think these are more intractable. What about you Andrew? Do you know?

Andrew Taylor:

I'm chair of The Department of Performing Arts at American University. So we have five programs, dance, musical theater, music, audio technology and arts management. And as you can imagine this semester, I think we've got a pass. We're just all scrambling. We canceled all of our live productions in theaters, all of our performances in music, all the recitals and juries, all the things that really, really should happen in a shared space with an audience. And we got a pass, we did substitutes, we did online lessons and we shifted a lot of practical work toward more theoretical work. Like let's learn how an orchestra works and let's talk about the different sections and maybe we can do sectionals. But the challenge for us is fall. So it's quite likely that most universities are not going to physically open at the beginning of the semester and probably maybe in the January, February.

Andrew Taylor:

So we don't get the pass in fall. We have time to think about, well, how do you teach ensemble derive theater? How do you teach acting? How do you teach ensemble performance? And you have a runway to figure it out, so you better figure it out. We're all thinking now like okay, we made it, everybody understood. We were just like, yeah, whatever. Scrambling, flailing, fine. Fall is not going to be that. And the students will expect more from, us as they should. I've been looking, there's not a whole lot of resources available to say, well how do you do this in a way that has deep meaningful social context and context? So, luckily I won't be chair then. Yay. So I'll just hand it off mid-summer.

Tim Cynova:

I was talking with someone this morning who works at a conservatory and they measured out their stage to see six feet physical distance, how many people could fit on the stage, and it's a big stage. They could fit 45 people. That's like half the orchestra. So even if you come back into a space and you have those constraints, what does that even look like? How do you do that? One of the things we've talked about a lot is it's a different thing. Doing a lesson or ensembles is a different thing. Much like managing in person versus managing remotely and what new skills are we learning and how are we developing in different ways?

Tim Cynova:

And I don't know, something someone said has just resulted in a lot of people on our live chat. So I'm going to just like toss this back into the space and see what's going on in the live chat. Make of that what you will.

Lauren Ruffin:

Okay.

Andrew Taylor:

Yeah, right. Yes, it's a different thing. To Diane's earlier point, I can't wait to get back to my office. Oh my God. And I know it's symbolic. [crosstalk 00:12:22]. It's symbolic for me to be in a different place where my role is to be a person working, which is not what my house is. And I know a lot of these people have different tolerances for that. My tolerance is zero. If I'm here, I should be available to the people in the house and not off in a corner. And so it's, anyway, I'll talk to my therapist about this.

Tim Cynova:

We have some comments coming in. I'm still reading through them, but someone that we all know [inaudible 00:12:47]. Getting greetings from Toronto. Here's to hear from Andrew and Diane on which writers, thinkers, and content digital or not you're leaning on during this time. I assume [inaudible 00:12:56] means other than [inaudible 00:12:57].

Andrew Taylor:

Yeah. What else is there?

Tim Cynova:

So what else is on your list?

Diane Ragsdale:

Yeah, and we are, I think two of your biggest fans. We have been dedicated [inaudible 00:13:05]. I'll give one thing. Rebecca Solnit's, A Field Guide to Getting Lost, which I love her work. Generally, I feel like she is just, her voice at this time on anything is interesting to me. And she has many, many books, but that's the one that I've been going back to the most. And I'll give you just one [inaudible 00:13:21] from that that's been sticking with me, which is, she talks about getting lost in the relationship and that in the creative process, but also the different ways we can get lost. And one of them is losing yourself in a sense. And in these times when you have to adapt from the old thing to the new thing, and you're in the middle and at some point the old thing is lost to you. It's less familiar and you've started to move into the new thing. It's not quite familiar. And I feel like that's where I'm at at the moment. And it reminds me a bit of...

Diane Ragsdale:

Even when I moved to the Netherlands, there was a point when I didn't yet feel Dutch or part of that world, but I had already started losing my connection to the U.S. So I feel like that book has been [inaudible 00:13:58].

Andrew Taylor:

Yeah. I guess reading poetry is really useful because it's at the intersection of intellect and sensibility and emotion and that borderline is evaporated in most of our lives. There's no difference now between the rational world and the emotional world, and that's where poetry lives for me. So there's just stuff I keep going back to and that connects. And I think I'm just starting to read a lot more about evidence based learning.

Andrew Taylor:

So if I'm supposed to be a teacher in this world, what does it mean to learn? And a lot of the assumptions I had were based on physical proximity and being in a room and riffing with students and imagining I was teaching them. And so now I'm really thinking I need to deconstruct that engine, take it apart and put it back together again because it's going to be different. So a bunch of different books on pedagogy and the evidence of how the brain gains knowledge and adapts it to the world is important to me right now.

Tim Cynova:

God, I always hated teaching after Andrew because he's got amazing poems that fit exactly the moment. I'm like how do you find these things? [inaudible 00:14:48] this YouTube video that's 20 seconds, but it captures the entire four hour lesson in a 20 second video. I'm like, God I really need to step up my game here-

Andrew Taylor:

No, it's [crosstalk 00:14:58]

Tim Cynova:

-before Andrew.

Lauren Ruffin:

It does strike me that, in talking to in particular people who are really, or organizations that are really, really invested in events and gatherings that the quality of our content is going to have to get so much stronger and the discernment around keynote speakers, panels, however we're going to do this thing. I do feel like it's going to be a bit of the people who go first in this brave new world in terms of bringing together large convenings are going to be like the emperor's new clothes. It's just, you're going to be stripped bare because the content's going to have to be so solid because I think audiences are becoming more discerning in how they're consuming and how they're ranking and rating content and learning and knowledge.

Andrew Taylor:

I was talking to a colleague this morning and I'm noticing so many conferences are now moving online, but their assumption is... Actually, so just to push back a little, the content is the thing that makes the conference matter. When it's actually the cocktail party and the snarkiness while you're listening to a panel you think is not particularly bright. The event is a social object. It's this thing that pulls us together like a magnet and allows us to pet your dogs are the classic social object. They pull people together and then they start a conversation, so the dog is the initiator.

Andrew Taylor:

So I'm just curious if really the nature of the content as opposed to the structure around it, which is I want to go to a conference online where it's encouraged that you be snarky with your digital neighbor and don't necessarily listen to the panel, and that could be cool. I'm curious about the new relationship between what we imagine to be important about an arts experience, which is the thing on the stage and what is actually valuable, which is that plus. And I think Diane always writes about this so beautifully. I don't know if you agree.

Tim Cynova:

Yeah. Well that's so nice, Andrew. For a long, long time I feel like I've been pushing against the conferences of trade associations and things like that in part because they were initially established when we didn't have other ways to communicate, and so to pull everyone together and march through these sessions one after another and when as exactly as Andrew says, you realize at some point the most meaningful stuff is happening at the bar or at the breakfast. I think also now we have this weird phenomenon where not only are we seeing digital content, but you can get access to some really awesome folks.

Tim Cynova:

What's it going to mean that now that we've been able to watch the top opera singers in the world seeing from their bedrooms to us or we've been able to have just a rockstar person jump on Zoom and give a talk that everybody can listen to for free. How does that begin to also adapt on the other side of this, our expectations of who we want to listen to and do we even ever want to get on planes again and fly anywhere? And if so, what's going to be that experience? I'm already thinking about the number of conferences that I would be like, yeah, if there's going to be a stream, I'll just watch that. And which ones I would go, no, I'd really want to go there because I want to basically hang out with people in a more social way.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. I was talking to Jess Solomon who's with the Deutsch Foundation a couple weeks ago and she was saying that one of the beautiful parts of this moment is we have are the masters of our time being willing to share their gifts for free and that's just going to refine our sense of how we should be spending our time.

Diane Ragsdale:

Yeah.

Lauren Ruffin:

So yeah, I think that's spot on.

Diane Ragsdale:

It's also important to note how many people... There are certain... There are people in disability justice. There are various people who are being called on right now to jump on webinars day and night and share their wisdom and I think are often uncompensated. And this is a moment I think where everybody's like, I just want to jump in and be valuable and useful, of course. There's going to come a point where we'll need to figure out how these things get compensated as well, so we're not back in the same situation that has been revealed by COVID, which is the number of artists and public intellectuals and other kinds of people for whom there is no real couch to sustain their throw pillows, so to speak, to use any [inaudible 00:18:19] metaphor for our business models.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah.

Tim Cynova:

That's awesome. Let's see some more stuff online. I've got to scroll back and catch some stuff. Your resonating comment that students have been incredible in their resilience and creativity and making things work. A lot of innovation coming from them and there's a sense of shared purpose. Comment about the hybrid pedagogy community and because people can't share links here, we'll figure out how to share the link there. And a question about, since we can see world-class opera singers in their bedroom singing, what does this mean for local organizations who are trying to enter the digital content world? Any thoughts on that?

Diane Ragsdale:

Yeah, so Jamie Bennett, who was the first speaker on The Morning-ish Show, first guest, brought up DreamYard, which is an arts and education center in the Bronx, who looked at this moment and went, what's the thing we could do right now that would be really valuable to the community we serve? And they decided to serve free lunches because in their community that was the thing that was really needed. Part of what I've been thinking about the last couple of weeks is actually the beauty of small and local and what it means to just go back to those essentials of being a good neighbor.

Diane Ragsdale:

So I don't know if I had a smaller organization, if my first impulse would be to throw content online, particularly because right, you can watch The National Theater, et cetera, or whether it would be to in some ways engage the community around other needs. I also, one of my observations is the number of organizations that, I'm going to use a crass phrase, but kicked to the curb their teaching artists during this period of time and I feel like that was so foolish because if there's a kind of person in the world that I think could be really valuable in any kind of institution right now it's teaching artists.

Diane Ragsdale:

They know how to help people create scaffolds of meaning and learning. They know how to facilitate. They understand their communities. They're often in the front lines of organizations. People are at home right now trying to make meaning, try to enjoy their lives, trying to teach their kids. And I think I would have been trying to hire up an army of teaching artists and figure out a way to deploy them in the world. Maybe that would be another scenario or another option.

Tim Cynova:

We're coming up on Lauren's question. I think we need to... I mean, we could run this for three hours and I would feel like we're just maybe getting to 30 minutes. So sadly we're coming up on time. So Lauren, why don't you lead off or close up with the suitcase question?

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. Or as it's known now after Deena yesterday, the up in the air question with George Clooney. So for both of you, and we heard hints of this during this conversation, but you have a suitcase that you carry around with you throughout your life, filled with habits and things you love to do and things you maybe don't like to do, but you do anyway. What's one thing that has been in your suitcase for a long time that you were leaving out post-pandemic? And then what's one thing, one habit, behavior, love, whatever that you've picked up during the pandemic that you're going to take with you forever?

Andrew Taylor:

One thing I'm leaving out, obviously I teach organizational management theory. So there's a whole bunch of theories about how structures work and how you're supposed to behave, best practice. Most of those are gone and it's more about what are the useful ways to see the world? What are the frameworks that actually help me see more clearly and in more actionable ways? There's a series of those, I'm happy to share offline somewhere. And the other thing is just be kind. Kindness is the thing that really first and always and that almost, it helps patch the cracks in a lot of things. So just kindness first and then just tools that help me see more clearly and help other people say more clearly.

Diane Ragsdale:

That's so nice Andrew. Mine's really prosaic. On the one hand I think one of the things that's going out of the suitcase is paper. I have been a hugely paper dependent person and I don't have a printer at home. I do, but it doesn't really work well and so I just haven't been printing. And I'm like, I think I'm past the paper, which I know my associate, Alex Chadwell who's a composer works day to day with me. He's often like, "You're really paper dependent." I'm like, "it's gone. Alex, it's gone."

Diane Ragsdale:

And then on the what's coming into the suitcase. So family Zoom. I have four brothers, a mom, a dad, a stepdad, a biological dad, and one of the things, when my mom and stepdad, my three younger brothers, we've started family Zoom on Sundays, which we've never done. We live all over the place and it has been one of the best things ever and I hope we keep that for the rest of our lives. It's so meaningful to me. And maybe if I could add one more little thing. One of the things, Syrus Marcus Ware, who you had on, one of the things he taught me in his work is the saying, I hope I get it right. It's something like, we've got a lot to do, so we better go slow.

Diane Ragsdale:

And I've always been a intense, keep it going kind of person. And one of the things this is teaching me I think is how to pause and go slower, even though you feel the pressure to respond right now to that.

Tim Cynova:

Yeah. Wow. Yeah. That's great. [crosstalk 00:22:32]. Both of you.

Lauren Ruffin:

You guys are great.

Tim Cynova:

Yeah. So uplifting to spend time with you today. Thank you both for making time to be on the show.

Andrew Taylor:

Well, thank you guys for this show, it has saved me and so thank you.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah, I love every episode. It's been great.

Tim Cynova:

Continue the Work. Shouldn't. Suck. Live adventure with us on our next episode when we're joined by Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation. Miss us in the meantime, you can download more Work. Shouldn't. Suck. episodes from your favorite podcasting platform of choice and re-watch Work. Shouldn't. Suck. Live episodes over on workshoudntsuck.co.

Tim Cynova:

The podcast is available for free on your favorite podcasting platforms:

If you enjoy the show, please leave a review on iTunes to help others discover the podcast.

Guest User 5/3/20 Guest User 5/3/20

Live with Deana Haggag! (EP.32)

Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guest Deana Haggag. [Live show recorded: April 30, 2020.]

Last Updated

May 3, 2020

Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guest Deana Haggag. [Live show recorded: April 30, 2020.]

Guest: Deana Haggag

Co-Hosts: Tim Cynova & Lauren Ruffin

Episode Transcript

Guest

DEANA HAGGAG is the President & CEO of United States Artists, a national arts funding organization based in Chicago, IL. Before joining USA in February 2017, she was the Executive Director of The Contemporary, a nomadic and non-collecting art museum in Baltimore, MD, for four years. In addition to her leadership roles, Deana lectures extensively, consults on various art initiatives, contributes to cultural publications, and has taught at institutions such as Johns Hopkins University and Towson University. She is on the Board of Trustees of the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Artistic Director's Council of Prospect.5, and the Advisory Council of Recess. She received her MFA in Curatorial Practice from the Maryland Institute College of Art and a BA from Rutgers University in Art History and Philosophy.

She is proudly a first-generation Egyptian-American Muslim disabled woman of Afro-Arab descent. She currently lives in Chicago, Illinois and New York, New York.

Transcript

Tim Cynova:

Hi, I'm Tim Cynova and welcome to Work Shouldn't Suck live, the morning-ish show. On today's episode, Lauren Ruffin and I are joined by Deana Haggag. Dina currently serves as president and CEO of United States artists, a national arts funding organization based in Chicago, found online at unitedstatesartists.org. Before joining USA, she was the executive director of The Contemporary, a nomadic and non-collecting art museum in Baltimore, Maryland. Deana lectures, consults, contributes and teaches at numerous places. She's on the board of trustees of the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Artistic Director Circle of Prospect Five and the Advisory Council of Recess. She received her MFA in curatorial practice from Maryland Institute College of Art and BA from Rutgers in art history and philosophy. She is proudly a first generation Egyptian American Muslim, disabled woman of Afro Arab descent and we are honored she's with us today. Without further ado, Deana, welcome to the show.

Deana Haggag:

Thank you for having me. Hi, good morning-ish.

Lauren Ruffin:

Good morning-ish.

Deana Haggag:

Am I the first one to make that joke?

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah, we'll tell you, you are.

Deana Haggag:

Thanks.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yes, absolutely. So Deana, it's so good to see your face, so good to catch up.

Deana Haggag:

Likewise.

Lauren Ruffin:

So the question we've been throwing to folks just to sort of ground us is, how are you doing and how's your community? What are you hearing from folks that you're talking to regularly?

Deana Haggag:

Yeah. Oh man. How is my community? I mean I guess my community feels like nonprofit arts administrators. I think right now I am working in collaboration with several, and I think right now my community is feeling two things at once. The first is an urgency to get work done, and I think we're really proud and honored to be doing the work that we're doing at a moment where we know that artists need so much support. Then on the other side, we're also feeling the dire pressure of supporting a really vulnerable workforce. I think right now my community feels like it's in a moment of extreme cognitive dissonance and just trying to take it one day at a time.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. So Tim read your bio, but are there things right now that you think are sort of coming to the fore as you would introduce yourself to our audience?

Deana Haggag:

Yeah, I mean I think a few things are coming to the fore for me right now. Tim noted very quickly that I am a disabled person and I think living as a disabled person in the middle of a global health pandemic is a very specific experience. I am also a disabled person that has a tremendous amount of economic privilege. I have this, for the time being at least, a full-time paying job with health benefits, a well paying job. I am in a partnership with someone who also has a well paying job and so I am disabled and yet have economic resources to take care of myself in a very scary moment.

Deana Haggag:

I think what's been really coming to the fore is the experience of the disability community right now in particular and then the intersections of low income disabled folks who, I don't know that this is affecting anyone more than folks in that level of precocity. So that community for me feels like the one I am working in the deepest favor of. Sort of in a quiet day-to-day way, and the one I'm the most worried about, and the one I think about every morning and every night. But yes, I think of all of the identities and hats and caps. I think man, being in a disabled body is a really specific thing right now.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. I think it's been interesting to see over the last couple of years in particular, but always when nations go through trauma-

Deana Haggag:

Yeah.

Lauren Ruffin:

In 2016 I felt like it was black women who really sort of chartered the path for a possible way out of there that unfortunately a lot of folks didn't follow. But those were the voices-

Deana Haggag:

Amen.

Lauren Ruffin:

Those were the voices that really sort of rose up, and I think right now it's folks who are really, really steeped in disability justice that are charting a path for us. I don't know that we're doing a great job hearing those voices candidly. We've had probably one of our most memorable conversations on here was with Syrus Marcus Ware, who's based in Toronto. But yeah, I think you're spot on around this moment being one where we have to look to that community for sort of guidance.

Deana Haggag:

Yeah. Yesterday I was talking to the folks at Disart in Grand Rapids and that was sort of the conversation. It was just like, "Oh, but will folks really listen? Will they know where to look? Will those lessons survive the, what feels like the immediacy of COID-19?" I think in really big structural ways, a ton of stuff I think is really clear. Never again will employers be able to go back and say, "Work can't be done remotely." For specifically office workers. Right? Which is something that disability communities have to face forever, but then also these conversations around healthcare and insurance and the medical industrial complex and these things that I think the disabled community has been on the front lines of since the dawn of our nation, more or less. Now I think all of those conversations are coming to a head.

Deana Haggag:

But I think one thing that was really clear on our call yesterday and in general is there's looking to disabled folks for sort of logistical and infrastructural changes. Like what does it mean to work remotely? What does it mean to be in a moment of physical distancing? Because so many disabled people live in a lot of physical distancing as a result of their own wellness and care needs. But I think the thing that's actually really funny to me is there's a difference between social distancing and physical distancing.

Deana Haggag:

There's lots of ways that people make communities and there's lots of ways that people have to learn new intellectual and conceptual vernaculars to survive a physical distancing. I don't know how many folks are talking to disabled people about that, so I don't think it's enough to be like, "Oh, y'all have been using things like Zoom since the beginning of time. Cool." It's like, "No, there's like a whole other lexicon that exists in sort of disability and [inaudible 00:05:57] justice that I don't think people are really, really getting into, that I think could help non-disabled people in this moment of extreme terror as both physical distancing and possibly social distancing is such a new phenomenon.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. Are there organizations or individuals, collectives that are doing really, really great work that our audience should be listening to right now?

Deana Haggag:

Yeah, I think the folks at Sins Invalid in the Bay area have been on the front lines of this thing since forever. I think anything that they're touching or thinking about is super important, I think the Harriet Tubman collective is incredible and I think exists at the intersections of both disability but also racial justice, abolitionists movements. I think there's a book, Care Work by Leah Lakshmi that I think should be required reading for everyone right now.

Deana Haggag:

Then I think there's just a lot of notable scholars like Claire, John Lee Clark, I mean it's just sort of an endless list of folks. But yeah, I think I'm curious about what does a bibliography look like, and I think also the tension of a lot of this right now, it's like there's an entire community whose lived experience and knowledge of this is so important and it's also a community that can be easily exhausted if folks... I think it's one thing to talk to disabled folks who are like, "Oh I am being invited to be on a bunch of webinars." But also the pace and the immediacy of that is so important. So I do think looking at a preexisting scholarship or books or texts or videos could be super helpful. So sorry, a very long answer to your question is like, I can't stop thinking about disabled people every second of every day, more so than usual.

Lauren Ruffin:

No, we're taking notes. I think that was really helpful. One of the things I'm curious about on this live stream, we've gotten so many resources for folks just in these conversations like that, just lists of... I feel like we do have to put together a bibliography of all the thinking and thought that has come out of what people have been reading, thinking, listening to, to sort of guide us out of this because it's hard to feel like we continually are Columbusing communities. Like they've been there, we discover them, we listen to them and then we put them back on the shelf until the next crisis that could have been averted if we had just held on to them for a little bit longer.

Deana Haggag:

Yeah.

Tim Cynova:

So much there. I'm fortunate that we have the transcripts and it feels like next week is probably the end of our daily live streams with six weeks of daily live streams and it feels like just sitting with the transcripts, reading, reflecting on it because they, like this conversation, are so informative. There's so much here and thinking about what does a future look like where everyone thrives and what do we need to do right now to make sure that we're not missing this moment? You mentioned we can't go back to where people say some jobs can't be done remotely. I fear that we will go back to that. How do we hold onto, yes, the jobs that you said couldn't be done remotely, now are done remotely, and the thing that could have been an email, but instead it was a meeting, it was an email.

Tim Cynova:

So what's the responsibility of organizations as leaders, as accomplices and allies in the organizations inside the sector, in the sector to support and hold onto the things that we've proven that can be done and just iterate and adjust and improve on those things to move forward rather than everyone goes back to the office on a some date and we forget that we were able to do this.

Tim Cynova:

So I guess that's personally what I'm wrestling with. How do we not miss this maybe once in a lifetime moment? So on a podcast I would edit out that last part where I just rambled until I ended at three periods, but on a live stream. Yeah, there you go.

Deana Haggag:

We love a live stream. We need a little danger, you know? A little danger these days.

Lauren Ruffin:

On that remote work thread. So Deana, in the green room I realized we didn't know where we were physically.

Deana Haggag:

Yeah, same with me.

Lauren Ruffin:

Tell me as you're leading US Artists, can you give us a sense of how your staff and your organization was working and whether/how you've pivoted right now, what that felt like as a leader?

Deana Haggag:

Yeah, so United States Artists is headquartered in Chicago where we have a little over 15 full, part-time employees and a couple of contractors and we went to our office every day. I, for the past three years that I've had this job, have actually been living between Chicago and New York. So in the weeks that I was in Chicago, went to a sort of traditional nine-ish, 10-ish to like six or seven-ish job with the rest of our staff.

Deana Haggag:

Our lease was actually up in February and throughout all of February and into March we started all working remotely in a moment where there was about five weeks-ish that our offices were being transitioned and so actually it was kind of good practice where we all figured out how to talk to each other remotely kind of right before COVID hit. We moved into a new office. It's actually called the Fabric Impact House in Chicago where a group of justice funders all moved in together, so we moved in with folks like the Woods Fund, Field Foundations, Pillars Fund, and have spent the last year cultivating this kind of communal workspace. We all moved in there for about two weeks before the stay-at-home order came down, so now my entire staff is all back out in their remote working situations.

Deana Haggag:

Right now I have moved to New York full-time. I am here in Brooklyn currently and communicating via Zoom and Slack with our staff who are, again, predominantly in Chicago. We have one contractor here in New York and then two full-time staff in Baltimore that have also been remote pretty much the entire time. So I think I was still planning on going back and forth to Chicago even though I have made New York my primary residence. Clearly, that does not feel like it is on the horizon. One thing that's coming up a lot for our staff right now in terms of how we work is questions about, well if the stay-at-home order lifts, are people expected to just go back to the office if they don't feel safe. There's a thing the news says, and I think a lot of us lately are feeling like, "Whoa, there's like the thing a spreadsheet says, there's nothing my policy says, but then there's the right thing to do."

Deana Haggag:

I feel like how people work is one of those matters. The board and I are unanimous in this, we will get back to our office if and when it feels like that's the right call to make. But we're not deciding that based on the government's perception of the COVID-19 situation. I think right now our staff clearly misses one another, or at least I miss them. It's kind of a weird thing to adjust to everybody remotely all the time. But I think we're all doing the best we can in such a weird situation.

Tim Cynova:

This has been one of the things that Lauren and I have been talking a lot about offline, or off the live stream is the responsibility of employers to provide a safe workplace even concerning what's coming out now around limiting liability for employers around workplace safety, around OSHA, and then what the responsibility is going to be and how this is really going to come down to leaders and organizations living their values. It's unfortunate in a lot of reasons and it's infuriating to think that we're balancing dying people with cash to states or whatever that might be. I think having the message out there around... Because a lot of people don't understand what OSHA means from an office, but you don't have to really think about it in office. But what does a workplace free of harm look like and what is supposed to be in our responsibilities? Even if you legally could do it or legally could get away with something, that's not the right thing to do.

Deana Haggag:

Yeah. Yeah. I think a few things. I think this thing has made so many things perfectly clear. I think the first thing it's made clear is like every policy is just a damn Google document. You can just change the word doc. That means you can make life better for your employees or you can make things worse, like scale back regulations that are again, just words that humans sit around the table and determine together. There's no big magical force we owe anybody anything except for our own morality. Right? So I think in terms of a staff, a part of me feels like doing no harm is also psychological and intellectual. I think right now USA, it's rough man. We, a couple of weeks ago joined a coalition of six other nonprofit partners to start an artist relief fund.

Deana Haggag:

USA funds artists, that's what we do. We give them unrestricted grants. We trust fully that people can decide for themselves how to use a financial resource to take the best care of their own needs. But we are a philanthropic organization that moves at a relatively glacial pace. It takes us a year to identify who these people are. We are very thoughtful. We dot every I, we cross every T and when you do something that's a relief effort, the pace of that thing is different.

Deana Haggag:

When Lauren was talking about running a slower marathon, we went from being a bunch of bowlers to sprinters overnight. It's really different and I think one thing that's been really, really clear, at least for USA staff and I imagine many of our coalition partners is, we're all worried about our people taking the best care of themselves. At the same time when our people are trying to help however they can, but to help means they have to work at a pace that is not okay.

Deana Haggag:

It's not okay to meet the demands of COVID-19 if you are really trying to help people. I think a few things we've implemented or we're trying, it's we're trying to take everybody to a four day work week in the next two weeks as a way to say, "Just take one extra day." We really want to meet the challenge of supporting artists in dire financial needs, but we also want to meet the challenge of protecting our staffs who are going through so many different things at their own home lives. I think we're all just thinking about how to do that. It's not an easy task, my heart goes out to everybody in leadership right now, but I do think we know what the right thing to do is, and we know the difference between what the spreadsheet says and what we should actually be doing, and I don't think we'll forgive ourselves.

Deana Haggag:

At the end of the day, we will look back on this time and the choices we made will be perfectly clear, not just our communities but to ourselves. I think every leader should really be sitting with what this will feel like in a few months when you've made these decisions on behalf of the people you're supposed to take care of.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. So I had virtual dinner with Susie Davis last week, which was hilarious. Of course.

Deana Haggag:

Yes.

Lauren Ruffin:

Can you talk about who's your partner with the relief fund?

Deana Haggag:

Yes.

Lauren Ruffin:

Can you talk about it? She said it was your brainchild and gave you all the credit.

Deana Haggag:

Of course she did, no.

Lauren Ruffin:

So tell us about the fund and I'm particularly curious about a couple of words you used, trust being one of them and then sort of speed/pace because the difference between immediate relief and longterm recovery is so, so bad. I'd love to hear sort of your thoughts on those things.

Deana Haggag:

So yes, thank you Susie. But no, I think a few things. I actually think immediate relief, the pace feels entirely structural. We all just had to do certain infrastructural things faster to pull something like this off. I think that's happening across industries right now. I actually think the pace for longterm recovery to me it feels less structural and more intellectual. We just got to change our minds about a few things real quick before we can even get into a conversation to talk about longterm recovery. I only want to say that because I want to go back to the word trust. It is very, very clear how much we distrust poor folks and folks who live in low income communities, right? We've always known this and I think right now something like artist relief is a bridge to those communities.

Deana Haggag:

We've had to pace hella fast to meet that within the infrastructures of our orgs. Creative capital, Arcadia, Foundation for Contemporary Art, Academy of American Poets, Young Arts, the Map Fund in USA, we're all little baby orgs and now all of a sudden we're like an over 50% coalition that is dragging at this thing. I think everyone wants to have a conversation about what is the longterm recovery going to look like. To me, the pacing there is just how fast are we going to change our minds about how much we trust poor people? Truly, how fast can we shift that psychology societally before we even all get together to figure out what does life look like for the next year, 18 months.

Deana Haggag:

Because even now in the middle of needs being entirely clarified across every industry and in every region of our country, there are still industries that are questioning handouts and charity and how to inform how certain money is spent to vulnerable communities and I'm like, "Oh, the pace on that needs to move faster."

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah, yeah. You're so right on that and I think part of that's just nonprofits only exists because rich people don't trust poor people.

Deana Haggag:

Yeah, exactly.

Lauren Ruffin:

I was always astounded when I was working in a homeless shelter. I managed a $20 million stuff program. We were giving out backpacks to kids and everything else, gift cards. The question I got more often than not, when someone gave me a $50 gift card was, "How does your organization guarantee that these people are not going to spend this gift card on alcohol in the store?" And I would look at them in Bethesda, Maryland and be like, "Your 16 year old gets wasted every weekend."

Deana Haggag:

Literally.

Lauren Ruffin:

You don't think that someone who is raising three kids on $700 a month in Washington DC that you've rapidly gentrified gets to buy a case of beer? Like I just don't. But that piece around trusting, it's a radical idea that we would in the United States, we would trust people to understand, one, to look out for their communities with any sort of relief effort and to prepare those who are sort of closest to them. So y'all raised what, like 11 or 12 million in a couple-

Deana Haggag:

Yeah, we're at a little over 11 million right now. We launched with 10, I think now we've raised like another million and a half since we launched, and we're redistributing it. Someone is at my door. This deeply embarrassing, but this doorbell keeps ringing. [crosstalk 00:19:52] while I talk and then-

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah, totally, it's a really cute doorbell.

Tim Cynova:

Lauren looked down at her desk and I thought, is this a new ring on your phone or is this like the old Nokia phone ring?

Lauren Ruffin:

No, here we go. [crosstalk 00:20:04] That's not an old Nokia phone ring because that ring is very distinctive. It's not that cute. My phone ring is not that cute.

Deana Haggag:

I love it. Yeah, so we launched with 10 million. We're distributing it in $5,000 unrestricted grants cross-discipline, and I think the number one thing we're prioritizing is just need, but it's rough. So we wanted to launch with 10 million specifically to be able to fund a hundred artists a week until September. The reason for that again, is we just wanted to make sure we reached artists where communication's not going to travel fast versus spending out 10 million in a month. It's just that way there's no way coastal cities, visual art, will hear about it faster. There was no way to do that equitably. But in our first cycle, which closed last week, we got over 55,000 applications. [crosstalk 00:20:51] Yeah, we funded 300 of those people.

Lauren Ruffin:

Thousand?

Deana Haggag:

55,000, yeah. Which I think that brings me to the single biggest adamant revelation about this whole thing, which is on one hand the arts are an economic engine and we all know this and we're constantly trying to justify ourselves in this frame. But I think this thing really is like, damn, we are like a workforce. We are a massive, massive, multidisciplinary workforce. I think in a moment where I think COVID-19 has really lost the narrative around how the United States takes care of its workforce, is super clarified. That being a gig worker in the United States... Being a worker, period in the United States is hard and complicated, but being a gig worker, there is nothing for you. It really doesn't matter that, I mean, it does matter of course, that Congress wrote 1099 employees into the Cares Act under unemployment.

Deana Haggag:

But there's also a moment where unemployment can't keep up with any worker, let alone adding a huge workforce. So I think that at Artist Relief reading these applications is wild, because it really clarifies our industry and our industry is akin to restaurant workers, domestic workers, transportation workers sometimes because artists are both. A nanny and a poet, a painter and a bartender, but then when they're not and their sole income is coming from their work in a self-employed way, they move at the same speed that some of these other industries do. So I really am hopeful that a longterm strategy is that we band together with other industries of gig workers. We fight this fight that people need to be insured. The number of things we're reading that could be preventable are like what? That part's been hard.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. I think in hindsight, we look back at the decade of 2010 to 2020, the rise of the concept of gig worker and the gig economy and that going from a side gig to people's full-time work is something that we didn't consent to as workers. It happened, and it's been interesting working in the art sector and seeing that from sort of working in homeless shelters and seeing how that became a lifeline for people to get out of poverty. But I don't think it's the same thing for the arts and culture sector.

Lauren Ruffin:

I'm really curious about how we start to reframe work and absolutely a hundred percent reframing solidarity for the other sectors. Restaurant opportunity coalition is doing amazing work, has always done amazing work. To me, that's the bedrock. You can't meet a restaurant worker in New York City who wasn't also an actor, actress, performer, artist.

Deana Haggag:

Yeah.

Lauren Ruffin:

I think you're so right on that. Can we ask the suitcase question?

Tim Cynova:

Yeah, let's go with the suitcase. So we've got two minutes left, so we need to get suitcase in.

Lauren Ruffin:

Okay. Deana, life is a suitcase. You're carrying this bag around with you. We've been in this thing for like five weeks, this pandemic. What was in your suitcase before we went to the pandemic that you are not taking with you after we're out, if we're ever out, and what have you discovered during the pandemic that you were keeping in your suitcase forever?

Deana Haggag:

Oh my Lord. Okay. So first of all, I've cooked more than I ever have in my life. I would like to keep that. I'm amazed a little bit that when you cook you just have to like wash dishes constantly. This is blowing my mind that you like eat on a dish and then you wash it and then you just put more food on it and then you wash it and then you just put more food on it and then you wash it. But yeah, the cooking has been incredibly... I want to take that with me. I've been super into risottos. You can just totally zone out for 20 minutes and stir and you just really get into a rhythm and you can't really be on your phone, it's just you and the risotto and something about that's really intimate and nice. So that I want to take with me forever, cooking.

Deana Haggag:

What I want to leave behind, I mean honestly and maybe it's not possible, I want to leave behind the performances of my profession. I think a thing about COVID that I've loved so much is for a second, for a glimmering second, lots of incredible people were willing to break the fourth wall together and it was cross industry. It was the lawyers, philanthropists, the nonprofits. Everyone was just like, but this is how the world really is and we met certain challenges because we all just broke the fourth wall.

Deana Haggag:

I think maybe it's a little twofold. I want to leave behind all the things that made that not as possible pre-COVID, and I want to take with me this way that everybody together could say, "Hey, I know we think we ought to do it this way, but what about this?"" And then everyone in the room was like, "Yeah, there's literally no reason we can't do it that way. Let's go."

Deana Haggag:

So the last thing I do want to take is the power of a coalition and I think that's what I love so much about your broadcast is that, in some weird way, it's like this strange morning-ish coalition moment you've made every morning with people in the workplace. But that sense of collaboration I think is actually really mighty.

Tim Cynova:

Well and with that we're out of time, but before we go, we can't just stop there and be like, "That's where we're ending it." Are there any parting thoughts? Anything you wanted to include that you didn't?

Deana Haggag:

No, I'd like to just reiterate that everybody needs to read books by disabled people. Follow disabled people on the internet. Just find your disabled homies like fast. That's it, thank you.

Tim Cynova:

Yeah. Deana, amazing to have you on the show. Thank you so much.

Deana Haggag:

Thank you.

Tim Cynova:

Oh, sorry. If you want to say thank you again. I cut you off.

Deana Haggag:

Thank you. No, no, bye-bye, bye.

Tim Cynova:

Oh God, This is the worst ending to the show. Yes, it was so amazing.

Lauren Ruffin:

It also might've been the best.

Tim Cynova:

Continue the Work Shouldn't Suck live adventure with us on our next episode when we're joined by Diane Ragsdale and Andrew Taylor. Miss us in the meantime? You can download more Work Shouldn't Suck episodes from your favorite podcasting platform of choice and re-watch Work Shouldn't Suck live episodes over on workshouldntsuck.co. If you've enjoyed the conversation or are just feeling generous today, please consider writing a review on iTunes so that others who might be interested in the topic can join the fun too. Give it a thumbs up, or five stars or phone a friend, whatever your podcasting platform of choice offers. If you didn't enjoy this chat, please tell someone about it who you don't like as much. Until next time, thanks for listening.

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Guest User 5/1/20 Guest User 5/1/20

Live with Edgar Villanueva! (EP.31)

Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guest Edgar Villanueva. [Live show recorded: April 28, 2020.]

Last Updated

May 1, 2020

Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guest Edgar Villanueva. [Live show recorded: April 28, 2020.]

Guest: Edgar Villanueva

Co-Hosts: Tim Cynova & Lauren Ruffin

Episode Transcript

Guest

EDGAR VILLANUEVA is a globally-recognized expert on social justice philanthropy. Edgar serves as Chair of the Board of Directors of Native Americans in Philanthropy, NDN Collective, and is a Board Member of the Andrus Family Fund, a national foundation that works to improve outcomes for vulnerable youth.

Edgar currently serves as Senior Vice President at the Schott Foundation for Public Education where he oversees grant investment and capacity building supports for education justice campaigns across the United States.

Edgar is the award-winning author of Decolonizing Wealth, a bestselling book offering hopeful and compelling alternatives to the dynamics of colonization in the philanthropic and social finance sectors.

In addition to working in philanthropy for many years, he has consulted with numerous nonprofit organizations and national and global philanthropies on advancing racial equity inside of their institutions and through their investment strategies.

Edgar holds two degrees from the Gillings Global School of Public Health at The University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. Edgar is an enrolled member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina and resides in Brooklyn, NY.

Transcript

Tim Cynova:

Hi, I'm Tim Cynova and welcome to Work. Shouldn't. Suck. Live, the morning-ish show. On today's episode, Lauren Ruffin and I are joined by Edgar Villanueva. Edgar is a globally recognized expert on social justice philanthropy. He currently serves as senior vice president at the Schott Foundation for Public Education where he oversees grant investments and capacity building support for education justice campaigns across the US. Edgar is also an award-winning author of Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom To Heal, Divides And Restore Balance, a bestselling book offering hopeful and compelling alternatives to the dynamics of colonization in the philanthropic and social finance sectors and Liberated Capitol a decolonizing wealth fund is a giving circle created by Edgar that's online at grapevine.org. To date, their Native American community response fund for COVID has already raised nearly $400,000. We have so much to discuss today, so without further ado, Edgar, welcome to the show.

Edgar Villanueva:

Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.

Tim Cynova:

Lauren, this is when you take the first question.

Lauren Ruffin:

Sorry, I had a weird glitch on my screen. Hi, Edgar. Good morning.

Edgar Villanueva:

Hey, good morning, ish.

Lauren Ruffin:

Oh yeah, it's good morning for me. Almost good afternoon for y'all. So one of the questions we've been asking all of our guests just to ground us, is how are you and how's your community doing?

Edgar Villanueva:

For me personally, it's day to day. I am fortunate to have a job in these times that I can work from home. So I'm grateful for that. I live in Brooklyn, New York, and I'm very fortunate to have a backyard, which is a rare thing here. So I do have moments where I can have some outdoor time there. So it's day to day, I think like everyone, I have my moments of personal anxiety and fear and just sadness. I'm holding a lot of grief around what's happening here in New York City, but also just around the world. My community in particular, it's what's causing me a lot of pain. You guys have probably seen the headlines, native communities across the country are greatly impacted and especially right now in the southwest, with the Navajo nation and the Pueblos across New Mexico. So I'm daily tracking and checking in with people there and doing everything I can to help from here in New York to support these communities.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah, we've noticed that some of our guests, and Tim gave us the background on your bio and told us some things about you, but a lot of our guests and how they introduce themselves has shifted a little bit. So how are you introducing yourself right now and what are you thinking is your primary means of working in service right now?

Edgar Villanueva:

I think the way I would introduce myself is sharing who my people are. Where I'm from originally in North Carolina, we say, "Who's your people?" When we meet someone new. My people for the most part are black and brown indigenous people who are on the side of justice, fighting for social justice and liberation, those progressive white brothers and sisters and relatives that are a part of this struggle as well. I work often in and around spaces of philanthropy, and really find myself connected to and building community with people who are organizing and resources for community. So I get up every day with a passion for moving money specifically into communities of color and native communities.

Edgar Villanueva:

I think of myself as someone from the south, that's a big part of my identity. I am from North Carolina. I'm an enrolled member of the Lumbee Tribe, which is the largest, a native American tribe east of the Mississippi river. I think of myself as a spiritual person and as a person that is really connected to community and a person who's committed to healing in my own life, but also helping to support healing in others.

Tim Cynova:

You wrote Decolonizing Wealth and I want to thank personally for taking the time to write that book, I read it last fall when I was traveling to Grantmakers in the Arts Conference in Denver. Most of the sessions were focused on social justice, racial equity, and then I flew immediately to the Conscious Capitalism CEO Summit outside of Austin, Texas. Your book has been deeply meaningful in my own journey in anti-racism, anti-oppression and then to sit with the ideas, having arrived at Grantmakers in the Arts and then go to Conscious Capitalism and take my colleagues' thoughts with me from ... when I told them at Grantmakers in the Arts where I was going. I'm wondering for those who haven't read it, if you can talk about what led you to write the book and maybe how have some of the ideas that you put in the book have evolved or changed in light of current events?

Lauren Ruffin:

So I think what led me to write the book. It's interesting, a lot of folks have approached me, they think they may want to write a book. I think personally for me, writing a book is a calling, I felt like I had a story inside of me that had to come out, that it wasn't even a choice, I had to get it out. I think what was driving that was just my personal experience as a Native American person who had found themselves working in this crazy world of institutional philanthropy, which is a mystery to a lot of folks. I came from poverty. I came from a position of not having a lot of power and then when I got into this field, I automatically was at the table with a lot of power and a lot of access to resources and in a place that has this facade of doing good in the world.

Lauren Ruffin:

I initially thought early on in my work that, while this is ... how I'm very fortunate to be a part of this sector that's so aligned with wanting to make change in the world, all I ever want to do in life, was make a difference. There's so much that transpired in my career and in my journey, where I began to be really disillusioned about the role of philanthropy in the sector and I just begin uncovering other parts of our work that are hidden away and began to just what the net value of this work was in actuality. I experienced a lot of pain personally and then I saw that a lot of people like me, especially people of color, women, queer folks, people coming from marginalized backgrounds, found it very difficult to work in this space and often did not last very long. I began just journaling about my own experiences and my pain, and trying to find meaning in doing this work.

Lauren Ruffin:

Should I be in this field? Is there another place where I'm actually supposed to be? Is this legitimate? And just really through that process of journaling and having conversations with a lot of people who've got a shared experience, I realized, "Well, I think there's a story here." Where it really began to become clear to me is that the experience that I had, this is so much about money and it is so much about philanthropy and the nonprofit sector, but is actually a shared experience across sectors and for many people in the world. In wanting to get to a place of real change, real transformation, what are the lies that we're telling ourselves and what is the truth that's hidden away that we need to bring to the surface, to really grapple with once or for all, if we're really going to move forward as philanthropy, as institutions that could be in a right relationship with community, but also just as people in community and as people that live in this country that has yet to go through that type of process?

Lauren Ruffin:

I don't know, I think in short, it was writing the book was my own healing journey. Where I landed with the book is not where I thought I was going to land. It was going to be something very different, but my own experience of healing throughout writing that process began to steer me toward a different vision for what I wanted to offer the sector.

Tim Cynova:

I mean there's so much that resonated with me. One of the things that I have held is philanthropy have often investment portfolios that support the 5% that then they give out and the ... It's not a dichotomy, it's the tension between where you might be investing, it could be 95% undermining the money that you're giving out and we're seeing this increasingly responsible investing. Where are you putting your money to make sure that it's in line with your values as an organization? Certainly from our own standpoint at Fractured Atlas thinking where we've invested, does it align with our anti-racism, anti-oppression commitments, and how can we move toward that, has been something that certainly is, well, it was [inaudible 00:08:24]. So I'll end the part at where I talked about how excited I was to read your book and how cool it is to have you on our show. So Lauren, you can take us in a different direction now.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah, you're totally nerding out, I [crosstalk 00:08:33] that.

Tim Cynova:

I am, this is the [inaudible 00:08:34] look.

Lauren Ruffin:

You are absolutely geeking out right now.

Edgar Villanueva:

Love it.

Tim Cynova:

If you cannot have a live stream where you get to hang out with cool people who you always wanted to meet, what's the purpose of a live stream?

Lauren Ruffin:

Throw the live stream in the trash if you can't do that.

Tim Cynova:

Very much so.

Lauren Ruffin:

The transfer of wealth thing resonates with me as a former fundraiser or retired fundraiser, whatever I am, because we're seeing right now in so much of the recovery stimulus package, CARES Act, that we're seeing hundreds of billions of dollars of wealth transfer from the federal government and the latest data I think says that probably at least 90% of that is going to wealthy white people and I think our audience is really going to have to grapple with that reality because I think businesses that we care about are going to just be gone and people that we love are not going to be employed and there's just so much fantastic work that's going to be lost as this wealth is transferred. Do you have any words around strategies that we can use to start to recover from this, or to even grapple with how this is happening in the United States yet again?

Edgar Villanueva:

Money always tells a story and I've had people that say, "Wealth isn't just about money. What about other kinds of wealth?" I do think of wealth more broadly, but money is this very tangible thing that really tells a story about where our values are and what we care about, budgets are story. So historically, the way that money has been used reflects how people in power think and feel about people of color and indigenous people. Philanthropy, where money goes and where it doesn't go also paints a picture on what is really important. Regardless of what we say on our website, or what our missions are, the money tells the story of what life we're really about. When I think in the stimulus packages, you see the same thing happening in terms of who was prioritized in these relief efforts.

Edgar Villanueva:

We see first and foremost that corporations ... First, corporations then small businesses and then people and then tribes, right?

Lauren Ruffin:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Edgar Villanueva:

Indigenous communities are at the very bottom. So I think for folks who hold access to resources are the gatekeepers to these resources, where they make decisions around where to put the money is just a direct reflection of what's really important to them and what they care about. It's obvious when you look at the big picture of how capital was moving through the world, in general, there is a disconnection from people and a disconnection from the planet and it's a separation-based economy. So the only response to that that I have is I think we have to have a fundamental shift in our world view and our values and maybe the silver lining in this pandemic, my hope is that this situation has shook us to our core to wake us up, to help us remember what's really important.

Edgar Villanueva:

What is really important? Right now, there's a lot of things that I thought were important six months ago that I do not care about right now. I thought it was important to step out of my house, dressed to the nines like in the [inaudible 00:11:26]. Right now, I don't care about that. I could care less what ...

Lauren Ruffin:

You still look good.

Edgar Villanueva:

Well thank you, thank you. Don't you feel like even celebrities and people that we tend to track, where are they right now? None of that stuff, seeing everything feels so superficial. What seems most important in this moment is that we take care of people and that we survive this pandemic together. I hope in some small way, that that awakening for some people sticks and that we figure out and understand that the inequalities that have been exposed to this pandemic are unacceptable and that there is a different way that we can show up as leaders in community, as folks who have the responsibility to care for the public, that we can learn from the failures and begin to design a different type of future that does center people and the planet. That's my hope and prayer and the only way I see us getting out of this and not repeating that cycle over and over in the future.

Tim Cynova:

Speaking about the designing of the future, we talk a lot on this live stream about the workplace and what's happening right now with so many people so unprepared as organizations to now be working remote and I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about your work at the Schott Foundation, because you're working in education justice and at the same time that we're seeing this from workplaces, we're also seeing schools, where people are wrestling with both of these at the same time. Sorry, I just had a puppy whining at the door, so train of thought, Tim. Wonder if you could talk about what you're doing right now, hopes for the future there and how can we use this time to build that future that works for everyone, not just for some?

Edgar Villanueva:

Schools are communities too and they're very, very important communities. I think of schools as really some of the remaining institutions in our communities that represent our democracy. The right to a quality public education is one of the fundamental rights of our democracy and it's sad to me that that is actually under attack. What I'm hearing and seeing from our partners at the Schott Foundation right now is who have been fighting to preserve that right to a education for all kids in this country. I've been hearing that a lot of the challenges facing communities, especially communities of color that we focus on and prioritize in our work, that kids are not having access to food of course, that ... where feeding was happening in schools. Kids not having access to mental health support and safe places, young people not having the resources and the technology and the equipment they need to do this distance learning.

Edgar Villanueva:

So a lot of the challenges that young people of color are already facing in trying to have access to the same rights and privileges as others have been exacerbated in this moment. The folks that we support at the Schott Foundation are the parents, the students, the teachers who organize and are working to build power in communities to ensure that communities of color and parent voice and student voice, those voices are at the table when decisions are being made about our young people. So my concern is in this moment, is that we're being distracted of course by this emergency and this crisis, which is critical as something we have to do. But we also have to watch because in every disaster, disaster capitalism. This happened in New Orleans right after Katrina, where private charters came in and completely dismantled the education system there and privatized it and folks with corporate agendas.

Edgar Villanueva:

So I'm very concerned at this moment what could be happening and what plans are being put in place to erode public education in this country and to look at our young people as commodities, or to look at dismantling these institutions of democracy in our communities that, especially for communities of color, they are our homes and lives such a critical part of our identity and a place where we feel safe. So that's what we're thinking about at Schott right now. It's both the immediate response, what do we need to do right now to make sure that young people are okay and safe and have food and have the equipment to continue their learning? But also working with our advocacy partners and our network to understand what do we need to be thinking about right now when kids get ready to return to school, hopefully in the fall. What type of schools are they going to be coming into? What type of supports will they need as a result of this additional trauma that has been placed on them and how do we continue to fight for the right to public education when there is a movement that's trying to dismantle that?

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah, I think that's spot on, in particular linkage to the rise of the charter movement in New Orleans after Katrina, that was super wild. In terms of knowledge, my wife works for the public education department here in New Mexico, we've been talking a lot about what kids learn in school and when. Full disclosure, I'm a total prepper so I'm a survivalist, freak out person. So she's like, "Great. Lauren's got something to really sink her teeth into on this one." But when you spoke last year at Native Women Lead and I was there and listened. It was the first time I had heard you speak, I was really ... and I hold onto this idea that you shared around indigenous wisdom being something that so many of us are looking for right now. Even if we don't know that's what it is. I was wondering if you could share a little bit more about that stream of thought, in particular because as a lifelong learner, we talk about K through 12 and then higher ed, but there is this sort of lifelong relationship with each other and with the planet, that I think is particularly important right now.

Edgar Villanueva:

Absolutely. For me, as a native person who did not grow up in my community, I grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. I was the only native in my school. I didn't really know any other Native Americans outside my immediate family until I got to college. I have been on this quest for many, many years to reconnect and to be Indian enough. Is there something I've missed by this experience? Frankly, I had internalized dominant culture or white dominant ways of being in so many ways because of the society that we live in, frankly. It's funny, as I was writing the book, I spent a lot of time talking to elders and really trying to get to what are those nuggets of indigenous wisdom that I need to understand and practice in my own life? What did I perhaps miss because I didn't grow up on a reservation, or in a native community in that way.

Edgar Villanueva:

As I was learning some of these ... hearing these stories and jotting down these pieces of wisdom, I understood in that moment that that wisdom has always been with me because it was in my body. I had inherited these ideas, I had just lost my way. So part of the call to understand indigenous wisdom is the invitation to everyone to return to your original instructions.

Edgar Villanueva:

When you look back in your own family's history, regardless of where you come from, what I have found is that many of us have a shared sense of values and a way of being that was communal, that was tribal, that was about ensuring that we were all cared for and that was handed down to all of us. Somewhere along the way, we've lost those identities, the idea of all my relations, that we are all inherently connected and that our interdependence is inescapable.

Edgar Villanueva:

We've lost our way with that because we've assimilated to this idea of being American and individual and ideas of competition. So it's not like we have, or I have, these secrets over here that we're not telling anybody that are like ... It's a worldview to that I think we all can share and it goes back to our own families and it simply just comes down to like really placing people as the center of everything we do and understanding ideas like seven generations. Every decision that I make today impacts generations to come for seven generations.

Edgar Villanueva:

If we actually hold that value and that mindset that wow, my decisions will impact people outside of my immediate family for generations to come, every choice I make impacts others, every choice I make impacts this planet. That's a whole nother lens to [inaudible 00:19:39] in how we show up in the decisions that we make.

Edgar Villanueva:

We have subscribed to this false way of being where we think if it's not happening in my backyard and it doesn't impact me. That's why corporations can dump toxic waste right down the street and sleep just fine at night because, "Oh, it's not in my backyard, it doesn't impact me." Well, we all know that the toxic waste of getting into the water that we all drink and we're all going to die because of it. Because regardless of our backgrounds, we are all connected.

Edgar Villanueva:

So those are the nuggets of indigenous wisdom that I share in the book and bring to life through storytelling and really understanding a process that we can engage on personally to remember our original instructions.

Tim Cynova:

Thank you. I want to combine both a viewer question and a question about the Native American Community Response Fund. So, viewer question, curious about the processes of requesting and receiving funding, which tend to favor large organizations with staff and capacity to complete that process. So the question is what are you changing to open the door wider? The other question is, as it relates to funding, and what is the Native American Community Response Fund and how does it work? I would just put those two questions together as we're making decisions that do influence seven generations from now.

Edgar Villanueva:

I think in two ways, I'm trying to make a difference. One is being a disruptor in this space, speaking truth to power and really pushing philanthropy when inviting philanthropy into a loving conversation about the reality of all the barriers and things that are in place that are prohibiting the flow of resources to organizations that are deemed to not have the capacity, which is a whole nother thing. So we know within philanthropy, only 8% of grants actually go to communities of color. So I am challenging my colleagues in this space, through my work at the Schott Foundation, through my work with Decolonizing Wealth, to hold up a mirror and do that hard work of where am I perpetuating a colonizer mindset, or colonial dynamics that are inherent in this system that have to be dismantled in order to liberate those resources and move money to where the hurt is the worst? Which for me is in communities of color.

Edgar Villanueva:

The other thing, part two of my response would be, we need to find ways to move faster and to just move capital into communities of color today. We don't have the luxury to sit back for people to catch up and understand and think about it and especially when by far, the folks who are making those decisions in philanthropy are still white men. So I'm pushing folks to get on their own learning journeys and do this work and shift our grantmaking practices and bring DEI all the way around into your work. But at the same time, look for these opportunities to move capital now. There are people of color led organizations and institutions and philanthropic intermediaries, like the Schott Foundation, like what I'm doing with this Native Response Fund, who already have the analysis and have the relationships to move that money in a way that centers community and justice today.

Edgar Villanueva:

So one example, as you mentioned Tim, we are running a rapid response fund to support native communities through Decolonizing Wealth called the Native American Community Response Fund, and what I say with this fund ... Well let me just say that the fund is about supporting native-led organizations who are on the front lines responding, providing relief, providing support. So food, housing, shelter, access to medical care, the whole nine yards and we're funding across the US, we began looking in the urban centers where we have large native populations supporting there and as a pandemic has shifted and now the nation Navajo is now a hotspot, we're moving resources there as well. What I would say about Liberating Capital, which is the giving circle that we have at Decolonizing Wealth supporting this fund, is that this is not about charity, this is about solidarity.

Edgar Villanueva:

So going right back to what we've been talking about, we're not asking for a handout in our communities. We are extending a lifeline into your own humanity and into your own liberation and healing by giving to our communities. I think this transfer of wealth is helping to reset a balance of power and resources that will help our communities in the long term have what we need through a self-determined process to survive and sustain ourselves. We often get caught up on thinking about a good grant and an effective grant and as you were saying at the start of the show Tim, that 5%, I want the 95%. I want your grant and I also want capital. I want folks to divest from these harmful and destructive industries and actually write large checks out of their endowments and hand that money over to these natives and black and Latino and other communities of color led intermediaries that are doing this work already embedded in community. That's the way that we decolonize wealth and shift wealth in a way that is closing the race wealth gap.

Tim Cynova:

God, yes. We've got some affirmative comments on the YouTube chat and we also are coming up on time. So one last question, any parting thoughts as we come in to land the plane now?

Edgar Villanueva:

We're out of time, so please check out the website, decolonizingwealth.com, information about the fund is there and I just encourage everyone to start their journey. This is not about whether or not you work in philanthropy or a nonprofit sector. We are all called to be leaders and agents of change and it starts with our families. We need to do this work of healing as individuals. We need to do it with our families and we need to do it with each other. So everyone, I'm asking you to have grace toward your fellow human beings during this crazy time, spread the love and find some way to get involved in supporting in this moment. We heal through giving and so I've found my sustainability and healing in this moment is by running these funds and knowing that I'm doing my part to give back and to help take care of others and so that's what we've all got to do in this moment.

Tim Cynova:

Thank you so much for being on the episode. If you didn't know, a huge honor to have you on the episode. Again, Decolonizing Wealth, Edgar's book is available, go to the website. Thank you so much for taking time to spend some of it with us this morning.

Edgar Villanueva:

Absolutely. Thank you again for having me on.

Tim Cynova:

Continue. The Work. Shouldn't. Suck. Live adventure with us on our next episode, when we're joined by Deana Haggag, president and CEO of United States Artists. Missed us in the meantime? You can download more Work. Shouldn't. Suck. episodes from your favorite podcasting platform of choice and re-watch Work. Shouldn't. Suck. live episodes over on workshouldntsuck.co. If you've enjoyed the conversation, or are just feeling generous today, please consider writing a review on iTunes so that others who might be interested in the topic can join the fun too. Give it a thumbs up, or a five stars, or phone a friend, whatever your podcasting platform of choice offers. If you didn't enjoy this chat, please tell someone about it who you don't like as much. Until next time, thanks for listening.

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Live with Cathy Edwards! (EP.30)

Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guest Cathy Edwards. [Live show recorded: April 27, 2020.]

Last Updated

April 30, 2020

Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guest Cathy Edwards. [Live show recorded: April 27, 2020.]

Guest: Cathy Edwards

Co-Hosts: Tim Cynova & Lauren Ruffin

Episode Transcript

Guest

CATHY EDWARDS is Executive Director of the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA), where she has served since January, 2015. She believes art has a unique role to play in engaging people and communities, and is committed to building opportunity and equity in the creative sector. NEFA invests in artists and communities and fosters equitable access to the arts, enriching the cultural landscape in New England and the nation. The organization administers an array of grant-making programs and professional services, and conducts research into New England’s creative economy. NEFA works in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts, the nation’s Regional Arts Organizations, and New England’s six state arts agencies, in addition to private philanthropy, to accomplish its work, with an annual budget of over $8 million. Cathy previously served as director of programming at the International Festival of Arts & Ideas in New Haven, CT; as the artistic director at both the Time-Based Art Festival at PICA in Portland, OR and Dance Theater Workshop in New York City; and as co-director of Movement Research in New York City. She has served on the board of directors of the Association of Performing Arts Professionals, as chair of the board of directors of Movement Research, and as vice-chair of the board of directors of the National Performance Network. She holds a BA from Yale College. Cathy has two children, both young adults, is married to an activist law professor, and lives in both New Haven, CT and Cambridge, MA.

Transcript

Tim Cynova:

Hi, I'm Tim Cynova and welcome to Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show. On today's episode, Lauren Ruffin and I are joined by Cathy Edwards. Cathy currently serves as the executive director of the New England Foundation for the Arts, or NEFA for short, found online at NEFA.org. NEFA invest in artists and communities, and fosters equitable access to the arts, enriching the cultural landscape in New England and beyond. Cathy previously served as the Director of Programming at the International Festival of Arts and Ideas, as the Artistic Director at both the Time-Based Art Festival at PICA in Portland, Oregon, and Dance Theater Workshop in New York City. And, as co-director of Movement Research in New York City. She has served on the board of directors of the Association of Performing Arts Professionals, as Chair of the board of Movement Research, and as Vice Chair of the board of the National Performance Network. We're so excited for her to join us today. Without further ado, Cathy, welcome to the show.

Cathy Edwards:

Thank you. It's great to see you both.

Lauren Ruffin:

Same. I realized this live stream is a steady parade of people that I love talking to, but I don't ever pick up the phone and call. Totally my fault, but it's really good to see you. Our first question is, how are you doing and how is the NEFA community doing right now? What are you hearing and seeing?

Cathy Edwards:

I'm doing okay. I lead a kind of itinerant life during my normal pre-COVID weeks. I vote and pay my taxes and my car is registered in New Haven, Connecticut, but I work in Boston so I spend a lot of time back and forth. And actually, it's been great to be living with my husband again, full time in New Haven. That was an unexpected upside. My two young adult kids came home. It's been great to have two young 20 somethings in the house. And so on a personal level, my day-to-day is fine.

Cathy Edwards:

I think all of us at NEFA, the NEFA team and staff, were holding it together. I really feel for my colleagues who've got little kids at home and are trying to work some crazy miracle of staying sane, while homeschooling and also trying to do some work and it's insane for them and there are constituents, like Diors, artists, folks who run cultural organizations and venues. Life sucks for them right now, things when it's really bleak. Many of my peer executive directors in the nonprofit sector or laying staff off, furloughing people figuring out, especially in live arts, are we going to reopen in September or is it going to be January? It's just really hard and artists and creative workers are suffering so massively. So things are not great in that regard.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. Yeah. So Tim gave you an intro, I mean a bio, but how are you thinking about yourself and your work right now?

Cathy Edwards:

Oh God. As you guys both know, because I've had the opportunity periodically to connect with you over the years, which has always been so great, I think a lot about how I can actually be of any service as a leader. And so this is for sure testing any of my nascent growing leadership skills. It's kind of like, "Wow, I think I realize I am a linear and logical person and leader, and this is the most complex time possible." Actually, to lead in a complex time, I think you really need to have so many sensory abilities and you need to, especially if you're a linear person, I need to double down on my listening skills all the time, every single day because there's so much that isn't being said directly, can't be said directly because the situation is so uncertain right now. But all of those things need to inform setting a direction and a human focused kind of approach to everything we do, as much as budgets and scenario plans and all of the other tools that we have as leaders to project into the future. So yeah, complex.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah, I think that's really interesting. We haven't talked about that yet on the live stream, the sort of listening component. And then when you couple that with so much about listening is actually body language, and how much of that's lost over screens right now, I think that's a really, really great point.

Tim Cynova:

Yeah. I teach a class on leadership and team building at the new school and in the first class we run down a list of traits that most high performing teams demonstrate, and it's trust, psychological safety, the ability to listen and then social sensitivity, picking up on cues. And without any foresight into everything going online, and I think it was the third session we went all online, we did it on Zoom and talked about the difference between what you can pick up from the upper third of everyone. When you lean into the screen, you're not getting any closer to the person. You can't tell if someone's really relaxed in their chair or paying attention really or looking someplace else and the different skills that we need to develop, increasingly, in this world where this is the only way we're seeing people, and if you're writing it can be read differently. You could resend an email or you could resent an and the things there. But I like you said, "Tim gave you a bio." I've just pulled together a random bio for Cathy. Everything was based in Cathy's real bio based.

Lauren Ruffin:

It was totally based in fact, it was not fake news. Cathy really did all of those things.

Tim Cynova:

Yeah.

Cathy Edwards:

Yeah.

Tim Cynova:

You can leave it like, "Tim gave you a bio."

Lauren Ruffin:

Tim gave you a bio. It's Monday, okay, cut me a break. Day five million and 72 of this dang pandemic.

Cathy Edwards:

One think I want to add to what you were just saying because it seemed really resonant to me is I do think the ways that we work creatively, we really need to lean into those right now. It's the deep listening, but it's also being creative, working in collaboration and in solidarity to figure something out that is meaningful right now. And actually, I do think at NEFA and for a lot of teams probably, but maybe I'll just say at NEFA and with me being in the same space to be collaborative and creative and really service as many voices as possible is something that I've realized over my five years that NEFA helps us to do our best work. So it's definitely, yeah, it's a big lift to try and stay true to the values and the vision of the organization, but actually change some of the strategies because the world has changed and the people that we are supposed to be serving have some shifting needs right now that we need to be responsive to.

Tim Cynova:

Well, that goes right into one of the things that's on your website. NEFA's values include equity, diversity, inclusion and accessibility. There's a great section on the NEFA website about COVID resources and there's a subsection in that social justice and inclusion resources, including silent rhythms, inclusive distancing, a guide for arts and culture sector on the inclusion and accessibility of persons with disabilities during COVID-19. I'm wondering, can you talk a little bit more about this journey that the organization's been on, how you were thinking about your values and this time and maybe what comes from this, that might be different or similar to what you were thinking three months ago?

Cathy Edwards:

Sure. I think for us at NEFA, when we basically kind of went through our last strategic planning process, which we do periodically, it coincided with the awareness that if we didn't really articulate what we meant when we talked about equity or diversity or inclusion or accessibility, we were holding ourselves back and we were not being accountable to a concrete vision of what we wanted our future to be and how we wanted to develop our skill sets and our strategies as an organization. So one of the most powerful things we did was kind of define some terms for ourselves. And really for the first time ever, I think, created a group of six core values the organization. And those have really served us as our bedrock aspirations, especially when we go through hard times and this is the hardest. So I think imagining forward to a future post COVID-19, I think about who are the organizations, who are the individual leaders in our sector, who are the ones that we just can't do without because they're so in tune with community needs and aspirations and humanity and art is their vehicle.

Cathy Edwards:

Art is the way that they do that. But fundamentally they're making our communities better and our places better and they're leading by living values of equity and inclusion. So even as we figure out where we are in the temporary normal of this disruptive period, really lifting up the leaders who we have been relying on at NEFA to articulate a course for us that is about a more just and equitable world. We have to be in that process with them as we think about how we take care of our employees and how we recruit for our board during this pandemic. We have to think about that when we approach loosening restrictions on grants and trusting and listening to our grantees when they tell us what they need. So it's the key. I think it's the key towards exiting this period of COVID-19 with any sense of setting the table for greater participation and inclusion in the arts.

Cathy Edwards:

And I love the work, especially in public art around like, well, what does it mean to engage in public space? Who set the terms for that? Because right now, we've got a lot of folks who are kind of experiencing like a second reckoning of almost a Trump administration coming into power. It's just a sense of like who belongs? Who is this country for? Who is our public space for? So really making sure that we're centering those concerns and those voices as well as envisioning strategies for when we come out of this that folks who have been historically underrepresented and marginalized.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. Tim, you were going to say something?

Tim Cynova:

Yeah, no, I was sitting with that response, that was really powerful, Cathy, really thought provoking. We've had conversations over the past month or year or so about physical space as it relates to the workplace, and we're talking a little bit ago about NEFA is in this process of looking at way of different office workspace might look like, but you've not gotten there before everything shut down. So I'm curious how you're now thinking about what is a workplace making any adjustments to the plans?

Cathy Edwards:

This is a really tough one. We, I think, are moving forward. We've got a space identified. We actually found a fantastic space. We are in a real estate market in Boston that is absolutely crushing and punishing and we were able to negotiate access to a space that needs to be used for a kind of cultural or startup organizations and as a result, we'll have access to pretty much, I think, half of market rate class A space.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yes.

Cathy Edwards:

So that's the main thing.

Lauren Ruffin:

Scream that from the rooftops. We can hear you in Boston from New Haven on that.

Cathy Edwards:

I do not want to let that go. And on the other hand, our board chair did say to me more than once, "Cathy, I hope we're not doing all this work and spending all these capital build-out dollars for a space nobody's going to want to use because you're all used to working remotely." And I had said that to our team at NEFA, our space force who's really organizing this whole thing a few times.

Tim Cynova:

Space force is the name. That is amazing.

Cathy Edwards:

We have a space force, and space force team of Doug and Abby and Steven are amazing and they have just kind of talked me down each time like, "No, we're still going to need a space. It might not be used exactly the way we had envisioned using it, but we're still going to need a space." So I keep repeating that to myself and thinking, I have to trust my colleagues and they say we're going to need a space, we're going to need a space. On the other hand, what I really think is that all these issues of flexibility in the work force and in the workplace. I remember when I started at NEFA, or before I started, I said to the chair of the search committee that hired me, "What if I work a couple days a week remote from Connecticut?" And he was like, "No, that's not fair." If you want the job, you've got to show up in Boston. I was like, "Okay." So there you go.

Cathy Edwards:

That's the impact of sort of reality, but it's one that's kind of been the de facto reality for everyone. We've got a very flexible workplace. If you need to work a day a week from home, if you can, if something comes up, no problem, just do it, no stress, just tell whoever you're going to talk to that day that it's going to be by the phone. And over the past five years, two of our employees have actually moved out of State and we let them do that and they've worked remotely and it's all been fine. But now I feel like, "Oh, this just happened and everybody's making it work." I don't know. It's hard for me to imagine us ever really going back to the kind of mandated five days a week in the office sort of situation that we generically were a part of because I'm even thinking about all the commuting time.

Cathy Edwards:

Boston's a tough city to get around in. Now 24 people are not spending up to an hour or two a day, getting back and forth. And then I think about the safety of our people. What's it going to be like? When is the T and public transportation going to be safe for people to travel on? Those are existential issues for us in the arts sector because we can't solve them. We're trying to figure out how front of house folks and box office people, arts educators can feel safe and confident being in public space. But anyway, I have a feeling that there will be even more flexibility where we work from and how we do our work in the years to come.

Tim Cynova:

What's your personal default? If you could just sketch what your personal workplace schedule would look like, are you more of like, "I need to be in the office four days a week. I can do one day remote." Or if all things were equal, you would just work offsite four or five days a week and pop in and maybe once a month?

Cathy Edwards:

That's a really good question. I've almost not allowed my own personal imagination to go there. And I think partly it is kind of like I do feel again, for my own style where I need to continually practice my deep listening and my emotional intelligence at work, being in the same place as other people really works for me. But I don't think I'm ever going to feel like I need to be in the office.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah.

Cathy Edwards:

Those days are gone.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. Yeah. For most of my work history, I've had atrocious commutes, 90 minutes, two hours, horrible commutes around D.C. And so starting to work at Fractured Atlas, I definitely appreciated being able to work remote because I was living in D.C. and our office is in New York. We've had people who, as we slowly transitioned to being a hundred percent remote organization, who are really clear about their need to travel to an office. And I do wonder how this time is going to make people really think about time differently and that piece around commuting I think is so important, like how much productivity and energy can we unlock just without having to do two hours a day, five days a week of getting back and forth to the office. I just think that's such a great point.

Tim Cynova:

Yeah. I'm reflecting on, I think it was Mica Scalin last week, talked about how people are developing new habits. We've done this long enough now that you've gone over the 30 days or whatever, the book habit says that people develop new habits. And what's it going to look like in six months of this and as you wrestle with those questions, how valuable is my time? Do I really want a three hour commute? Like some of our team at Fractured Atlas had a three hour commute coming from the outer reaches of the boroughs into Midtown Manhattan, an hour and a half each way, and all of a sudden have that time back to them. But also, the people who like are really high performing who are like, "I need that space in that physical place with other people to really do my best work." And I'm curious how this is, I mean I hope some organizational psychologists, organizational designers are capturing this massive experiment that's happening right now to try and figure out some things when, what is it, like millions of people all of a sudden are not traveling into the office?

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah, yeah. I think that's got to be a psychologist because there are some cities where it's definitely trauma getting around them and Boston and New York are two of those cities. Just walking when I'm in New York staying block away from Fractured Atlas's office, just getting across 8th Avenue, going past the Ghostbusters McDonald's to our office was just enough.

Cathy Edwards:

I think it occurred to me balance is a key word coming out of this. I mean balance is something we're all struggling for right now because we're working from home. I need to be pretty highly disciplined. I'm like, I have to get up every morning. I have to go for a walk before I sit down at my desk and I'm like nine to five, put on makeup or whatever. It's like I got to be in my work mode and then I've been so much more unplugged. Like at five o'clock, I get up from the computer and I don't look at it all weekend, and that was not typical before work was in my house. So then just reflecting on, oh, there's some probably some good things to learn about balance in this time, but there are so many things that I just miss so, so, so, so much. Commuting isn't one of them. But being in the same space with other people to collaborate, think creatively, to have fun, to experience art.

Lauren Ruffin:

That's a great transition into my next question because I know that you're thinking a lot about what performance art will look like, and on your website you talked about shared experiences being core to artistry. Can we talk about how are you thinking about what the future of performances will look like, and shared experiences?

Cathy Edwards:

I think in probably weeks one through three of the pandemic, I was just like, "It's going to be bad. I don't know exactly when, but we'll be back in our spaces doing our things." The longer it goes on, the more I have come to realize that there is a rewiring that's happening and that the employee and the audience safety considerations are not going to be solved any time very quickly, at least with the very hands off approach of our government right now. So it could be quite a while before we're back in space together. And people are actually doing amazing, creative things and they're really moving. And for the first three weeks of this I was totally resistant to that. I was like, "I am not going to be consuming more art online. I will read a book and all my hours looking at the Zoom, no, no more screen."

Cathy Edwards:

But I've also been amazed and moved and I feel like I'm practically going to start getting teary, but it was like just this weekend it all opened up for me and I watched some of the Met Opera Gala online. I was like, "This is amazing," to see all of these opera singers in their living rooms or by their pianos doing what they do and completely creatively opening up a new space that we would never have had access to before. I watched a live streamed concert that UMass Amherst Fine Arts Center hosted a cellist, a musician, Leyla McCalla, in her home in New Orleans with a facilitated discussion. And the sound quality wasn't very good, but I just felt like a new dimension of the humanity of artists was opening up for me. And that was beautiful. Onassis Foundation has a really great project called Onassis ENTER where they've been commissioning artists to create work within 120 hours for online. And there have been some really beautiful things there. So I'm starting to just crave that being part of what artists are thinking and how they're making.

Cathy Edwards:

So that will keep happening. But I have a lot of concern for the venues in the performing arts sector who have massive physical assets that cost a lot of money to maintain, at least for the foreseeable future, will not be the places where art is happening. Art will still happen, but we need to make sure we're paying artists when they create online and all those folks were, so no problem with that. But just in general, that's a new arena for commissioning and making work for artists and engaging with audiences. And the other thing is our sector needs to get a lot better about not paying artists only at the time of delivery of those procurements, but actually paying during the entirety of the process so that all the creative costs are being addressed when they're incurred. So that's a positive direction that I think we might go, in coming out of this sector, is reframing how presenters pay artists their work and how venues do.

Lauren Ruffin:

It strikes me that because you're in a region that's so diverse, and I mean in all the ways, so you've got cities like Boston that are fairly dense, lots of people of color. You've got Western Mass and Holyoke, which has people of color from a whole different background with very different economic needs. Then, if you're going all the way up into New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, then you get into really, really white States. You're probably hearing just so many different things from your grantees right now. Very early in the program, you talked about how you're being more flexible with your grant funds. Can you talk a little bit about that and maybe if you're seeing different needs from different communities?

Cathy Edwards:

Absolutely. I think the big thing I'll lift up that we did is we actually tapped NEFA's risk reserve fund, which we have for our own periodic needs. And we tapped that fund to give it over entirely to artists relief funds in the six New England States. And this issue of the different needs in each of the States and kind of equity of distribution was one we thought about as well, and we ended up taking that money, which was almost $300,000, and dividing it equally between all six States. Even though we knew that, for example, there are a lot more artists in Massachusetts because of the density of population. But what we also saw was that the funds that we put our money into were much better resourced in the southern New England States than the northern States. So Maine's artist relief fund started out with maybe $20,000, and Massachusetts started out with $225,000. So I think we do have an awareness that there is a lot more philanthropic and public money in the Southern New England States than there is in the Northern New England States, which are not only whiter, but the population is so much smaller and they're much older and poorer. So there are a lot of very interesting terrain of need in the region. Yeah.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. We don't talk about New England as a region the same way we talk about the South, but there are so many similarities in terms of wealthy, well-resourced areas and very, very rural populations.

Tim Cynova:

Well, that'll have to be for the next podcast, Lauren.

Lauren Ruffin:

Oh, sorry. I'll close my trap.

Tim Cynova:

We'll give you episode two. Cathy, as we bring the episode in for a landing, what are your parting thoughts for us?

Cathy Edwards:

For me. One of the saving graces of this whole time has been people like you, but honestly the collaboration and the solidarity with other fellow travelers in this beautiful arts and culture space, and being able to kind of lean into all the relationship building that we've done over the past years to actually make something more of it, and really achieve a mutual sense of help and purpose together. I am so grateful for that, so yeah, I'm grateful for you too. Thanks for doing this.

Lauren Ruffin:

That sounds great.

Tim Cynova:

Well, Cathy, we're grateful for you. Yeah, thank you so much for being on the show.

Cathy Edwards:

My pleasure. I'll see you soon.

Tim Cynova:

Continue the Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE adventure with us on our next episode when we're joined by Edgar Villanueva, Senior Vice President of Programs and Advocacy at the Schott Foundation, and author of, Decolonizing Wealth. Miss us in the meantime? You can download more Work. Shouldn't. Suck. episodes from your favorite podcasting platform of choice and re-watch Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE episodes over on workshouldntsuck.co. If you've enjoyed the conversation or just feeling generous today, please consider writing a review on iTunes so that others who might be interested in the topic and join the fund too. Give it a thumbs up or five stars or phone a friend, whatever your podcasting platform of choice offers. If you didn't enjoy this chat, please tell someone about it who you don't like as much. Until next time, thanks for listening.

The podcast is available for free on your favorite podcasting platforms:

If you enjoy the show, please leave a review on iTunes to help others discover the podcast.

Guest User 4/28/20 Guest User 4/28/20

Live with Jamie Gahlon & Vijay Mathew ! (EP.29)

Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guests Jamie Gahlon & Vijay Mathew. [Live show recorded: April 24, 2020.]

Last Updated

April 28, 2020

Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guests Jamie Gahlon & Vijay Mathew. [Live show recorded: April 24, 2020.]

Guests: Jamie Gahlon & Vijay Mathew

Co-Hosts: Tim Cynova & Lauren Ruffin

Episode Transcript

Guest

JAMIE GAHLON (she/her/hers) is the Director and a co-founder of HowlRound. She is a co-creator of the World Theatre Map and New Play Map, oversees the HowlRound Journal and HowlRound TV, supports the work of the Latinx Theatre Commons, and co-administers The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s National Playwright Residency Program, and regularly produces theatre convenings around urgent field-wide issues. Prior to her work at HowlRound, Jamie helped launched the American Voices New Play Institute and the NEA New Play Development Program at Arena Stage. Jamie has also worked for New York Stage & Film, and the New Victory Theatre. She is a proud member of the Latinx Theatre Commons Steering Committee, the Committee of the Jubilee, and a Think Tank Member for the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics. Jamie holds a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service with a focus on Culture & Politics from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. She originally hails from Minnesota, the land of 10,000 lakes, and likes to dabble.

VIJAY MATHEW (he/him/his) is the Cultural Strategist and a co-founder of HowlRound Theatre Commons, based at Emerson College, Boston, USA and is privileged to assist a talented team by leading HowlRound's development of commons-based online knowledge sharing platforms and the organization's notions of cultural innovation. Prior to his current position, he was the Coordinator for the National Endowment for the Arts (USA) New Play Development Program, as well as a Theater Communication Group (USA) New Generations Future Leader grant recipient in new work at Arena Stage in Washington, DC. Vijay has a MFA from New School University, New York, a BA from University of Chicago, and an artistic background as an ensemble-based filmmaker and theatremaker. He is a board member of Double Edge Theatre located in rural Ashfield, Massachusetts, USA.

Transcript

Tim Cynova:

Hi. I'm Tim Cynova, and welcome to Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE! The Morning(ish) show. On today's episode, Lauren Ruffin and I are joined by Jamie Gahlon and Vijay Mathew. Jamie and Vijay are two of the co-founders of HowlRound Theatre Commons, based at Emerson College in Boston, found online at howlround.com. HowlRound is a knowledge commons that encourages freely sharing intellectual and artistic resources and expertise, and was created as a direct response to research that suggested artists were increasingly distant from the center of theater making, within the not-for-profit institutional infrastructure. And, the new possibilities created by technology to influence theater practice. Its founding came at a time when they were seeing too many voices left off of our stages, not represented inside of our institutions, and not recognized for their substantial contribution to our past and present. The co-founders set about to create a group of tools that would amplify voices and issues chronically underrepresented and unheard in the theater, and we are excited to chat with them today. Without further ado, Jamie and Vijay, welcome to the show.

Jamie Gahlon:

That's so much for having us.

Vijay Mathew:

Hi. Thank you.

Lauren Ruffin:

Okay, so let's jump right in. One of the questions we've been ... I'm really, really excited to hear your responses, because I think the work that you're doing, the conversations you're having, are so very timely for the sector, is, how is your community doing, and what are you hearing right now?

Jamie Gahlon:

Yeah, that's such a great question. I would say that our community is vast and diverse, so we're hearing a lot of different things. I've been heartened to see and hear the work that a lot of individual artists are doing to promote knowledge sharing and solution envisioning, right now in this moment. Obviously, it shouldn't go without saying, but the impact of the pandemic on the theater sector is devastating, in particular for freelance artists, who have been hit incredibly hard. We've been lucky to collaborate and support on an incredible series via HowlRound TV with a group of freelance producers, Nicole Brewer, Hannah Fenlon, Ann Marie Lonsdale, Abigail Vega, who created a website called the Artist's Resources for Freelance Artists Website, and they have been hosting an incredible ongoing series on HowlRound TV addressing the needs for freelance artists right now. Talking about everything from processing this moment, grieving, sort of self care, spiritual response, all the way to very practical financial strategies, et cetera, et cetera.

Lauren Ruffin:

Awesome. Vijay, do you have anything to add to that?

Vijay Mathew:

What's been really wonderful is our ability to immediately support this incubator, or help support these initiatives that are really run by the community out there themselves. And that I feel like is our nice sweet spot, when ... or it's very fulfilling when we're able to do something like that, and so quickly.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah, so Tim gave you all a fantastic but very formal bio.

Tim Cynova:

It's Friday formal.

Lauren Ruffin:

I missed the memo. How do you all typically introduce yourselves, and your work?

Jamie Gahlon:

Yeah, so I guess I'd introduce myself as, "Hi, I'm Jamie Gahlon. I'm a producer, cultural organizer, theater maker." Yeah, currently based in Boston. I would introduce HowlRound's work... co-founder and director of HowlRound. We're really building a big and open table for conversation about the state of the theater field globally, and with an eye towards trying to really push the field to be more progressive, equitable, just, and sustainable. We function as a knowledge commons, which is... Another way of saying that that might be more approachable is that all of our content is community sourced. So our platform is really about stewarding the ideas and knowledge contributions of theater makers who choose to participate, along the values agenda that we've laid out. And all of our content is licensed under Creative Commons, which means that it can be shared openly and freely, which is in line with our ethos.

Tim Cynova:

HowlRound has made some really amazing resources available to help people with the technology backend to be able to do this. And Lauren I should pause here to thank you for, in particular, the piece that you wrote, How To Produce a Live Streamed Event. Spent several days pouring over that, looking at the resources, testing stuff out. You were also so kind to test a couple of things out when we were in the early days. For those who are interested in producing their own live stream event, HowlRound has some really amazing resources there. I also want to thank you for the piece that you wrote, that I learned about it in the fall, What's Your Vision For a Post Carbon Art Sector? Which was a really fascinating piece to read in the fall, and that was before we started seeing travel and life shutting down. In our green room, I was remarking that I saw a piece today that said, "Two days ago, only 24 flights took off from LaGuardia in the month of January." Just out of LaGuardia, 31,000 flights landed and took off from there.

Tim Cynova:

We're seeing photos of places around the globe that had been cloaked in smog for years and we're seeing cities that have, other than Albuquerque, coyotes walking down the center of the street, kangaroos and animals coming back to cities in a way that we haven't seen. I'm curious where your mind is right now as you think about what's going on in the world. How can we be proactive about some of these changes that are happening and holding on to some of the positive ones?

Vijay Mathew:

We're in a catastrophe right now, but at the same time it feels like there's a bit of grace. There's this time, or this moment, where before the... More of the waves of climate change starts to hit the global north, the wealthy countries. This is actually the moment, this is the opportunity to totally re-figure the way that we all operate as a society, as a civilization, as an economy. And I think at the end of this physical distancing moment, if we're coming back into the same thing that we had, what will our future opportunities of taking pause, what will those look like, and will they be more difficult to actually recover from? Yeah, I think we're at a fork in the road right now, and actually this is maybe the opportunity, at least us in the... what we can do, what we have control over, or a little tiny influence over, is our arts field. This is maybe the moment to redesign.

Lauren Ruffin:

In some ways in terms of building pipes for other folks to move along, the work that HowlRound does north of [inaudible 00:06:44] is similar, and I'm curious about your work structure as a team, internally. How has that shifted over the last few months and what tools and resources have been particularly helpful as you do this?

Jamie Gahlon:

So okay, on one hand everything has changed, but also in some ways nothing has changed, because so much of our work has existed digitally primarily. And so now we're all working from home, and obviously we all have different home circumstances that we're adjusting to and giving ourselves grace and flexibility with. But I would say the biggest area of shift for us has probably been around the preponderance of TV events and the figuring out how to adjust our capacity within our own staff to help meet the increased demand there.

Jamie Gahlon:

We've brought back someone we used to work with, and we've also increased hours for some other folks that we've been working with. But in terms of how we work together as a team, we've kept a lot of the rituals we had going before. So, we have our weekly team check-ins, we have an editorial meeting, we're certainly Gchatting a lot more. We're doing more Zoom Hangouts, and also we're anchored in the Office of the Arts at Emerson college. So, HowlRound is a sort of pod that's part of a bigger culture of Office of the Arts and there's a lot of meetups that we've been doing in that context as well, which have included things like yoga classes and meditation, and other kinds of newer offerings around self care that folks can choose to opt into.

Tim Cynova:

You all have been working for a decade on live streaming video events, and there's this rush of organizations and people now trying to figure this out. What have you found for the quote, unquote, best practices or for people to think about as they're hoping, or trying, to transition into more of a virtual convening setting than what might have formerly been 3D only?

Vijay Mathew:

Like best practices? I mean it depends, not everything needs to be live streamed. Just a conversation that's not completely public can meet all the goals. So, I mean that would be one thing is...really set the goals of why you're doing anything online and what you're hoped to achieve, and that can help determine the design of it. If it's just a video conference or a video conference and gets live streamed, and also keep things short and planned and maybe have an outline or structure because I think we're all getting a bit of a screen fatigue now.

Tim Cynova:

Yeah.

Lauren Ruffin:

Just a little bit. Or are you laughing, Tim, because you're so very structured?

Tim Cynova:

I look at Lauren and I'm like... I have a good sense of what Lauren is thinking about me, thinking about what I'm thinking about. But yeah, it's like they often refer to it as the Zoom meeting exhaustion coefficient. At least... It used to be just twice as exhausting as a 3d meeting, and I think it might be three or four times as exhausting now because we're just going from one thing to the next and it's just all on our screen. It's no longer a 3D meeting and then a Zoom meeting and then something else, and you go outside and you walk around you and... so just the back-to-back, I think. Maybe it's as the day goes on, could have been a 60-minute meeting... you're good if you get 10 out of it before people just start to fade.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. I just think that's the importance of saying no to things, and of being really protective of your calendar, I think is definitely... so many of our guests have struggled with the shift to being totally on screens.

Vijay Mathew:

And I think one of the things that we may take back, all of us, is that a lot of in person meetings, gatherings, conferences, don't actually have to happen in person, and I think we're getting an idea of what's important to actually have in person and what can you actually accomplish really well and with a lot less resources, online.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah, it does amplify that meme about how this meeting could have been an email.

Vijay Mathew:

Yeah.

Lauren Ruffin:

I feel like it's really hard. Yeah, for sure. I'm also sort of in that vein. Are there aspects of working like this that you think you will keep, or do you feel like if things open up, I use that very tongue in cheek, are you going to go back to the way that y'all were previously?

Vijay Mathew:

Look, I'm personally more productive than I've ever been, just because no more commute and the ability to walk around and go to my kitchen.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah,

Jamie Gahlon:

Yeah. I mean I definitely think the... Before we were like pretty office based, with one day a week work from home. I think that certainly there will be shifts, I would imagine, around flexibility of just where we work and how we work moving forward, more flexibility there. I guess I'm really interested in thinking about the things that folks are doing now in the field. The pivots that I'm seeing and what we might carry with us moving forward out of this moment of crisis. So, I've been really inspired by all of these mutual aid networks popping up. I mean they're essentially commons in action both from the hyper-local Slack channel that me and my neighbors have to keep each other sane and offer mutual support, and get that tomato that somebody might have that you need or or what have you, all the way to stuff that I'm noticing in the field happening like, the ICA in their East Boston location is now a fresh food distribution center. Same thing with Jack in Brooklyn, they've partnered with the, We Keep Us Safe Abolitionist Network to set up as a food distribution center. We know that all of these theaters and many theaters are sewing masks.

Jamie Gahlon:

Folks have found ways to pivot to be part of some of the essential services that are so needed right now and immigrated in response to local community needs. And, as well as looking at things like the work of [inaudible 00:12:36] around emergency [inaudible 00:12:37]... needed, but I am very inspired by the launch of The Art of [inaudible 00:12:43], you know, what [inaudible 00:12:45] is doing in the [inaudible 00:12:47] area on a more local level. And third strand, I think, is around the artist-led relief initiative.

Jamie Gahlon:

So, Trickle Up thinking about new models for support for artists, thinking about the work that the freelance producers are doing that I referenced at the top of the call, and this sort of generosity of knowledge sharing that's happening on platforms like HowlRound and elsewhere, and I guess I hope, or I'm wondering and I'm curious about what we can learn from these behaviors that have felt so needed in this moment and are coming out as a response for this moment, but I hope that [inaudible 00:13:28] that we carry with us... forward and that help us create a different landscape for our field moving forward, that can serve more of us.

Tim Cynova:

Let's [inaudible 00:13:38] to a question that's coming in. You both were talking about these things, I just wanted to see if there's anything else that might get picked up here. The question is, can you give a sense of the various conversations emerging on The Journal on how the communities you serve are fairing, feeling challenged and feeling hopeful.

Jamie Gahlon:

Hello. Hi Diane. Thank you for this question. Let's see. There's so many threads of conversation emerging I will think of... yeah, I'll pull on maybe just a couple of pieces and then Vijay you should weigh in too. So, we published a beautiful essay this week by Noel Venus, who's a playwright based in New York, and she was reflecting on a lot of the different opinions that have been floating around, the notion of making in this moment and the role of a playwright in this moment. And the thing that I found so... she talks\ed about how the theater is often an art of futurity, that we're looking to the future. We're planning, we're planning more planning, and she sort of offered a provocation around thinking, what if we think of theater as an art of the now? Like what does that mean in this moment around how we make, who we make with, what our priorities are, what kind of models we need to support the work. That's a question that I've been sitting with.

Jamie Gahlon:

Another thread of conversation that has been really... I guess we've been talking about it a lot as a team since we published this piece was... Kaja Dunn wrote a beautiful piece about the need to take a pause and the need for us to, in this moment, give ourselves time to process and grieve and intentionally resist capitalism's insatiable need and urge for productivity and to produce. I guess I feel maybe less equipped to speak on behalf of communities ar large, Diane, and how they're feeling hoped and challenge. I feel more inclined to pull out just a few specific voices that have felt really compelling to me in this moment. But I'll throw it over to Vijay who I'm sure has some other opinions.

Vijay Mathew:

Yeah, I think we're still also in a moment of people just dealing and processing the shock of what has happened, and so I think we're seeing a lot of that in the TV live streaming programming where we have a lot of masterclasses, playwriting classes happening like Suzan-Lori Parks Watch Me Work from home, which was an ongoing series but now it's happening every day at 5:00 pm Eastern.

Vijay Mathew:

It's a moment to work on the craft of playwriting, but it's also a time to come together as a community just to see each other from all our places in isolation and to collectively process the trauma of what's going on. And interestingly, we have two other playwriting series going on as well, the Latinx superhero playwriting class, and then there's also this other emerging story, or idea, how in these crises, they already marginalized... communities and people get doubly or triply marginalized and there's been a very interesting series of live streaming events organized by a collective called Unsettling Dramaturgy. They've had two events already, one was specifically about land acknowledgements. Another was about crip and indigenous from the churches, and they're an action group in a sense of trying to figure out how they can start to center these ideas so that it becomes a mainstream practice.

Lauren Ruffin:

Along those same lines, one of the things that I've always wondered about making theater, as someone who was not an artist or theater maker at all, is are you seeing ensemble groups continue to create together and having plans to produce or produce or show work online from separate places, is there anything innovative happening in that realm?

Vijay Mathew:

Oh yeah, definitely. In addition to tons of conversations that are happening, people are starting to figure out performance in physical distancing and using these internet technologies to collaborate around performance. That happened... that coincided with the number that started mid-March, where people putting up performances, adapting immediately what they're doing in person to the online space, and regularly there are organizations such as CultureHub and La MaMa, both based in New York city that are creating a platform for artists to figure these things out, to really truly experiment with these technologies to see how performing artists can use them.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah, it strikes me just knowing what I know about the economic model for theater, there's such a high cost to needing to work in the same place, and it strikes me that there's a real ability to unlock capacity and resources and connection and collaboration if you let go of needing to be in shared space and start thinking about shared reality instead. And I'm really curious to see how that plays out in the theater field in particular.

Jamie Gahlon:

Yeah, that's so interesting. I also think along those lines that Vijay just referenced, I think we're in a really fascinating moment where folks are beginning to move beyond this transposition of what was the real thing, into digital and into thinking through what it means to be innately digital right now because of this forced circumstance. But I do wonder what are the practices and new norms that we're going to bring with us wherever we may go as a result of this time. And that feels very exciting and very much like a... well for new creativitys, especially when we think about things like lessening our carbon footprint, the resource allocations that you talk about and accessibility of all the work.

Tim Cynova:

All right, this feels like a good time for the suitcase question.

Jamie Gahlon:

Yeah? Okay. I need to figure out who does the backpack. So the suitcase question started with Deborah Cullinan, and she was on our show talking about how she has all these... the suitcase that she carries around with her live-workplace practices and life practices. And she realizes that she's unpacking a lot of stuff and then putting in a lot of new things, and new habits, and new behaviors that she's learning as she's working more and more online. And so my question for both of you is what is one thing that you are... thrown out of your suitcase that you've been carrying around for a long time? Can be work, can be personal and what's one behavior or practice that you have just started to do that you are going to carry far into the future?

Jamie Gahlon:

I guess by necessity I feel like I've thrown out equating real life with... I think I've decoupled togetherness and intimacy on some level with real life. Whether or not I want... But I think that's, something I'm feeling right now, and I think one thing that I'm carrying forward are... I guess I have a certain number of rituals that I feel like I've developed in this moment, and for me they're around the sort of cultivating space for work time when I'm in my 808 square foot apartment, that's also my personal space. And I think they're very simple. They're about changing my kitchen table from a kitchen table to my desk, and I think there's something really beautiful about those small rituals and also I have a gratitude practice that I've been cultivating for a while, but I think that that has felt even more important to me now, and that's something that I will also carry forward, just like a daily gratitude practice.

Lauren Ruffin:

Awesome.

Tim Cynova:

Vijay?

Vijay Mathew:

Yeah, so the thing I'm throwing out of my suitcase, I think is maybe the despair or hopelessness that things can't and won't change fast. I was so, so surprised by literally how the world could dial down on what it's doing within a week. Extraordinary kind of thing. The fact that the way that our civilization works... it felt such a huge, insurmountable monolith. How does anyone ever stop that machine from running? So throwing out that notion, that kind of mental thing, throwing that out. Then I'm adding just taking care of myself. Walking every morning is a wonderful thing.

Tim Cynova:

Awesome. As we land the plane on this episode, we'll have 24 planes landing at LaGuardia, I guess. What are your parting thoughts? Something maybe we haven't covered that you really think is important to leave in this space or just whatever's on your mind?

Vijay Mathew:

One thing on my mind is that as we're creating new things that we really think hard and prioritize accessibility and inclusion. Like what Jamie mentioned earlier, especially when we do online things. That's one thing, and also that this online world that we're all now diving into... that we figure out limits to that and actually think about what does a metered internet look like? What if the internet is actually a scarce resource, which it is, but we live under the illusion that it's unlimited, that we can always have this energy running all these servers.

Jamie Gahlon:

I guess I'm just really thinking about notions of mutual support on both person-to-person level and field wide. I mean our field is broken. Many of us may have felt this before, but you look at what's happening now and I mean we need to fundamentally rebuild how we work together and what our systems are, and we need to put artists at the center of those systems and we need to build equitable models of support. So, I think this is an opportunity for us all to really interrogate our status quo on every level and think through how we can build a better... better models moving forward.

Tim Cynova:

Jamie, Vijay, thank you so much for spending time with us today. Thanks for being on the show.

Jamie Gahlon:

Thanks for having me.

Vijay Mathew:

Thank you very much.

Tim Cynova:

Continue the Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE! adventure with us on our next episode when we're joined by Cathy Edwards, executive director of New England Foundation for the Arts. Miss us in the meantime? You can download more Work. Shouldn't. Suck. episodes from your favorite podcasting platform of choice and re-watch Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE! episodes over on workshouldntsuck.co. If you've enjoyed the conversation or are just feeling generous today, please consider writing a review on iTunes so that others who might be interested in the topic and join the fund too. Give it a thumbs up or five stars or phone a friend, whatever your podcasting platform of choice offers. If you didn't enjoy this chat, please tell someone about it who you don't like as much. Until next time, thanks for listening.

The podcast is available for free on your favorite podcasting platforms:

If you enjoy the show, please leave a review on iTunes to help others discover the podcast.

Guest User 4/24/20 Guest User 4/24/20

Live with Caroline Woolard! (EP.28)

Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guest Caroline Woolard. [Live show recorded: April 22, 2020.]

Last Updated

April 24, 2020

Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guest Caroline Woolard. [Live show recorded: April 22, 2020.]

Guest: Caroline Woolard

Co-Hosts: Tim Cynova & Lauren Ruffin

Episode Transcript

Guest

CAROLINE WOOLARD employs sculpture, immersive installation, and online networks to imagine and enact systems of collaboration and mutual aid. Her work has been commissioned by and exhibited in major national and international museums, including MoMA, the Whitney Museum, and Creative Time. Recent scholarly writing on her work has been published in The Brooklyn Rail (2018); Artforum (2016); Art in America (2016); The New York Times (2016); and South Atlantic Quarterly (2015). Woolard’s work has been featured twice on New York Close Up (2014, 2016), a digital film series produced by Art21 and broadcast on PBS. She is the 2018–20 inaugural Walentas Fellow at Moore College of Art and Design and the inaugural 2019–20 Artist in Residence for INDEX, a new initiative at the Rose Museum.

Woolard co-founded barter networks OurGoods.org and TradeSchool.coop (2008-2015), the Study Center for Group Work (since 2016), BFAMFAPhD.com (since 2014), and the NYC Real Estate Investment Cooperative (since 2016). Recent commissions include The Meeting, with a rolling premiere at The New School, Brandeis University, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Moore College of Art and Design, Philadelphia, PA (2019); WOUND, Cooper Union, New York, NY (2016); and Capitoline Wolves, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY (2016), and Exchange Café, MoMA, New York, NY (2014). She is the recipient of a number of awards and fellowships including at Moore College of Art and Design (2019), Pilchuck (2018), the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (2016), the Queens Museum (2014), Eyebeam (2013), Rockefeller Cultural Innovation Fund (2010), Watermill (2011), and the MacDowell Colony (2009). Caroline Woolard is Assistant Professor at the University of Hartford, and the Nomad/9 Interdisciplinary MFA program. Making and Being, her book about interdisciplinary collaboration, co-authored with Susan Jahoda, was published in the fall of 2019.

Transcript

Tim Cynova:

Hi, I'm Tim Cynova, and welcome to Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show.

Tim Cynova:

On today's episode, Lauren Ruffin and I are joined by Caroline Woolard. Caroline employs sculpture, immersive installation, and online networks to imagine and enact systems of collaboration and mutual aid. Her work and writing has been featured in a number of amazing places. She is the 2018-2020 inaugural Walentas Fellow at Moore College of Art & Design, and the inaugural 2019-2020 Artist-in-Residence for INDEX, a new initiative at the Rose Museum. Following the economic collapse of 2007 and 2008, she cofounded barter networks OurGoods and TradeSchool.coop. Caroline is assistant professor at the University of Hartford in the Nomad/9 Interdisciplinary MFA Program, and Making and Being, her book about interdisciplinary collaboration coauthored with Susan Jahoda, was published in the fall of 2019. And, fun fact: she used to run track in the Junior Olympics. Without further ado, Caroline, welcome to the show!

Caroline Woolard:

Hey. Good to be here. I have to-

Lauren Ruffin:

It's so good to see your face.

Caroline Woolard:

It's good to see you.

Lauren Ruffin:

I feel like we're fortunate, because we've spoken twice in the last three weeks or so, so I'm getting periodic updates on how life is. But how are you doing? And how are all the folks that you're interacting with on a regular basis doing right now during the pandemic?

Caroline Woolard:

I'm okay. I have the privilege of having a job, I have a tenure-track teaching job, and I'm healthy. So I'm here with my partner and I feel pretty safe. I have access to wi-fi, as you can see here. But yeah, in terms of my community, I guess I think about community in terms of identity and work and geography. In terms of queer, art, New York-based communities that I'm thinking of, I think it's a combination of full-on survival and a lot of loss and grieving. I was just talking to Gonzalo Casals, and he made this good point that queer leadership is collective leadership, and that that's really hard to do right now. Because so many people don't have access to gathering and are not well, and it's hard to do all of this by phone or Zoom nonstop. So I think it's a time of longing and loss, but also, as always in moments like this, increased mutual aid and increased dreaming. So it's both, yeah, a real struggle and a reminder of the power of self-determination and community.

Lauren Ruffin:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). I agree with all that, and especially that piece around self-determination. Can you talk a little bit more about that? I'm supposed to ask you another question, but that really drew my attention, and you know I'm distracted by shiny things. Can you just give me some more on that?

Caroline Woolard:

What comes to mind immediately when I think about self-determination is so many communities that have been marginalized through structural policy and structural violence. For example, when I think about self-determination, I think about Weeksville in New York City, this free black community and the legacy that people drew upon, thinking about Weeksville, in making community land trusts both in New York City and in Georgia or beyond. And the idea that, despite every single odd, where all so-called public structures were trying to kill and erase communities of color, black people in particular, but also queer people, women... So many people, with a real emphasis on anti-black racism. Despite all of that, you can see a flourishing business, school, housing community in Weeksville, in the first community land trust in Georgia much later, and in so many places.

Caroline Woolard:

If you look at... Even in my building in New York City, which is a low-income co-op, the ways that people are coming together to solve basic things, like "How are we going to get food to older people?" This is drawing on a long legacy of knowing that we can do it ourselves and do it together despite every single odd and structure and policy that has said "You shouldn't survive. You shouldn't be here. You don't have a right to this." And obviously it has a different flavor because I'm a cis white woman, but I can also be in solidarity with the long-term organizing of artists of color, people of color, in New York and beyond.

Lauren Ruffin:

That's dope. So, Tim gave you an introduction. Obviously, given just that conversation we just had, there's a lot of other things that you are thinking about and doing. How are you introducing yourself, or how are you thinking about your work right now?

Caroline Woolard:

Yeah, this question of how to introduce yourself when you're interdisciplinary and you work in groups! And a lot of the time, it's based on what has to happen, rather than a job or an official title or a salary. It's hard for me to say, "Oh, I'm the director of X, Y, and Z," or "I do this one thing." So I was thinking about how to say this, and I guess the most common thing I say across the board is: I'm an artist who believes in economic justice. And what that means specifically is that I have skills with graphic design and new media and sculpture, and I can contribute that to existing work for workplace dignity, for example, worker cooperatives; affordable housing, for example, community land trusts; or any mutual aid network that needs a way to think about visibility, nuance, and speaking without words, visually. I can support that.

Tim Cynova:

One of the things that's on your bio... And for those who are listening or watching, just to capture... The bio's so rich. I think I just pulled random sentences from your bio, so apologies for what I used-

Caroline Woolard:

It's a long one.

Tim Cynova:

It's amazing. I was, in particular, drawn to the work you're doing right now focused on conflict transformation in groups. Because you talk about... Your work asks questions around, "Can an object interrupt the unavoidable antagonisms of working together? How do workers without bosses transform workplace conflict?" And when we mentioned this in the green room, you had some things you had brought along with you, which seem fascinating. What is this work, how are you thinking about it, why do you have objects that are cool and unusual for video meetings?

Caroline Woolard:

For example... So, I agree that work shouldn't suck. I like the title of this thing, and one way that work needs to stop sucking is with how boring our meetings are. I was just talking to Andrew Nurkin, who works at the Free Library of Philadelphia, and he said it's always Blursday and Zoom o'clock in the pandemic. And I was like, "That's about right." So even before we were all in our Zoom-a-thon, I was making these objects, very strange objects. This is if you talk too much, you're going to get this from me.

Lauren Ruffin:

The tongue?

Caroline Woolard:

"Stop talking." Yeah, all kinds of things. I have weird... So many objects here that I could show you. Got a little card game here. So in this question of what an artist can do, when we're thinking about economic justice and you're in an interdisciplinary group, for better or worse, you're going to have a lot of meetings. And they often suck, like work, because there are no trainings around facilitation, especially equitable facilitation. And for better or worse, people need to collectively metabolize a concept and an idea before you can take action with that idea. And that takes a long time. I'm sure you all know, and have been in these meetings where you think, "Oh, we finally all agree on this thing!" And then you get to the next meeting, and you're like, "What?" And they just say the same thing they were saying before, or you say the same thing you were saying before, because your brain is still just your brain. It's not the collective brain. And so-

Lauren Ruffin:

That happened to us this morning.

Caroline Woolard:

Oof! Yeah, it's so bad.

Lauren Ruffin:

I didn't know what meetings... I had no idea where I was supposed to be later on, and apparently they said it like six times, and I was like, "Where am I going? What am I doing?"

Caroline Woolard:

So it's like this patience and this reality of the collective metabolism, and one way to enjoy the slow pace of that collective learning is to bring in weird objects. So as an artist, I love making objects, and at one point I realized, "Oh, I just spent a decade of my life in meetings." Like, sure, I helped create barter networks and self-organized learning spaces, but in reality it was like this. Maybe on Zoom, maybe in person. So how can I bring tactility to those spaces?

Caroline Woolard:

And I started working with Esteban Kelly, who is the director of the U.S. Federation of Worker Co-ops. So yeah, it's a technical assistance organization that helps people who don't have bosses, who are in ownership of their business, figure out how to run the business and how to talk to each other better. And he was like, "Absolutely, let's bring in objects." So I've been able to see how he does things like facilitate a workshop on conflict with this amazing object that people talk to. And he's an unusual person, because he is not in the arts officially, but he thinks visually and he teaches visually and loves that playful approach that not all facilitators would want to do at all.

Tim Cynova:

So for people that will just listen to this, the first item that you brought out, that you just showed, was a giant head that looks like it's made of plaster.

Caroline Woolard:

It's actually made out of mycelium, which is a whole other thing we could talk about, the rhizome-

Lauren Ruffin:

Mushrooms?

Caroline Woolard:

Yeah, it's made out of a mushroom, which is a sustainable material.

Lauren Ruffin:

I only know that because of Star Trek Discovery.

Caroline Woolard:

Okay, continue. You can describe it. You could put this in your yard and compost it when you're done with it. It's not toxic.

Tim Cynova:

That's amazing. So yeah, there's a giant head, is the first item. The second item was, like, a cast of a large tongue. Great. And I missed exactly what the third item was that you showed earlier on.

Caroline Woolard:

This is a eye, that... This part, you fill it with water. It's made out of porcelain. It's 3-D printed. You could order it online for not much. And then it has a little hole, the pupil. So this sinks, and that tells you when a moment has passed. Either you've spoken too long or the ritual is over, whatever. It's a kind of alternative timekeeping device.

Tim Cynova:

About how much time do you get before the pupil sinks? Which is a sentence I never thought I'd put together.

Caroline Woolard:

I guess I'd say around three minutes. So it's not that short.

Lauren Ruffin:

That's a long time to talk, even directly.

Caroline Woolard:

Oh, yeah. I would rather do a moment of silence or some kind of activity, unless you have a very small group like the three of us.

Tim Cynova:

I'm also imagining, like... Someone has a bag of pupils that they have throughout meetings, and then they just have to keep replacing them as you go through the meeting.

Caroline Woolard:

Totally.

Tim Cynova:

Those are fascinating objects. If you're listening to this and you're able, the video on YouTube will make those objects far more vivid than my explanation, and now you're very confused, I'm sure, about what this pupil eye dish looks like.

Lauren Ruffin:

I can't wait to read the transcript for this.

Tim Cynova:

It's true, I can't... Yeah.

Lauren Ruffin:

It's going to be amazing.

Tim Cynova:

Where do you purchase that 3-D eye dish? You said you could buy it?

Caroline Woolard:

Yeah. Right now you should just email me, but I'm working to make a huge project with the Free Library of Philadelphia, and with them it's going to be freely accessible for any library patrons to check out. They're doing curbside pickup soon, so you can just call them or look online and then ask for it from the collection, and they'll bring it to the curb.

Lauren Ruffin:

That's really awesome. I didn't know that you knew and were working with Esteban, but that makes so much sense.

Caroline Woolard:

We've known each other for so long, way back from AORTA days, this Anti-Oppression Resource Training Alliance group that does a lot of great facilitation work. So maybe 10 years ago we met, and then I got this money to do a project with Moore College, and I was like, "Philly. Esteban."

Lauren Ruffin:

I just met him last fall, in Oakland.

Caroline Woolard:

Cool.

Lauren Ruffin:

But we were on a panel together, and I think there was... I feel like there might've been someone else on the panel, but I don't know. It was just he and I being ridiculous together.

Lauren Ruffin:

So I did want to make sure that we made some time to talk about two things. One was your work with worker co-ops, and ownership of those, and I was hoping you could spend some time speaking to us about that. And I really love the phrase "worker dignity." We talk a lot about people-centered organizations, and I feel like they're adjacent but also very different. So if you could sort of dig into that a little bit for us, I think it'd be great for our audience.

Caroline Woolard:

So I guess, especially now, people are seeing the reality of the professed mission of an organization or a business and the reality of their practice under stress. And I think this is where the truth of our values comes out. So you can see so many institutions having to make the hard decision about which aspects of their organization or business they're going to keep. And it turns out, most of the time it's not the people. So I know if you're a leader and you have to make these decisions right now, it is not easy. It's incredibly challenging. The whole thing might be going under. But what I mean by "worker dignity," and what's possible in a worker cooperative, is a collective conversation about how to place people before profit, and also potentially before some of the infrastructure that tends to take precedent over people's livelihoods.

Caroline Woolard:

So for example, in a situation that would be about the dignity of workers, you would think about what healthcare and healing needs everyone in your workplace needs right now, maybe before you'd go on to the next program, to the next online translation of an in-person experience. In a worker cooperative, because every worker has a vote or a say in the decisions that are made, at different levels, depending on the cooperative structure, you could have a very frank conversation about this. And a lot of co-ops are doing that right now, especially because there's decreased revenue.

Lauren Ruffin:

No, thank you for that.

Caroline Woolard:

And then, why... Should I say why we need this in the arts?

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah, absolutely.

Caroline Woolard:

So yeah, for me, because a lot of artists get into this work, connecting to community and speaking without words... We all get into this work, I'd say, on some level, because we believe that we should be in control of our labor, that we want to determine when we're clocking in and when we're clocking out. Which, as a caveat, I'd say is true of all people, but it gets to be romanticized and projected as a sense of subjectivity or way of being for artists. So anyway, let's say the artist gets to claim when they work. And if this is the case, then the artist should imagine that they could pool their resources with other artists in order to determine when they work and also to create a livelihood together.

Caroline Woolard:

So, for example, good friends of mine in New York run a filmmaking collective and cooperative called Meerkat Media. It's Meerkat, M-E-E-R-K-A-T, like the animal, Media. And what it means is that they're able to work together as really great filmmakers, and not have their day job on the one hand, which doesn't respect them, and their artistic career on the other hand, which maybe happens late at night. They get to be together all day producing films for groups that are aligned with their values, and the surplus money they make goes into a collective pool that they can use for their independent projects. And they're able to do things like buy $50,000 cameras together, have a health insurance fund, think about maternity leave, and really be clear with one another about what happens at scale when you work together.

Caroline Woolard:

So artists often want to have all of their time in their studio or determine their work alone, but actually that is not possible, and it's a far worse life at the scale of one person, I would say, than if you can find a livelihood in collectivity with other arts workers. Now, of course, not every field will allow that, but in filmmaking it's possible. In new media it's possible. And you can be creative about what's possible in this context we're in right now. And that's what you're doing, Lauren!

Lauren Ruffin:

I'm doing my best. Doing my best.

Tim Cynova:

We have a viewer question. Also a "Great to see you," Caroline. "Do you imagine or hope for a workers' movement arising out of this moment? Artists, plus so many others, tech, teachers, service industry, et cetera?" Thanks for the question.

Caroline Woolard:

Yeah. Hey, Diane. I think that is always a goal, and it is possible. I think that we're seeing it at a small scale now, at different levels, around the rent that a lot of artists have to pay as small businesses in their individual buildings, working together to think what's feasible. But yeah, I think, look at W.A.G.E., Working Artists and the Greater Economy. A number of initiatives that Springboard for the Arts is doing. There is a sense of collectivity, but I think moving across art and tech is still a very difficult thing to do, which we could all talk about. Like, who still has a job? That's what I'm trying to say.

Lauren Ruffin:

You're so very right. And speaking of jobs, I know you spend a lot of time thinking about what the future of work looks like, and what the future of preparing learners for a workforce and for sustainability. And I'm having a lot of conversations right now about what is higher ed going to look like, and being very closely associated. Both my wife and my father are in education administration at the K-through-12 level, and they're having the... We seem to be operating on the assumption that, at all levels, K through postsecondary, that schools are wanting to open back up in the fall.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah, exactly. "Ha ha ha ha ha, silly humans!" I would love... Because I know you're doing really great thinking on this, and I know some folks are listening who are dying to hear what your predictions are, and... The fragility of our entire American educational system, I think, is about to be exposed. So I'd just love to hear you talk about that.

Caroline Woolard:

Yeah, thank you. Hmm. Let me think where to begin. I guess one thing to start with is a realization that it's not because of this pandemic that a lot of schools are facing financial hardship. We can see that, if you look... Especially, there's a field now called critical university studies, so you can look at what a lot of scholars are saying there. But they all agree that the height of progressive public education at the postsecondary college level in the humanities, especially the visual arts, peaked in the late 1950s and continued through the 1970s. So that's when we see things like the Free University of California system, Free CUNY, this is when so many moments like African American studies, women's studies, ethnic studies, all emerge.

Caroline Woolard:

And after that, with increasing financialization in the '70s, we have seen a real decline in access to affordable public education at the college level. So a lot of the things you hear now about schools needing bailouts, I think it's important to look at the larger picture, over the past hundred years, even. And in terms of what we're going to do now, I think this is an amazing moment to rethink what people actually need. If what we want is artists to be able to enter the so-called workforce, or create the workforce of their dreams when they exit some kind of training program, whether it's accredited or not, there are a lot of things that we can learn from this moment.

Caroline Woolard:

I think, for example, if you look at the work of disability justice movement leaders, there will be a lot of understanding around how to access events, why they all need to be in-person... And also if you look at transformative justice organizing, consent around touch is now going to be understood more broadly. So I think if you talk to leaders like the artist and choreographer-dancer, Alice Sheppard, who you might know, if you talk to groups like Generative Somatics and Alta Starr, they do a lot with transformative justice and somatic healing. I think that will lead the way, in terms of access and consent.

Caroline Woolard:

And then in terms of specific forms, there are so many things I'm excited about. I mean, we can see a return of self-organized learning spaces, like... I don't know if you knew the Utopia Neighborhood House of the 1920s in Harlem. Steffani Jemison, an artist who's great, who just got a Guggenheim, did a project about Utopia Neighborhood House. I think, for me, it would be exciting to have, in New York City, retired arts faculty and older artists get support in terms of space to mentor younger artists. They have something called SCORE, which is the small business mentorship model in New York City, where you can go for free and get your Wall Street grandpa to help you, if that's supportive. So we could see more cities supporting mentorship that's intergenerational for free.

Caroline Woolard:

I think we can also see really robust online platforms that allow the kind of one-to-one connection that really builds social-cultural capital and intellectual growth. I don't know why someone hasn't jumped on that. The moment this hit, I was like, where's the critique platform of the future? But we can be hyper-local and be involved in our mutual aid networks and our communities here in all the ways that we need to be for our own sense of safety and community and belonging, but we can have more intergenerational and international conversations that, so far, have been very limited in art schools.

Tim Cynova:

There's a question that came up... You've touched on this, around, what are some tools or resources out there for solidarity organizing? But I want to put the question into this space, if there's other things specific to this that you think are useful to highlight.

Caroline Woolard:

Oh, it's Brad. Hey! He's in Baltimore. Baltimore people! Well, I would look at things like what the U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives just put out. There's also, if you're in the Bay Area, the SELC... What is that? The Sustainable Economies-

Lauren Ruffin:

-Economies Law Center.

Caroline Woolard:

-Law Center? Yeah.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. They're great.

Caroline Woolard:

They just put out a great list of resources, if you're there. The New Economy Coalition is often putting out a lot of great resources, and I imagine in the show notes we could link to a bunch. But I would start there. I'd also look at the People's Forum in New York City. And personally I've been involved in the cooperative Economics Alliance of New York, CEANYC. So we can put them all in there, but in general I'd say, find your local worker cooperative. Just Google "worker cooperative" in your neighborhood, and then see who's running it and contact them, either through social media or phone, and find out who supports them. Because usually there's a credit union that supports them, there's a land trust, there's affordable housing, and all of these things are networked together. It just takes a few people to introduce you to the larger network that is supporting the effort.

Tim Cynova:

Great. Probably two more questions. This is so much... I mean, there's so many links that I'm going to find and post in the description. We're covering such amazing ground, Caroline. Thank you so much for offering this. Lauren, do you have another question before we go for the Land the Plane one?

Lauren Ruffin:

Yes. But it's not fully formed yet, so we should probably just let Caroline talk, and I'm sure something will tickle my brain. Are there things that you're thinking about, or conversations you're having that we haven't touched on yet that you think are really important to our audience?

Caroline Woolard:

I think the hardest thing in this moment is to find other people who can talk to you about what to do beyond crisis management, whether that means healing yourself or the person you care about or saving your business or organization. And I think if each of us can find a moment to really step back and do enough healing practices to recognize if we have the privilege of health and connection right now, to think holistically so that we go way beyond just getting through and returning to normal, whatever that was.

Caroline Woolard:

And finding other people to talk to, like this conversation, where we can brainstorm a future that we actually want despite all of the enormous structural violence and challenges that we see ahead. This is a moment where things can be invented, and especially if you're 18 or 22, this is your generational moment. Build that platform. And also contact me! Contact Lauren! This is the time for that mentorship. I got that mentorship when I got out of the 2007 crisis, and that's our job also, to mentor those people who are building this for their generation and ours.

Lauren Ruffin:

That piece around mentorship... I was talking to my wife yesterday and she was like, "This is wild," and I'm like, "Our entire adulthood has been wild. Like, what's more wild than two planes flying into the World Trade Center, or a sniper randomly shooting people around the beltway, or..." And I went through this whole list of things, and she was like, "Oh, you're right." And I was like, "The last 20 years have been wild." I have a theory about alternate timelines that I won't leave here, but I think you're so right, and I love that phrase, "a future we actually want." Oh-

Tim Cynova:

Yeah, most definitely.

Lauren Ruffin:

Always, Caroline-

Tim Cynova:

Yeah. Wonderful.

Lauren Ruffin:

A sermon. A whole sermon.

Tim Cynova:

Yeah.

Caroline Woolard:

Well, I love talking to both of you, and I'm glad you're making space for these conversations.

Tim Cynova:

Thank you so much for being on the show today.

Caroline Woolard:

Yeah, thank you.

Tim Cynova:

Continue the Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE adventure with us on our next episode, when we're joined by Jamie Gahlon and Vijay Mathew, cofounders of HowlRound Theater Commons. Miss us in the meantime? You can download more Work. Shouldn't. Suck. episodes from your favorite podcasting platform of choice and rewatch Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE episodes over on workshouldntsuck.co.

Tim Cynova:

The podcast is available for free on your favorite podcasting platforms:

If you enjoy the show, please leave a review on iTunes to help others discover the podcast.

Guest User 4/19/20 Guest User 4/19/20

Live with Mica Scalin & Noah Scalin! (EP.27)

Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guests Mica Scalin & Noah Scalin, Another Limited Rebellion. [Live show recorded: April 21, 2020.]

Last Updated

April 22, 2020

Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guests Mica Scalin & Noah Scalin, Another Limited Rebellion. [Live show recorded: April 21, 2020.]

Guests: Mica Scalin & Noah Scalin

Co-Hosts: Tim Cynova & Lauren Ruffin

Episode Transcript

Guests

NOAH SCALIN is an artist, author, and activist. He founded Another Limited Rebellion in 2001 with the idea that he could make a living doing what he enjoyed and effect positive change in the world. Since then, Noah has traveled the world bringing his message of creative practice to everyone from incarcerated teenagers to Fortune 500 executives. A graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of The Arts, Noah started his career as the Art Director for Troma Entertainment and Avirex Clothing. Noah's artwork is collected internationally and has been exhibited in numerous museums and galleries, including the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the Mütter Museum and NYC’s Times Square. He is the author of six books — most recently Creative Sprint which he co-wrote with his sister/business partner Mica. Noah is also one of the co-hosts of the VPM PBS television program The Art Scene. In 2016 Noah was chosen as the first ever artist-in-residence at the Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Business and was named the "The Region's Most Creative Individual" by Richmond magazine in 2017.

MICA SCALIN is an innovator in the use of art and media for community engagement and creative development. She was among the first producers hired by NBC Universal Digital Studios, she launched social media strategy at Showtime Networks and consulted on CBS Interactive marketing. She was VP of Communications for the groundbreaking non-profit JDub and has produced documentary films, art exhibitions and cultural events. From grassroots to broadcast, her passion lies in creating cultural experiences that make meaningful connections between people. She has a BFA from the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, DC and studied with Douglas Rushkoff at The New School in NYC. She is the co-author of Creative Sprint: Six 30-day Challenges to Jumpstart Your Creativity. She is also one of the humans behind dOGUMENTA: America’s First Art Show For Dogs.

Transcript

Tim Cynova:

Hi, I'm Tim Cynova, and welcome to Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE, the morning-ish show. On today's episode, Lauren and I are joined by Mica and Noah Scalin. Mica and Noah lead Another Limited Rebellion, an arts and innovation consultancy. They are our first of several guests duos joining us on the show in the next few weeks. They know each other well and have been collaborating together their entire lives, as, in addition to business partners, they're also siblings. They've done a great deal together and separately, and I pulled a random selection of things from their bios for this intro, including they co-authored the book Creative Sprint: Six 30-Day Challenges to Jumpstart Your Creativity. Noah's Skull-A-Day year is chronicled in his book about it. And Mica is one of the humans behind dOGUMENTA: America's First Art Show for Dogs. Without further ado, Mica and Noah, welcome to the show.

Noah Scalin:

Thanks so glad to be here. I'm still laughing from the green room.

Mica Scalin:

I've never been on a morning show before. This is awesome.

Lauren Ruffin:

We're doing a whole bunch of things totally differently today. The two of you are going to start off by leading us in a creative sprint, right?

Tim Cynova:

Yeah. Micah, do you want to explain what a creative sprint is real quick before we do it?

Mica Scalin:

Yeah, sure. I'll even use the book, which is an out of print, but this is the Creative Sprint book, Six 30-Day Challenges. Not a plug because the book is not in print. But this came out of an online challenge we run and a program we do with our clients that is using small, very small, creative prompts to spur a short, say three-to-five-minute creative action as part of a daily creative practice development process. In other words, do something creative every day for 30 days. We give you a bunch of ideas for what to do. And we're going to do it right now. We thought that's a great way to start this podcast. And we're really exploring themes around creative connecting, which we'll talk about a little more. So here is your prompt. Noah, you want to say the prompt?

Noah Scalin:

Sure. So if your life right now was a Netflix series or some other show or TV show, movie, what would it be called? That's the question. You don't have to answer, you can just ponder that and then answer as you want in the chat or some other way.

Mica Scalin:

So your life right now as a Netflix series title, title for your life.

Tim Cynova:

So say it one more time.

Noah Scalin:

Okay. So it is if your life right now we're a Netflix show or series, what would it be called? We have some of our own thoughts about what these answers could be for ourselves already. So we can share some or we can wait and leave you in suspense till the end.

Mica Scalin:

I think we should wait.

Noah Scalin:

Okay.

Mica Scalin:

I think we should put that out there, just [inaudible 00:02:45]-

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. Oh, tantalizing.

Mica Scalin:

... prompt in the chat. And if you come up with one that's good and you want to share it in the chat, go ahead and put them in there as we go. And maybe we'll respond to them or we'll just collect some of the best ones and share them at the end. And I want to hear from Tim and Lauren. And Noah and I, we'll all share ours at the end.

Noah Scalin:

At the end.

Mica Scalin:

As a closing.

Noah Scalin:

The point being though, a creative prompt like that, it just gets your brain going, starts the wheels turning, gets you thinking laterally and spurs additional creativity in your life. So there you go.

Lauren Ruffin:

That's really awesome.

Tim Cynova:

Yeah, that's terrific.

Lauren Ruffin:

I can do this. I think I can handle this. I'm going to be percolating on it.

Tim Cynova:

I'm a little nervous. I'm a little nervous. There's a lot going on this morning.

Lauren Ruffin:

We are nothing if not our personalities. So Tim gave you all the hodgepodge of an introduction, but can you tell our viewers sort of how you typically introduce yourselves, if you were meeting people on the street or just as you're going about your work, anything that you feel like is particularly germane to this conversation?

Noah Scalin:

I usually just say I'm an artist, author, activist, and space pirate. But that doesn't generally help anybody. Mica, how would you describe what we do as a company when you talk to people?

Mica Scalin:

We call ourselves an art and innovation studio, and it's a partnership between my brother and I, Noah, where we look for opportunities to raise the value of the arts in general and artists. And by value, I mean get people paid money. And the way we've been doing that in the past couple of years has been working in leadership development and professional development programs, mostly providing training and speaking engagements, but also sometimes art engagements within very large businesses. So we typically serve large organizations that are already pretty invested in training and development in that way. But we also serve the creative development of the individuals and those organizations, and just the larger community. We help those organizations reach out to their community, whether it's within the organization or outside the organization through creative and arts engagements. That's kind of wordy. Does that make sense?

Tim Cynova:

What does that look like when you work with organizations to do that?

Noah Scalin:

It takes a lot of forms. So we do a lot of work where I'm going in or Mica is going in sometimes and we're doing keynote speeches or we're doing workshops, usually a combination of those, and also then longterm engagements with organizations where we're helping them use the tool we just talked about, the Creative Sprint, to develop the creative capacity of everyone in the organization.

Tim Cynova:

I once had the unfortunate, also fortunate, opportunity to keynote next to Noah. So I'm like talking about arts administration and Noah's like, "Hey, I did this project where I made a skull a day and here's a lot of cool photos about it." I'm like, "God, this is really boring for me to be talking about [inaudible 00:05:23] software and stuff.

Noah Scalin:

Yeah, always go before me.

Tim Cynova:

Yeah.

Mica Scalin:

I mean we seek to entertain. I always feel like this might be a lot of really out there for a lot of people that we communicate with. So a lot of times I'm just like, "Well, we'll at least provide an interesting moment in their day. Maybe that's the best we can do."

Noah Scalin:

You know, at the same time, what I love to be is the weirdest person in the room for the engagements that we're doing. And that's actually a sweet spot for us. I've been in conferences where it's all people that are bankers or people who are doing programming, software programming. These are very serious, very linear types, and I'm coming in doing wacky stuff. But it allows people a way in to talk about the more deeper, important topics that we have to share. And I like that that's engaging in that way because we aren't coming in just doing a fun thing that is considered team building. We're really coming and doing something that's more profound and meaningful for an organization.

Lauren Ruffin:

Can you tell us a little bit about your name? I'm fascinated by the idea of Limited Rebellion. There's a lot in there.

Noah Scalin:

Yeah. Another Limited Rebellion started, originally it was at my design firm, and then when we shifted over to our work as consultants we kept the name. But the name really originated in the late '90s, and it was my sort of punk rock joke because I had been involved in the punk rock scene in New York City, Lower East Side and I was watching people in 1997 dressing like it was 1977. And I was like, "You guys, this is 20 years old and you're still doing this thing." And so I just had this idea about the self-effacing idea... My favorite music at that time, things like Minor Threat, that made fun of themselves and were aware and conscious, but also still doing it anyway. So how can you be an activist but also know the work you can do is but so much and don't give up and keep doing it. And so being funny about that made sense to me, and it's just rolled into our company. And somehow, I think it's still makes sense.

Mica Scalin:

Yeah. We considered should we change the name when Noah and I teamed up and really pivoted what the business was doing from graphic design to this training and consulting. And then we were just like, "No, actually it really makes sense to stay Another Limited Rebellion now inside the context, coming into a context of business, teaching them creativity. So thanks for asking.

Tim Cynova:

Well, and I want to add one thing. Actually, as you were transitioning from graphic design into the new version, Fractured Atlas worked with you to design this cool logo. So Noah, you actually designed the Fracture Atlas logo that's now in the upper whatever corner of the screen. So that's where we first worked together, in that.

Noah Scalin:

Yeah.

Tim Cynova:

It seemed like one of your last graphic design projects because I remember actually being like, "Yeah, can you do this thing?" And you're like, "I'm sort of starting to do this other thing right now."

Noah Scalin:

It's funny because, yeah, I was near the end of that period. But I actually designed your website too.

Tim Cynova:

The original website? Yeah.

Noah Scalin:

The original website.

Tim Cynova:

Or the version a long time ago. Yeah.

Noah Scalin:

Yeah. So it's just funny because I did a lot with you guys. And so I love to come back around, circle back around with this different point in my life and our lives.

Tim Cynova:

Well, and it ended up with someone, it must've been maybe the campaign that you were running, a fundraising campaign, got a print of the United Skulls of America that hung in our Fractured Atlas office until like a couple of months ago when we got rid of the Fractured Atlas office. And that was a big question. We were like, "Who's going to take the print from the office?," because we didn't need it anymore. I don't know who got it, but one day it was just off the wall and someone took it. So we have the logo, we had that print in our office for a number of years. So now that we're live, I'm just relaying that information to you.

Lauren Ruffin:

And if the person who has it is listening, feel free to drop us a line so we know where it ended up.

Tim Cynova:

Yeah, please. I read this really interesting article about right before he died, Biggie left a belt in Vibe or Source's office. He had to change where shoot and forgot his belt. And this belt was passed on from staffer to staffer over like 10 years, and he died like three weeks later. It was like the legend of this belt. And so the writer put out this APB like, "Who of the many people who've turned over into this office have this belt right now?" And eventually, it resurfaced. It's being kept in an undisclosed location like somebody's momma's house basement. But I feel like this print could take on that life.

Noah Scalin:

I like that. If my print is as amazing as big as Biggie's belt, I have a [inaudible 00:09:37].

Tim Cynova:

I bet you didn't think that we'd be covering this on the live stream today.

Noah Scalin:

Not at all.

Lauren Ruffin:

I didn't think so either, but it popped in my head and I went with it.

Tim Cynova:

Yeah. No, I think it's timely. One of the things I really enjoy about the work that you two do is that some of it's seemingly simple. I mean I think back to this Skull-A-Day and then some of the stuff that's come out of Creative Sprints where it's like, "I've just used these sugar packets and something that I interact with every day to create something new and beautiful and different," and I love that as an entry point to just the things that we're surrounded with. You don't have to have a studio and paints or quiet time to compose or space to choreograph, but that everyone has this in them.

Noah Scalin:

Yeah, that's very much on purpose. We really wanted our work to be accessible. We wanted it to be something that anybody could do, that anybody could find time for in their schedule, that anybody could benefit from. We really designed all of the things that we do as a company to have that quality so that it actually works. We don't want it to be something that's like, "Here's the secret sauce of some famous person and it's impossible to replicate because of their life experience and the benefits they had because of where they were born or who they are or who their parents are," whatever it is. That shouldn't be a factor in this type of work.

Lauren Ruffin:

I'm really curious to hear how your work has shifted or changed. Has it over the last couple of weeks?

Mica Scalin:

Noah and I have been thinking about this. We had to reflect on this last week as well. And it was interesting to think like, "Well, obviously there's no more travel to big fancy events with executives coming from all over the world." Because that was definitely something that Noah and/or I would be doing once or twice a month as of last year. Yeah, so that changed. We're not doing that anymore. At least probably not for the rest of two thousand... I don't know if that will ever be something that really happens in the same way as it used to anytime in our... I don't know. Who knows? So that's not happening. And so because of that, our delivery method, how we're getting our content to our clients and community and our language that explains the value right now, has to be changed, you can't keep saying the same thing, and our positioning around that.

Mica Scalin:

But ultimately, the cool thing is what's really stayed the same is that our values, our core message, and our process didn't change, which is cool. We could really rely on that to carry us through this. It took a minute for us to stop and address that. We did have a little bit of I would say an early warning. And I actually want to... This ties into this conversation, but Noah and I had already been talking to some friends and colleagues in Asia and and hearing that things were changing. As of February, I think daily life was already changing for them. And then we had a client that was organizing global events that had to be postponed. That was happening beginning of March. So this is all two weeks before everything hit everybody that it was happening here.

Mica Scalin:

So we were sort of already like, "Oh, this is already sort of changing our Q2 business planning. Uh oh, this is something percolating." I mean we both already work from home, so that wasn't a change. But yeah, the cool thing was we really spent time touching base and talking to people right away as those changes right away emerged. And not only that, people reaching out to us, like clients, friends, colleagues, students, from that corporate client, I mean all areas, reaching out to us and asking us for stuff, asking us to do stuff, asking us to do a program or just telling us that something they learned from us was valuable right now.

Mica Scalin:

So that also helped us see that we didn't need to change that core message. It was still hitting people. In fact, they were thinking about it now in this moment of crisis. So I think it really helped us to realize this core content and message and strategy is really helpful now. Let's just figure out how we can repackage it and deliver it in a way that is meaningful and still has the same value to people. So that's been our little challenge.

Noah Scalin:

I would say, in the first week, I personally got a dozen emails from people saying, "When are you going to do another Creative Sprint? We need something right now." I mean it was a real sense of what we did was on top of mind for people, which was wild to feel like, "Wow, this is how valid this stuff is." We knew it was valid. We knew it was something you needed when there was an emergency, and that's why we always tell people to practice and to do this stuff before there's an emergency. But to see people in the emergency going, "This is the thing we need right now." And we had a great client who wanted who we were about to do something in person and immediately said, "Yes, we can switch to virtual." And we were like, "We have never done that specific thing, virtual [inaudible 00:13:56]."

Noah Scalin:

So we did a really quick turnaround on ,creating a virtual version of one of our most popular workshops and presentations and that was amazing. Then we got a great feedback on it right away. What's crazy is that, literally in February of this year, I was in Portland with hundreds of people speaking to them. And it was just so weird to go like, "I was just in this hotspot area." And then a month later it seems crazy. It's scary to look at a picture of that many people that tightly packed together.

Tim Cynova:

And one of the things that we get a lot of questions about is how do you actually do the thing. I mean we get questions about how do you do the podcast. We get a lot of questions about what platform we use for streaming this live stream, which is StreamYard. We have no sponsorship deal with them, but would maybe take one. But lots of people are wrestling with how does this thing move online. What did you actually use to make something that was built for 3D and put it online? What tools did you use, how did you have to rethink the way you were interacting with people?

Noah Scalin:

Well, I think one of the first things that's really cool is that we had already been working virtually to some degree. So Creative Sprint was already something we used email for. And certainly, we love a live, interactive session. It's really fun to have people in the same room, there's a very specific energy that's generated from it. But we had already been practicing. And Mica and I, because we were working virtually with each other for years and we were not in the same city... So I'm in Richmond, Virginia and she's in Brooklyn, New York. We've been working virtually for many, many years so we were already used to this platform as a way to interact with each other, and we practiced and played in it. So it wasn't an entirely unfamiliar thing.

Mica Scalin:

I know you're talking about tools, but again, in terms of... Tools are one thing, you could have all the tools, but if you are not actually... You know what I mean? You have to think about content as it fits the tools. It's so interesting. But I feel like we've gone back in time for me. Because about 10 years ago, I was in the field of helping people get their heads around how to get content onto digital platforms in the very early stages, doing online video, pre-YouTube, and trying to work with arts organizations and eventually television and stuff. So to me, I kind of feel like we've gone back to the past.

Mica Scalin:

But on the other hand, pushed up against a wall, everyone's figuring it out and figuring it out really amazingly. So I think you can certainly use tools. There's no shortage of tools, and there'll be more tools, but I really think it's thinking about content and format. And Noah and I were lucky because a lot of the content we develop to share with our clients is based on experiences Noah and I had developing creatively using the internet and digital communication tools to develop creative content. So does that make sense?

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah, I agree with you.

Mica Scalin:

Tool-wise, Zoom. What else? Email, Mailchimp.

Noah Scalin:

Mostly Zoom.

Tim Cynova:

Fax machines.

Noah Scalin:

Well, it's funny because Skull-A-Day was a blog. And so talking about pre all of the current technology, it's amazing that we've got so many ways now and so many rapid, easy tools to use and that. I mean Mica and I both have done live video stuff with our various projects years ago, when it was really hard to do, instead of be able to just jump on this and do this now. It's amazing.

Lauren Ruffin:

I think you're right around the... There's something about having to do things virtually that really strips bare the quality of your content. And to me, that's such an opportunity because the networking and the co-presence that happens in events. If someone doesn't like your stuff, they're still going to hang around the convention hall, or whatever, talking to people, and they're going to leave feeling good even if they hated every single one of your formal presentations. But I think the opportunity here is organizations getting really, really tight about how the quality of their content and the way things are structured, and then perhaps take some of that stuff back out into the real world with them, while also I think maintaining this digital piece hopefully forever because of the accessibility components.

Noah Scalin:

I think the hardest shift for me, just as somebody who is a public speaker and does a lot of presentations to large audiences, I'm used to that audience feedback. And so just my first few talks where there's just this silence and people are staring at you like you're on TV, I want an expressive face to show me you got what I just said, or a nodding head. And sometimes people are just so used to looking at a screen blankly. And so we did do some work to build in some tools to create a little more of that noise so that we get a sense of whether or not this was hitting, this was resonating. If you're going to do something live, you want it to connect with that audience instead of you can just watch a video of me giving a talk. But I want to have a live experience with you when I'm doing a live presentation to a client.

Mica Scalin:

Yeah, and I think we're still exploring. I think, like you said, I love this, you guys, it's two people talking. That provides that thing so you don't have that awkward you're just riffing and it's getting weird. So it's that having another person.

Tim Cynova:

I mean it still happens, Mica.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah, we still have plenty of awkward, like three minutes.

Tim Cynova:

[inaudible 00:18:23].

Mica Scalin:

Having another individual live with you rather than just you and this void. Yeah, and we definitely worked on, again, we're still learning and collaborating with people to figure it out, which is great because we get to work with these really, really big companies that are often very technical anyway. They're game. We're like, "What are your best practices right now? Let's explore some of them together so that we can learn new stuff." And that's I think also what it was always about with our clients, this collaborative mindset. I'm excited because I think it has the opportunity to even be a little more so right now because they're also open to that. And I think we'll-

Noah Scalin:

I mean Mica is just doing a practice or an experiment right now on Instagram, which I really was excited to see. She's doing collaborative art making. I shouldn't speak for you. You can talk about it.

Mica Scalin:

You know, I see these spaces. Noah and I have always used the web as a creative development tool. And it was something I always tried to hammer into people's heads 10 years ago. And I think people are getting it now too. What do people like? The rawness, the authenticity. Like you said, if it's too polished on the internet, it seems fake and people actually don't like it. It's actually not what they want. They want to have a nice, polished streaming experience when they sit down and Netflix for seven hours. But when you're on the internet, it needs to feel live, authentic, or else people are going to drop off if it's not this insanely-crafted experience. So I think that liveness and that question mark of, "What's going to happen next?," is crucial to creating this content.

Mica Scalin:

So I think it's a space for experimentation, and I hope that other artists and creatives... I think they are doing that now and I think that's exciting. So I'm doing it myself. I'm [inaudible 00:19:55] just Creative Sprint prompts with people. We have a big community on Instagram from those Creative Sprints. So just calling on folks, and we just do one of the prompts together for about 20 minutes on Instagram live. And that's the experiment this week. We'll see where that goes next week.

Tim Cynova:

Nice. That's great. I've had conversations with my classes that I teach around what does the online experience look like. Unfortunately, we started this early in the semester about what's an online meeting look like, how is it different or similar from an in person meeting. And it's been interesting now that everyone's gone online in classes and meetings, and thinking about how do you manage your energy, how do you include different voices. When you used to be in the room, you could see people shift. It's been really interesting to watch late night talk show hosts who you can see this evolution of, "I'm just talking a screen, there's nothing coming back at me." And over the past couple of weeks how they've had to adapt the content and the way they interact to adjust for 500 people not giving them immediate feedback.

Tim Cynova:

But I think from a participant standpoint, how you can actually signal this through a Zoom call. You might need to nod a little bit more than you would, make sure you're not scowling. But it's been in real time really interesting. Well, it's been a really interesting time period. And one of the things that's come from that is, how do we figure out how to engage virtually now and what does that look like? And then I think, what does this look like going forward? I think Laura and I, this is one of the questions that we really have been sitting with a lot. What does live creativity look like for our sector, broadly speaking? When things start to open up, how can we hold onto the things that we think are really valuable right now that were "impossible" to do two months ago to make the world, this sector, a better place so that it's more inclusive, people can thrive?

Tim Cynova:

And that's one of the really promising things I think that we have an opportunity to come out of this with. Also really challenging as we're all going through this as human beings and just the uncertainty of life and what's happening to hold these at the same time.

Noah Scalin:

I mean obviously what's hard is we don't know what the other side of this is going to look like at all. So to guess what anybody's going to do in it, it's hard. But I think the opportunity here, and we talked about Creative Sprint, and when we do them we usually do this 30-day length of them. And part of that is because of that connection to this idea of habit forming. And I've been thinking a lot about the fact that this is happening long enough that we can develop new habits within it. Because if it was two weeks, we'd go back to normal. But with many months of it, I feel like, "Hey, these will become ingrained things," and ingrained things that are real good opportunities, right?

Noah Scalin:

Which is like, "Hey, we've been really like, "No, this has to happen in person.' Well, guess what? It doesn't. Every job can suddenly be done virtually." And, "Look, people aren't going to be able to get their work done." They can, and then they can have a much better home work-life balance that was impossible for people. And I think not everybody wants to be home all day, especially if their kids are home all day too, and those circumstances, but that has given people the ability to see, "Gee." I just heard from somebody who said, "I might not be sick enough to take a sick day, but I might work from home that day." That's going to make their life a lot better to be able to have that flexibility.

Mica Scalin:

I think it speaks to questioning some of the choices that were maybe arbitrary or based on somebody else's other needs. It's always a good time for questions, if you ask me, but obviously there's certain things that are set in place for ease. We call it expanding your defaults, but there are certain default settings that we use for ease, which we need to just have things be a little smooth in our day, not think about every single thing. And right now, at a time where we're being forced to actually... I've been thinking about this. Behavior change is very, very hard. It's a whole science of studying adult behavior change. Very difficult to do. Got to intentionally do it. Right now, we're being forced to change so many behaviors, so many habits, so many daily things. It's obviously very taxing on the brain and exhausting I think a lot of brain resources of humans right now, for sure. But I do think once then you've established a new habit, it's very hard to go back. So I think about that. Some of those habits, once they're changed and established here, which ones are going to stay?

Mica Scalin:

Because I had a friend last night, he was like, "Oh, everything's going to go back. Six months, everyone's going to be like," da, da, da. I was like, "No, man. No, it's not," because people don't switch like that.

Noah Scalin:

Yeah, and to build on what Mica is saying, we see this all the time with our work. If we're going to a space and introducing the artists' set of tools to people who have not been practicing them and haven't been utilizing them in their lives, there's a lot of resistance. And we set up things to make it easier for people to try and take risks. But it's scary for people, and people don't like to get out of their comfort zone. And literally we'll say to people all the time, "Leadership's going to have to make this a requirement for you to do it."

Noah Scalin:

Well, guess what? Now it's a requirement. Everything's required. We all have to do it, no matter how much you didn't want to do it or learn Zoom, or whatever it is, you got to do it. And so that's been really cool to see that correlation there between what we were already doing and that people are forced to give this stuff a try. And when you try it you go, "Oh, it wasn't as bad as I thought," or, "Oh, I learned something or I gained this. Wow, this is a cool thing. I'm more creative now. I didn't realize-

Mica Scalin:

And seeing what limitations really are limitations and which ones are arbitrary, which ones are real, which ones maybe aren't that limiting after all.

Noah Scalin:

And when you say limitations, we should embrace limitations as part of our work. And the reason we say that is that really it's the boundaries that create creativity. It's the things that you bounce off of and push off of that give you those interesting responses. And so it's like this is just one more of those box-like sides.

Tim Cynova:

We have one question about creativity from our coworker Molaundo, who we need to give a big shout out to. Molaundo has been live tweeting all of our episodes for us so I'll make sure we slide in Molaundo’s question here. This is specifically to Noah. My introduction to your work was your artwork on Instagram, which I think is awesome. I'm a painter too and was wondering what is the inspiration for your style and color palette? And we're going to go with that question. Then Lauren and I will share with everyone, as well as you two, our Netflix series, and then we land the plane.

Noah Scalin:

Oh my gosh. We could talk for another hour.

Lauren Ruffin:

You know what? We really could.

Tim Cynova:

Yeah.

Lauren Ruffin:

[inaudible 00:25:42].

Tim Cynova:

I mean we won't, but we could.

Lauren Ruffin:

Tim is going to use the powers of God to rip us apart.

Noah Scalin:

Again. Okay, fine. [inaudible 00:25:50].

Tim Cynova:

Yeah, so go with Molaundo’s question, yeah.

Noah Scalin:

Molaundo, thank you for that wonderful and very kind question. As an artist, I work with these days mostly everyday materials and I'm always just experimenting and practicing, trying different things. And one of the things that I developed was this idea of working with clothing to make portraiture, and so I started using clothing to do it. And when I did that, clothing comes in a certain range of colors. Obviously, it seems like every color, but when you get down to it, the clothing that I would collect would be these bright, colorful things and then this, whatever, blacks and tans and stuff. So that would become my palette just because of what I had to work with. And after I did a few of those, I really liked that pallet.

Noah Scalin:

And then I realized when I was going to do some painting that I wanted to stick with the palette that I developed. Because I liked the fact that when I've got this one set of colors, if I'm doing portraiture, which I like to focus on, it [inaudible 00:26:35] about skin tone and it becomes the same color palette for everybody. And so no matter whose portrait I'm doing, they all have the same sort of colors to create them, and I really like that. And I realized that part of what's happening when I'm doing this work, and I do this when I work with stickers as well, because stickers come in these really bright color palettes too. So it's a similar one in terms of all these really intense colors being used to make maybe more subtle colors or colors that you wouldn't necessarily expect them to combine into.

Noah Scalin:

But when I do that, I realized recently that I'm really seeing things in black and white and gray basically, that I translate color from hue to value. I think that's the right transition there, yeah. So it's basically light to dark rather than blue or red or yellow, et cetera. And so that's what's happening in my head when I make those pieces.

Tim Cynova:

Nice. Thanks for that. Molaundo, thank you for the question.

Noah Scalin:

[crosstalk 00:27:18].

Tim Cynova:

All right, so let's land the plane. If your life right now we're a Netflix show or series, what would it be called? Who wants to go first?

Noah Scalin:

You guys have an idea?

Mica Scalin:

I'll do one. Dance like three or four of your friends are watching on Zoom.

Tim Cynova:

Mine's a riff on a well-known show. Noah, it's called Who Wants to be an Introvert?

Mica Scalin:

Lauren?

Lauren Ruffin:

Mine is, first of all, shot in all black and white. It's a play on the first three letters in isolation and it is In Search Of Isolation because I am really accustomed to spending time by myself during the day. I'm now sharing the house with people I love very much, but who also are working my very last nerve, just because they're here. They're great people. I just don't want to be around anyone.

Noah Scalin:

Get out of my house.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. So yeah, I'm in search of isolation really.

Tim Cynova:

All I could come up with is this chair. It would be shot pretty much like you're seeing now. Just me sitting in this chair for 30 to 60 minutes each episode, maybe engaging with someone online or just staring at the monitor.

Lauren Ruffin:

[inaudible 00:28:21] of chair.

Tim Cynova:

Yes.

Noah Scalin:

Sort of a Warholesque [inaudible 00:28:24]. I like it.

Tim Cynova:

Yeah, that's right. Exactly, Noah. That's exactly what I was going for, yeah.

Mica Scalin:

Noah, you one-upped mine, I just noticed on our thing. You wrote, "So you think you can dance with three or four of your friends watching on Zoom." That's even better. [inaudible 00:28:38]. Super offer. Zoom dance parties. Super offer guys, super offer. I tried it.

Noah Scalin:

And you shorten it, S-Y-T-Y-D or something.

Tim Cynova:

Well, I think that moment right there is how we should end this episode. It has been an absolute joy to get to spend 45 minutes with both of you. Thank you so much for taking time in your day to share the creative prompt and to share the time.

Noah Scalin:

Yeah, love it. Anytime.

Tim Cynova:

Continue the Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE adventure with us on our next episode when we're joined by Caroline Woolard. Miss us in the meantime? You can download more Work. Shouldn't. Suck. episodes from your favorite podcasting platform of choice and re-watch Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE episodes over on workshouldntsuck.co. If you've enjoyed the conversation or are just feeling generous today, please consider writing a review on iTunes so that others who might be interested in the topic and join the fun too. Give it a thumbs up or five stars or phone a friend, whatever your podcasting platform of choice offers. If you didn't enjoy this chat, please tell someone about it, who you don't like as much. Until next time, thanks for listening.

The podcast is available for free on your favorite podcasting platforms:

If you enjoy the show, please leave a review on iTunes to help others discover the podcast.

Guest User 4/16/20 Guest User 4/16/20

Live with Kristina Newman-Scott! (EP.25)

Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guest Kristina Newman-Scott, President, BRIC. [Live show recorded: April 15, 2020.]

Last Updated

April 16, 2020

Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guest Kristina Newman-Scott, President, BRIC. [Live show recorded: April 15, 2020.]

Guest: Kristina Newman-Scott

Co-Hosts: Tim Cynova & Lauren Ruffin

Episode Transcript

Guest

KRISTINA NEWMAN-SCOTT serves as President of BRIC, a leading arts and media institution anchored in Downtown Brooklyn whose work spans a contemporary visual and performing arts, media, and civic action. She is the first immigrant and first woman of color to serve in this position and one of the very few women of color leading a major New York cultural institution.

Under her tenure, BRIC embarked on an ambitious human-centered process in pursuit of clarity of purpose in the form of a new four-year Strategic Plan. That process led to a rearticulated mission, informed by the institution's impact and legacy, and a newly articulated vision statement, guided by aspirational goals. In addition, she led a renewed commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusivity in every aspect of the organization.

Previously, Newman-Scott served as the Director of Culture and State Historic Preservation Officer for the State of Connecticut; Director of Marketing, Events and Cultural Affairs for the City of Hartford; Director of Programs at the Boston Center for the Arts; and Director of Visual Arts at Hartford's Real Art Ways.

Ms. Newman-Scott's awards and recognitions include being a National Arts Strategies Creative Community Fellow, A Hive Global Leadership Selectee, and a Next City Urban Vanguard. In June 2018, Americans for the Arts presented Kristina with the Selina Roberts Ottum Award, which recognizes an individual working in arts management who exemplifies extraordinary leadership qualities.

A TEDx speaker, guest lecturer, visiting curator, Kristina currently serves on the Boards of the New England Foundation for the Arts, National Arts Strategies, and Downtown Brooklyn Partnership. She resides in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, with her husband and two children.

Transcript

Tim Cynova:

Hi. I'm Tim Cynova, and welcome to Work. Shouldn't. Suck. Live, the morning-ish show. On today's episode, Lauren Ruffin and I are joined by Kristina Newman-Scott. Kristina currently serves as the president of BRIC, a leading arts and media institution anchored in downtown Brooklyn whose work spans contemporary visual and performing arts, media, and civic action. Prior to BRIC, Kristina served as the Director of Culture and State Historic Preservation Officer for the state of Connecticut, Director of Marketing, Events, and Cultural Affairs for the city of Hartford, Director of Programs at the Boston Center for the Arts, and Director of Visual Arts at Hartford's Real Art Ways. She has received a myriad of awards, honors, and recognition including in 2018 when she was presented with the Selina Roberts Ottum award, which recognizes an individual working in arts management who exemplifies extraordinary leadership qualities. Without further ado, Kristina, welcome to the show.

Kristina Newman-Scott:

Hey, good morning. How are you?

Lauren Ruffin:

We are doing well.

Tim Cynova:

Doing well.

Lauren Ruffin:

It's good to see you.

Kristina Newman-Scott:

It's good to see you. Thank you for having me on. I keep editing my bio, and I'm just going to keep working on that, make it shorter and tighter and shorter. I'm going to get it into a tweet version soon, I promise.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah, no I keep wondering, "How do we talk about ourselves in 20 seconds or less?" It's impossible.

Kristina Newman-Scott:

Yeah I know. We have to figure that out.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah.

Kristina Newman-Scott:

That's another show that you could focus on.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah, maybe just chopping people's bios.

Kristina Newman-Scott:

Yes. Let's do it. All of us-

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah, the Morning Chop.

Kristina Newman-Scott:

Morning Chop. I need it. I know people that need it. Okay.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. I didn't realize you were a Hartford person the night we had the 91 connection.

Kristina Newman-Scott:

Yeah. The 91 connection, yes. Yes. Hartford was where, when I moved from Jamaica, that's where I moved to. Hartford, Connecticut.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. Boom town.

Kristina Newman-Scott:

I love me some Hartford. I learned so much, honestly. Yeah, learned so much. I have a lot of love for Hartford.

Lauren Ruffin:

Cool, so how are you? How's your community doing? And I know that you're hold up with family right now, so how's everyone doing during the pandemic?

Kristina Newman-Scott:

I mean I think we're blessed. I feel really fortunate to have my family with me. My mother-in-law, I work with her in her home in Connecticut. My 10 year old is doing the online school thing, as most people's children are. I think that my two year old, it's a little bit trickier because God bless daycares because me working full-time virtually and my husband working full-time virtually and then our two year old is being ... Nickelodeon Jr is her babysitter, and so I, every day, am struggling with the guilt when I have to plug on for work, and we're working more than full hours. I'm sure you've heard this. You're doing it yourself. I'm working more now than I was when I was at the office, and I was working a lot then, but I literally take the remotes, and I'm like, "Mommy's going to work now," and I go, "Abby Hatcher," and it brings it up, and I press play, and then I go to work, and then I'm like, "Don't call the police." You know what I mean? I feel how a mom might feel if I was leaving the house and closing the door. "I'll be right back. Don't move," and so even though I could laugh about it, it's really stressful because I'm like, "I'm not paying attention to my toddler. What is going to happen?"

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. I've been thinking a lot. I can't imagine, and our kids are 9 and 12 now, but I just think back to the occasional day where I had to work from home seven years ago, and it was just so hard with little little kids.

Kristina Newman-Scott:

It is.

Lauren Ruffin:

But everyone who's doing it now, this is not the way that we are supposed to work virtually. This is just not fidelity to the model. It's bad all around.

Kristina Newman-Scott:

Yes and if we keep this up, work will suck.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah, exactly.

Kristina Newman-Scott:

We need to figure out this situation and come together, and so at BRIC, what we've been doing is we've been learning. We have what we call our virtual stoop meetings at BRIC House. Every week, the entire staff gathers together for a stoop meeting because we have this fantastic stoop in our building, so about 100 of us, a little more than 100 of my staff members, that's my staff team size, get together, and we talk; and it's fairly quick. It's a weekly check-in, and then we have a more robust one that's an hour long, but we've been doing these virtual stoops with the staff, and we've been kind of hearing about what works; and so I've been trying to build kind of quiet work time because what I found that was happening was just a constant stream of online meetings, so you were Zooming from 9am to 7pm, and then you're not working. You're just Zooming.

Kristina Newman-Scott:

And then you're like, "Oh right. I live with people. I have a family. What are you people doing?" And so we've now created work quiet time. Lunch is sacred. Let people eat with their families and afternoons, so we're figuring it out, and we keep learning, and my team, Kyle and Scott, they have no fair in telling me what is working and what is not working.

Lauren Ruffin:

That's awesome.

Kristina Newman-Scott:

Yeah.

Lauren Ruffin:

That's awesome. You're really rooted in the Brooklyn arts community as well. What are you hearing from that community of artists?

Kristina Newman-Scott:

It's hard. I mean artists have lost their gigs. I mean they depend ... They're part of the gig economy, and a lot of the performing artists, visual artists who had either exhibition shows, just the artists that we were lined up to present, everything's shifting, and I really feel for the artists in our community; and so what we've been doing is transferring as much as possible, everything that we were going to be presenting at BRIC House, to virtual programming so that we can keep artists paid.

Kristina Newman-Scott:

So, for instance, we're doing the poetry slam that we do with Mahogany Browne and Jai Poetic. The Brooklyn Poetry Slam started at BRIC, and so we want to make sure that those folks continue to engage with us and that we're paying them for their work, and so we're just really trying to transition as much as possible and as it makes sense into virtual programming, but a lot of our pairs, it's not good. It's just not good. The news is ... It's really rough, especially those that are dependent on tickets and do massive productions and presentations. It's really not good, but we've all applied for every grant, every loan.

Kristina Newman-Scott:

Rick has a research page on our website for artists that ... I know that there are so many resources being shared out there, but we have been keeping a list of resources for the field with a focus on artists, and we also have a resource list for our immediate community in downtown Brooklyn, Fort Greene area, so that people can see where they can go above and beyond arts and culture resources but food services, home services. We've been trying to get all of that information and keep it one place for folks to easily access, so ... Yeah.

Tim Cynova:

What does the transition look like for you in the organization? Because part of BRIC, you have a television studio. You have studios to stream podcasts, produce and stream podcasts, so you have some of that infrastructure that allows for this transition, but it is still a physical space where I imagine most people work there physically during the week, so what has this transition looked like over the past couple of weeks to be an almost or entirely virtual organization?

Kristina Newman-Scott:

In the midst of this craziness, it really is, in some ways, an exciting moment for BRIC because our board just approved our new strategic plan that guides the next four years of our work, and within that plan, there is a key focus on technology and the work that we're doing in the digital realm, and this has just fast tracked ... And I'm hearing that from some of my peers too. They're like, "We were going to do this, but we're doing it now. We had this slated for 2021, but ..." so in many ways with BRIC, we've been in the media business for 40 years, but there has been an exciting moment for us as we've been rapid-prototyping some of these online experiences that we're able to think about, and we're already learning about what's going to have longevity, and so we're really looking at our capacity, what we're capable of doing, and how we're going to continue doing all the things that we're learning about, that we're excited about.

Kristina Newman-Scott:

Something that happened right when we started to go to remote work at BRIC that we really got excited about is the fact that because we're a broadcast center and a public access center, we're able to connect with television stations anywhere in the world, so of course you can do online YouTube. You can do Instagram Live and all of that, but we could actually patch you in to MSNBC. We can do this live talk on television stations in countries, so an example of that is something that we piloted a few months ago with VP Records where we did the celebration of their Reggae Gold. It was an anniversary moment for them, and at BRIC, we were able to be live in over one million homes on the island of Jamaica.

Kristina Newman-Scott:

Now that's a game-changer because people that have our ... We're in, what, we're in about a million homes right now. A lot of those folks that we reach don't have access to high-speed internet. They're getting left behind. There's a digital divide, right? There's a gap there, and so we really treasure the folks that are still accessing content in this way through cable, and so we're thinking a lot about that digital divide. We're thinking a lot about how to make sure they don't get left out. We're ensuring that what we do live on Instagram or Facebook can be patched into the channels. We're looking at how we can continue to be of service with the Department of Education. Could we bring educational tools to channels, to kids who don't have high-speed internet and can't log on for school? So we're thinking about a lot of those things and having those conversations now.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah, and you can prototype that right at home with your two year old, right?

Kristina Newman-Scott:

Well if it was Abby Hatcher teaching the class, yes. If it was an actual class, it would not happen. She's already given up on circle time. We did circle time every morning at 9 o'clock for two weeks.

Lauren Ruffin:

Oh wow.

Kristina Newman-Scott:

And it was great, and then one day, she was like, "And I'm done. Go."

Lauren Ruffin:

"Enough of the circle time."

Kristina Newman-Scott:

No more circle time so ... Yep. Yep. That's how it goes. What are you guys seeing and learn- What are you guys excited about? I love that Work. Shouldn't. Suck. is now this wonderful experience, right? And so what's happening on your end?

Lauren Ruffin:

You want to go first, Tim? You want me to go?

Kristina Newman-Scott:

C'mon, people.

Tim Cynova:

Go ahead, yeah.

Lauren Ruffin:

No so one, I mean this has been ... Hearing how everyone is sort of rapidly adjusting, rapid prototyping new things is ... I just think it's such an opportunity. I know it's daunting and really really hard, but hearing how adaptive and nimble humans are and organizations can be, I think, is fantastic. There are so many things that I hope organizations hold onto over the long haul, so that's really cool, and then I'm also thinking a lot about how our sector, the culture sector, in so many ways [inaudible 00:12:22], and I'm really thinking through, "How do we translate, for organizations that might not be as tech-savvy as BRIC or as a Fractured Atlas, how do we do the knowledge transfer, over the next probably 18 to 24 months, to help organizations continue to sort of meet their mission in the work they do convening?" So my brain is actually really excited right now. I felt like I had hit kind of a boring patch at the beginning of this year. I was kind of like, "Oh ho hum," but, yeah, for me this has been a really energizing time.

Kristina Newman-Scott:

Yeah, I would agree with that. It forces us, right? It forces us to show up in the world in a new way, and that is exciting. What about you, Tim?

Tim Cynova:

Yeah I've really enjoyed the daily conversations that we're having. I mean we started this as sort just a way to connect with people outside of our homes and, at the same time, sort of a time capsule if you will for the time that we're living in; and I think back to three weeks ago when Jamie Bennett was our first guest, and all of us took that as-

Lauren Ruffin:

Aw, Jamie Bennett.

Tim Cynova:

Yeah it was terrific-

Kristina Newman-Scott:

I heart Jamie Bennett.

Tim Cynova:

... But I thought, "We should check in with Jamie," because so much stuff has happened since we had that first conversation, and to talk through, in real time, with people who are leading organizations, people who are experiencing this in different ways around North America and to engage with people who are around the world, and the chat has been really meaningful ...

Kristina Newman-Scott:

Good.

Tim Cynova:

... Experience and to think, "What is next? How can we use this opportunity to hold onto the things that are really important to build that thing?" And now that we've proven that you can get work done without someone watching you, and you can do things in a remote setting, how can we, as organizations, as a sector, as a country, as humanity keep these things; and what do we need to do to make sure that we don't lose that once things start to open up again? And so that's been really exciting to sort of live in that space and talk to people about, "How do we co-create a future where everyone can thrive?"

Kristina Newman-Scott:

Yes, I love that. I'm here for that. BRIC is very much ... Our work is rooted in thinking and behaving in that way, and it's a simple thing, but it's exciting for us is when this happened, so many of our pairs, because they weren't accessing technology in this way ... We were able to work really quickly with my outstanding education team to create free classes online for other culturals and small business owners to learn how to use technology whether it's, "Do as mini doc on your iPhone," or it's, "Edit this piece," and we made it free to folks. All of the Downtown Brooklyn Arts Alliance were part of it. It's been really interesting, another way for us to understand what people actually need. What are the tools that people need? What are they interested in? And, to your point, how can we continue to just be of service and hold some of these things far beyond this crisis?

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. Kristina, are those resources still available on your website?

Kristina Newman-Scott:

They are.

Lauren Ruffin:

Oh awesome.

Kristina Newman-Scott:

They are on our website, so if you go to www.bricartsmedia.org - Thanks. Hey now, you guys are profession-

Lauren Ruffin:

Add production value on this.

Kristina Newman-Scott:

Hey. I appreciate it. bricartsmedia.org. You can see our calendar, and so on our calendar and if you click on education, you'll be able to navigate and find a lot of the information there. Another thing that we did pretty quickly around mid-March was to launch a Creative Future Relief fund which was to raise money to support our transition to online programming, thereby helping us to continue to support artists and to keep our staff whole as much as possible as we do that transition, so our Creative Future Relief fund is on our ... You can learn more about that as well on our website that you so wonderfully popped up a second ago.

Tim Cynova:

Kristina, you talked earlier about your strategic plan that you had just wrapped up, and then how many pieces have just been tossed into the air that you thought were all sort of set, or how are you processing this now that you've concluded that and things have started to change? Or maybe they haven't.

Kristina Newman-Scott:

It's interesting. I don't think there are so many pieces up in the air. I think that what this has done outside of the fast tracking our exploration of what we can do digitally and how we present visual performing and media using new technology ... We'll always present in our space. We have a beautiful space, a 40,000-square-foot space. That's not going away. You know what I mean? But I don't think there will ever be a moment again that we aren't simultaneously engaging people virtually while doing that, and I think that's true for many organizations, but what's exciting about this moment is that in many ways, it reinforces all the things that we've said in our strategic plan in terms of our mission, vision, and values; and so just having that center us every single day ...

Kristina Newman-Scott:

Because at the beginning of this, I think people were all like, "Wait, you want me to talk to artists online? You want to do ..." It felt like a lot to process. My staff are like, "What do you mean? You want me to go virtual how?" And then it was almost like they were thinking of themselves as a new organization of, "Wait, we don't do this this way," so it was hard. Outside of my media team, it was hard for my visual and performing folks to process that, but the more that we just leaned into what we said we're about and our strategic plan as a guide is the more it became really clear. Everything's centered in the mission, so we're not changing that. We're just shifting how someone receives this, receives the information, accesses the resources, shares in the experience; so it really has rooted us, and I'm very thankful that we have that at this moment as an organization because it's our landing pad.

Lauren Ruffin:

I think that piece about, and I have been thinking a whole lot about this, the accessibility upside to forcing people to offer everything with a ... Of course we're all online right now, but moving forward for the rest of our lives, everything that you do in real life ... And not that this isn't real life. We're obviously here, but everything you're doing face-to-face, you should also have some sort of online component, and I just think the quality of thinking about live captioning, all of that, transcribing things, the various modalities of learning and especially adult learning and adult cognition, we're going to get so much more sophisticated on that right now, and that really excites me. I met Tom Chi. Did you meet Tom Chi, Tim? Tim, did you meet Tom? No? Okay.

Kristina Newman-Scott:

Tim, did you meet Tom? Tim, Tom. Tom, Tim. Years ago, I was part of this Hive global leadership. It's a massive gathering together of folks from all over the world for an intensive three-day experience, and Tom Chi, he was the head of Google X, and he talked a lot about rapid prototyping for community development, and this is maybe now seven years ago at this point or six maybe, and he talked about doing being the best way of thinking and learning, and I just have loved that line. I know he's not the only one that says that, and we all know that because of our experiences to be true. I mean how do you learn how to ride a bicycle? No one's going to YouTube, okay? "Let me YouTube how to ride a bicycle."

Kristina Newman-Scott:

So I love that. I live in that, and I recall that in this moment because even though there's all kinds of things that we could be doing ... We need to do a lot of things to learn, but I love that we are also kind of just grass-roots, feeling our way through some of it and just having that immediate gut response and being able to share that with each other as we navigate the future, and we are blessed because we do have this extraordinary media team that they have so much knowledge, and we can lean on them, but that idea of doing is the best way of thinking and learning is so true, and I'm actually really appreciating that right now.

Tim Cynova:

Yeah. You do have some of the fanciest studios.

Kristina Newman-Scott:

Yeah. I love [crosstalk 00:21:22]. I know. I have some fancy studios.

Tim Cynova:

I mean I'm envious of BRIC studios.

Kristina Newman-Scott:

Listen. You can do Work. Shouldn't. Suck. When we're all back together again, if you ever want to do it in the studio, you can come down to Fulton Street in Brooklyn and come and do it. You can get your Visa. Come to Brooklyn.

Tim Cynova:

They are some fancy studios, Lauren.

Lauren Ruffin:

I have never been, so I'm-

Kristina Newman-Scott:

You've never been?

Lauren Ruffin:

No.

Kristina Newman-Scott:

We've got to get you from Albuquerque to Brooklyn.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah I feel like I've done my time in New York.

Kristina Newman-Scott:

What?

Lauren Ruffin:

Although I watched Ghostbusters last night, and I had a couple moments where I was like, "Oh I kind of miss New York," and then I was like, "What's happening?"

Kristina Newman-Scott:

You know you miss New York. You know you miss New York.

Lauren Ruffin:

"What's happening?"

Kristina Newman-Scott:

No one's ever done their time in ... [crosstalk 00:22:08]-

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah, I don't know. I know people think it's really energizing as a city, but I think I need a slower pace.

Kristina Newman-Scott:

You've been energized?

Lauren Ruffin:

I think I need a slower pace. I need quiet.

Kristina Newman-Scott:

Look. I appreciate that. I will say it's a big shift being in Connecticut right now, and even though I was living so long in Connecticut, it's definitely such a shift. There is such a wonderful energy and pace to Brooklyn, and I miss that, and I love that, and it's funny because I have these two kids. One's total suburbanite, my 10 year old, and Charlie, the two almost three year old is total New York because she doesn't know, right? And even though she's three, we were taking a walk the other day, and I'm like, "We're walking." And she's like, "Where we walking?" I'm saying, "We're just going to walk around the block back to our house." She goes, "We're going to Brooklyn? We're walking back to Brooklyn?" And I'm like, "No, Baby. We're not walking back to Brooklyn. Can't walk there. Mommy's not that fit," but she doesn't know that, and Kendall's like, "Oh, I remember all these trees," but Charlie's like, "Get me back to Brooklyn. Yes."

Tim Cynova:

Well Kristina, you've worked in a lot of different environments. You've worked in government. You worked in art centers, and we talked about shorter bios. Probably your government titles are not helping out for shorter bios. It seems like you're just like, "Here's 18 words in the same title."

Kristina Newman-Scott:

Yes, yes.

Tim Cynova:

But what has the experience been like? Because you came from your role at the state of Connecticut to Brooklyn, and what's similar? What's different? Have you been talking to people at your former gigs and how they're adjusting or adapting to this new environment?

Kristina Newman-Scott:

What's similar? What's different? Well there's so much that is different. I mean coming from being the head of a state arts agency, and you're living and functioning within a very rigid government structure, and then I was also embedded in the Department of Economic and Community Development; I think that while there's so much different about how a state or a municipality even before that when I was working for the city of Hartford ... They're so much different there compared to a non-profit. There's a lot of similarities in terms of structure of thought, so to speak so, "How are we adding value to our community? How are we dismantling barriers? Thinking about barriers to access, how are we investing in the people that we are here to serve?"

Kristina Newman-Scott:

All of those things that I was thinking about at the Connecticut Office of the Arts are the exact same things that we think about every day at BRIC, right, as an institution, and I think that's really great; and I think it's helped me too because dealing with this crisis for me, I find that I'm a pretty high-energy person at work. I know that's shocking, but I'm pretty high-energy, but I've learned that, when it comes to crisis, I actually slow down; and so that comes from my experience in government and watching mayors and governors and commissioners and other city political leaders and leaders having to respond to crisis, right, time and time again; and so that has been some learning that has been helpful for me in this moment to ensure that I'm not moving too fast because you can move too fast.

Kristina Newman-Scott:

With all good intention, you could just move so fast you trip over yourself for no good reason, right? And so right now, I'm lucky to have the team that I have because we're being very paced and strategic, and while we're rapid prototyping a lot, we're still taking that time to be like, "We don't need to rush for rush's sake, but we're going to do this because it's right, and it feels right, and we're going to test it. We might fail or not," but so I think that learning for me has been great. At the end of the day, I love that I work at an organization that cares more about ourselves as an institution and really cares about community, and that's one of the core reasons why I packed up everybody and moved to Brooklyn because BRIC truly is a part of the community that we're in, and you hear that from the people that come to us; so I still very much feel like I work within community development. Does that make sense?

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah.

Kristina Newman-Scott:

I feel like I work within community development. I think BRIC is ... Not only did it start off as an early creative place-making strategy. I know we didn't talk about ourselves that way, but BRIC literally started as a creative place-making experiment in 1975 with BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn Festival. You think about it coming out of a mayor's office and looking at a place geographically, Prospect Park, a at time where Brooklyn was thought of as unsafe, and then they were like, "Okay we want to use music as a catalyst for change and arts as a way to remind people of the beauty of their community," and with that, BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn was born. That's creative place-making right there, and so our institution just grew out of that. That's our genesis story, and so in many ways, community, being of service, and civic action is a part of who we are, and I just love that.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. Tim, was it Deborah Cullinan who gave us the suitcase metaphor?

Kristina Newman-Scott:

I love her too.

Lauren Ruffin:

She's great. She's awesome.

Kristina Newman-Scott:

Yeah, she's awesome.

Lauren Ruffin:

So I'm thinking about ... She gave us a suitcase, and it was, "Right now, you have a chance to sort of think about what you want in your suitcase in terms of workplace practices or life practices. What are you leaving, and what are you taking with you, or what do you [crosstalk 00:28:29] learn, and you're bringing with you? If you were packing the rest-of-your-life suitcase right now ..."

Kristina Newman-Scott:

Oh my God.

Lauren Ruffin:

"... What's one thing you're leaving behind, and what's one thing you're taking with you?"

Kristina Newman-Scott:

Oh my God. That is such a tough question. Well always take Spanx. Always pack Spanx, I'm just going to say, so that's coming.

Lauren Ruffin:

Okay Spanx are your freebie. that's just your one freebie.

Kristina Newman-Scott:

Thank you because got to get those. Oh my God. The rest-of-my-life suitcase?

Lauren Ruffin:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Kristina Newman-Scott:

And I have to pack that right now?

Lauren Ruffin:

What's the one thing? It's work stuff. This, in theory, is a work livestream.

Kristina Newman-Scott:

Can I call a friend? Let's see. The rest-of-my-life suitcase. It's my strategic plan.

Lauren Ruffin:

Okay. You're taking that with you.

Kristina Newman-Scott:

I am taking that plan. That is an amazing plan because it wasn't designed by me in my office over two weeks. You know what I mean? It was designed by our staff, our funders, our community, our audience. They designed that plan, and I'm excited about delivering with my team, excited to deliver on that plan; so if that plan ... Because it's called The Manifesto, people. It's a manifesto strategic plan.

Lauren Ruffin:

A manifesto.

Kristina Newman-Scott:

We're bringing the positive back into that word, and so I'm going to take that plan, and I'm going to put it on top of my bag-

Lauren Ruffin:

You're taking that plan away from white shooters and making it positive again.

Kristina Newman-Scott:

Absolutely and-

Lauren Ruffin:

I think it's fine.

Kristina Newman-Scott:

I just put it on top of my Spanx, and I'm closing the suitcase. That's my stuff right there. That's my plan. What did you take? What did you guys pack?

Lauren Ruffin:

We didn't answer that question.

Tim Cynova:

We didn't.

Kristina Newman-Scott:

Oh great.

Tim Cynova:

I'm still at the-

Kristina Newman-Scott:

Now is the time.

Tim Cynova:

I still think we should stipulate that it's a hard-covered suitcase, not a soft one because then you can really get a lot of stuff in there you probably shouldn't take with you.

Kristina Newman-Scott:

You guys are going to have to answer that, if not today, with me. I'm going to YouTube every day and be like, "Answer the question."

Tim Cynova:

Oh we are out of time, Kristina. Wow. The time flies. We are out of time. Do you have any parting thoughts for us besides that you're going to be making sure Lauren and I address this question before we close our livestream?

Kristina Newman-Scott:

I think, as my two year old roles her scooter beside me, I think that artists have always reminded us of our humanity through their work, and when we reflect on our past, culture is what we reflect on, and I know that we're going to get through this moment. I know it. I feel it, and I'm so excited to have artists as a core part of our practice at BRIC, and they are definitely helping us see that light at the end of the tunnel, so I'm just going to say that I'm grateful for artists and creative risk-takers across our country and our world right now because they help to center me, and I'm grateful for the both of you.

Tim Cynova:

Well Kristina, we are grateful for you-

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah, this was awesome.

Tim Cynova:

... And grateful that you took time to spend with us. Thanks so much for being on the show.

Kristina Newman-Scott:

Thank you for having me.

Tim Cynova:

Continue the Work. Shouldn't. Suck. Live adventure with us on our next episode when we're joined by Dave Archuletta, Chief Development Officer at New York Live Arts. Miss us in the meantime? You can download more Work. Shouldn't. Suck. episodes from your favorite podcasting platform of choice and rewatch Work. Shouldn't. Suck. Live episodes over on workshouldntsuck.co. If you've enjoyed the conversation or are just feeling generous today, please consider writing a review in iTunes so that others who might be interested in the topic can join the fun too. Give it a thumbs up or five stars, or phone a friend, whatever your podcasting platform of choice offers. If you didn't enjoy this chat, please tell someone about it who you don't like as much. Until next time, thanks for listening.

The podcast is available for free on your favorite podcasting platforms:

If you enjoy the show, please leave a review on iTunes to help others discover the podcast.

Guest User 4/15/20 Guest User 4/15/20

Live with Gail Crider! (EP.24)

Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guest Gail Crider, President & CEO, NAS. [Live show recorded: April 14, 2020.]

Last Updated

April 15, 2020

Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guest Gail Crider, President & CEO, NAS. [Live show recorded: April 14, 2020.]

Guest: Gail Crider

Co-Hosts: Tim Cynova & Lauren Ruffin

Episode Transcript

Guest

GAIL CRIDER is President & CEO of NAS. She facilitates strategy, program design and organizational alignment to values. She consults on strategy, leadership, planning and governance. Gail was Vice President and COO for over a decade and was instrumental in our transition from the National Arts Stabilization Fund to National Arts Strategies and providing the range of services offered today.

Over the course of her career, Gail has been an entrepreneur, worked with a variety of nonprofit organizations and spent a decade in philanthropy. Prior to NAS, she was as a program officer for a private foundation where she worked on inner-city redevelopment and community building in Washington, D.C. Gail has also worked for the Arizona Commission on the Arts, Arena Stage, Shakespeare Theatre, the National Endowment for the Arts and Key Bank. She co-chaired the Community Development Support Collaborative in Washington, D.C., and has served as a senior fellow for the Center for High Impact Philanthropy at the University of Pennsylvania, on the audit committee for the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies and on grant panels for the Corporation for National Service (AmeriCorps), the National Endowment for the Arts and the Department of Treasury, CDFI Fund. She holds a B.S. in theater from Lewis and Clark College and continues to learn formally and informally through her work at NAS, including continuing education at Stanford University, Harvard Business School and University of Michigan – Ross School of Business.

Transcript

Tim Cynova:

Hi, I'm Tim Cynova, and welcome to Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show. On today's episode, Lauren Ruffin and I are joined by Gail Crider. Gail currently serves as the President and CEO of NAS, an organization dedicated to providing training and support for arts and cultural leaders. Over the years, NAS has partnered with leading schools and scholars around the world to deliver programs, like their Chief Executive Program, Creative Community Fellows and the Executive Program in Arts & Culture Strategy. This year, they launched the Leadership Coaches Training Program. They've created a handful of free online courses, including ones focused on leading innovation and inspiring and motivating teams. In addition to these in-person programs and online classes, their website is choke-full of tools, case studies, reading lists and reports.

Tim Cynova:

Outside of NAS, Gail has served as a Foundation Program Officer, working on redevelopment and community building in Washington, DC. She's worked for the Arizona Commission on the Arts, the NEA, and Key Bank. She co-chaired the Community Development Support Collaborative in Washington, and served as a senior fellow for the Center for High Impact Philanthropy at the University of Pennsylvania. And once, when Gail and I were attending an event, Justice Sonia Sotomayor snuck up behind us to say hello and thanked us for being there. Without further ado, Gail, welcome to the show.

Gail Crider:

Oh my gosh, it's a pleasure. It's a pleasure to be here, Tim and Lauren, really excited. And I remember that moment to this day, so clearly.

Lauren Ruffin:

I'm already distracted. We talked in fear about how easily distractable I am. Do you know Sonia Sotomayor?

Tim Cynova:

No.

Gail Crider:

We do not.

Tim Cynova:

We do not. But it was an event. I mean it was an event at the Supreme Court, so it wasn't totally out of the blue. And she was hosting it, and at one point in the evening, you're sitting around like event tables. And Gail and I are sitting next to each other and I feel this hand on my shoulder and I turned and it's Justice Sotomayor right there saying, "Thank you so much for being here. Really appreciate it." And we're like, "uh, yeah." So that was an amazing moment that Gail and I shared together.

Lauren Ruffin:

That is really, really cool. That legal nerd in me is like a little tingly. Okay. So Gail, I'm really excited to meet you. This is our first time talking. And you're in Arlington, but have the sort of bird's eye view or maybe not so high up, but a view of the field and everything that's happening nationally. So how's your community and what sort of themes are you hearing from people right now during the pandemic?

Gail Crider:

Wow, could answer that on different levels. I mean I live in a very dense neighborhood, and it's unusual, in the fact that it is highly dense, but we don't have any street lights, we don't have any alleyways. And so the whole social construct of the community is really interesting. And even in these times of social distancing, we get together out on our porch, on our stoops, to occasionally yell at each other from a reasonable distance. And that's really been a bright spot in life. To try and recreate that type of situation for our alumni, we've been hosting what we've been calling virtual hugs and inviting folks from previous years to come back together and talk about what's reality like these days, from both a emotional standpoint and from a leadership and kind of practical standpoint, what are they faced with? And we've gotten a whole range of responses there from leaders who are really networked. So if they have a very shared structure, probably somewhat similar to Fractured Atlas, they feel much more connected. And even though they're feeling extreme stress, they feel like it's shared to leaders that are in hierarchical structures, that are feeling even more isolated. And the stress levels are very high.

Gail Crider:

The other thing that we're noting, is that people are in this situation in very different circumstances. Some taking care of their elders, their children, their neighbors or friends. And so they may have much less time to devote to any kind of work situation, now that they're working from home. And so life is just so different. To others who have more time, it's running the gamut.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. So Tim gave you a lovely bio, but how do you sort of usually introduce yourself and your work?

Gail Crider:

I, myself, I am the granddaughter of farmers and the daughter of a learning disability specialist. She was the first in the family to go to college. I'm curious and I'm persistent, and I'm the proud mother of a now 21-year-old who wants to change the world through politics.

Lauren Ruffin:

Oh.

Gail Crider:

That's how I introduced myself personally. Professionally, I am part of an amazing team that is everything from practical, creative, linear, nonlinear, they just represent such a wide variety of views and opinions. And I love that people bring their whole selves to any discussions we have, and so we have a lot of debate. We occasionally disagree, well we disagree and we occasionally agree. But it's a great space to be in as a leader, and in the shared leadership.

Tim Cynova:

What does it look like right now at NAS, work-wise? Because you were able to work remote before, so there was some flexibility in how you worked, although you have a physical office in Arlington. Have things changed a lot from taskable weeks work-wise? How do you communicate? What tools are you using? What new things are you finding to be useful? Not useful?

Gail Crider:

Well, I can say a resource for us has been your website. We actually, one of the things that we all did, what we flipped to completely virtual, is we posted all the resources for Fractured Atlas and Work. Shouldn't. Suck. So thank you for that.

Tim Cynova:

Thanks Gail.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah.

Gail Crider:

You're right, a lot of us travel. It's so strange not being on the road three out of four weeks in a month. But many of us travel, so we're used to working from home or remotely, but now all of us are working that way. And as I had mentioned before, we all have different circumstances. So we have from homeschooling to a newborn, in one of our households, to caring for family members. And so it's all different. So we've really had to adjust our collaborative routine. I think each of us have talked about having our own specific routine so that we know kind of when we're working and when we're not, which is different, it feels really different. And then for the collective, we talk about, we share those routines so we know when people are online and when they're not, when they're working and when they're not. And that's just shifted meetings for us.

Gail Crider:

We use zoom a lot. We're a Slack culture, well we don't Slack, but we are a Slack culture. Well maybe we do Slack sometimes. And so that's been helpful. We just started using Miro, the whiteboard app.

Lauren Ruffin:

Oh, yeah.

Gail Crider:

Yeah. So because we're flipping so many programs online or redesigning things, considering what things might look like in the next 12 to 18 months. So it's a great idea space for us because we think about design and we can share it with other partners and collaborators, and that's helpful.

Tim Cynova:

That's great. And this like dovetails perfectly with a question that just came in from one of our viewers. Which elements of your leadership development programs do you notice being most used and useful to your cohort in this moment? And how are you re-imagining your future programs as a result? Thank you for the question right off the bat here.

Gail Crider:

Thanks Andrew. It's interesting. So I mentioned the collaboration. We're part of a large collaboration that works in North Dakota, South Dakota and the native nations in that geography. And one of the collaborators is a Chief Executive Program alum. And we were talking the other day and she was mentioning how she still uses, there's certain tools that come up for her that are incredibly useful, and this particular one was around, is a problem adaptive or is it technical? It's HEIFETZ work. And so we're hearing that a lot from various folks through the virtual hugs about what's coming back to the forefront. Our pivot, in recent years, has really been about imagining and managing change. So those tools are pretty darn useful right now.

Gail Crider:

In terms of flipping programs or changing programs, two recognitions. One is that some things that were already on track where a group or a cohort has bonded, has met together physically, we kept the program. We just converted it to online because there was a real sense of wanting to get back together. Of course, we changed it. Nobody can stare at a screen for eight hours straight, but we've adapted the model. But what we found is that people wanted to really see each other and see what's going on in each other's lives and learn together, that that had an equalizing or a leveling experience for pupil. Creative Community Fellows is tougher. The individuals that typically apply to that program are going through so much stress and change right now. Many have lost their jobs, have lost their livelihood. And so we're looking at how better to support alumni, possibly doing more granting, which is part of that program and postponing the new Creative Community Fellows until we can really get our arms us and what's most useful for the community.

Lauren Ruffin:

In the same vein, earlier you mentioned strategic planning and sort of thinking 18 to 24 months out. How have you shifted sort of envisioning exercises that are always a part of strategic planning? I just feel like Tim talks a lot about the SCARF framework and certainty being a big one. And with there being so much uncertainty, do you find that, is the planning process blocked or do you feel like it's more generative right now?

Gail Crider:

We're living with such ambiguity and uncertainty, as you point out, Lauren. I think sometimes it depends on the day and even the hour and what people are faced with. And when you can make a shift, I think, when you first start living through, depending on the level of crisis or what you're faced with, it's pretty moment-to-moment. But eventually the horizon opens up and so what we've been trying to figure out is how both for us, for our team, how to clap eyes on the horizon, how to look up and keep looking up without being disoriented. And then how we can make space standing together with others that are thinking about re-imagining the future, how we can use our experience and bring our tools and relationships to bear on that possibility.

Tim Cynova:

Gail from like a how standpoint, what does that look like practically? What things have you found in your previous work that you've been doing with all the cohorts and all the different programs to be useful to people right now, to be able to do that?

Gail Crider:

For us internally, we're using a tool, we're using the 30 days tool, that rolls forward that talks about priorities, right? And we've restructured our meetings so that there's a level of tactical, just figuring out how we're moving forward. And then there's tactical-practical, and then there's a level of strategy. So we have like a kind of a dreaming meetings that we host together. And that's the way we're starting to structure conversations, too, with our alumni and with the field, is that there's a need for practical. And if we get through that and we also can make connections, I need this, I have this, we can connect the two. That's helpful. And then we start to talk about, well, so what does the horizon look like? We know what the media is looking like. We know maybe what the intermediate is looking like, and then how might we think about. We facilitate conversations that initially are just about thinking a little bit more longterm when people are ready and again, can't do it until you're ready.

Tim Cynova:

Talking about making connections. One of the, I think it was the inaugural Creative Community Fellows Program, I was a mentor. Tomorrow's guest, Kristina Newman-Scott, was a participant. I was there for something that I call luck circles. I don't know if that's actually the term for them.

Gail Crider:

It is.

Tim Cynova:

And it's for those who aren't familiar with the term.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. I'm like, "What is a luck circle?" This sounds amazing.

Tim Cynova:

I was deeply skeptical and I'll let me tell you this story. So you put together like five or six people, and part of the idea is that we all have networks and some of us, our networks overlap pretty solidly. Others, the Venn diagram, if you will, it doesn't overlap very much. So we have different people in our networks and the luck circle is you just put something that you need or want or a question into the circle. And the circle sort of comes back with things. And at the time, I was looking to see the Zappos employee handbook, very Tim Cynova thing. But at the time, Zappos had a graphic novel for their employee handbook and I was fascinated by it. And I'm like, all right, so I'm just going to mention it. And I'm like, yeah, we'll see what happens. And someone's like, "Yeah, so my nephew just got a job there. Let me text him and see if it's possible to see."

Tim Cynova:

I'm like, "Wow, that's cool." And then the next person gets up and says, "Yeah, so I'm getting married in the fall", and I might be getting some of the details wrong here. But, "I'm getting married in the fall and my fiancé and I are looking for a beach location for our honeymoon. We're getting married in Europe. Does anyone have a place where we could go?" And I'm like, "Well this is pretty far fetched", like nothing's going to happen with this one. And someone was like, "Would you consider going to Egypt?" And they're like, "Yeah, sure." He's like, "Well, my cousin has a place. Let me just get in touch with them." And I'm like, "What the", and my mind just exploded at that.

Tim Cynova:

And then you go around this circle, you're like, there's no way that anything's going to happen here. And then you just start to see the group working and it's like, well, have you considered this and let's do that. And it was every time I've done it as part of that program, something comes up and I'm like, "No, there's no way that that's going to be solved in this or addressed here." And it's just a magical experience every time that just amazes me. And I'm so thankful for being there for that experience because I need some of those things in life, I think, to counter my deep skepticism sometimes.

Lauren Ruffin:

Skepticism.

Tim Cynova:

Yeah.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. I do love that Tim is a total skeptic.

Gail Crider:

It's a good thing.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah.

Gail Crider:

To be questioning.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. I mean even in an organization that's gone remote, Tim was like one of our last holdouts, as he led the thing. And we were talking to one of our guests and I was fairly certain that Tim would be like if it wasn't for a broken ankle and a pandemic, like Tim would say at the Fractured Atlas office.

Tim Cynova:

And an expired lease on our office. I just keep showing up with the next people coming.

Lauren Ruffin:

Until they kick you out, yeah.

Tim Cynova:

Yeah, yeah.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah.

Tim Cynova:

Well Gail, did I get the luck circle right? Or is there something I missed in the description that you'd like participants to take away?

Gail Crider:

It's based on the idea of the science of luck. Richard Wiseman, I believe it was, in the UK, who figured out that the luck is more of a science than we'd imagine. And really how people get lucky is to, which could really be taken, is to ask for what they need and to ask outside their networks, the normal networks. So we are actually, that's one of the things that's moving into the online programming now and trying to make connections, is we'll be doing some virtual luck circles.

Tim Cynova:

Nice.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah, I think that's brilliant. I do a fair amount of like sort of working people to build their fundraising shops. And so many people are so uncomfortable asking for one, really understanding everything they need or everything that could be helpful to advance whatever they're trying to do. But then just asking for it. And I think just creating the space for people to just explicitly say this is a space for you to ask for things can be really powerful. So that's really cool.

Gail Crider:

And you can imagine even now, more in this time, some people again have more time and some have less. And so there could be some space where people feel more productive to be able to be part of the luck circles.

Tim Cynova:

I think there's also something there too with the conversations that we've been having around, what does this become? How do we, as a community, adapt, change? What resources exist outside of the cultural sector that would be quite useful for the cultural sector, but because we're the cultural sector, you don't think it applies? And I think looking at these overlapping Venn diagrams and seeing where resources are, where help is and where people have solved the problem, if you will in some cases, how can this be a part of the conversation and be a part of creating the world that we want to live in, where more people can thrive, where everyone can thrive hopefully. I think that's a useful framework to think about.

Gail Crider:

We're working on a decision tree now. I don't know that it will work out the way we'd imagined, but the thought around it was to create, it's almost an empathy tool. In the pandemic, some people have more time, some people have less time, some people are overwhelmed with screen time, but need more social time. So there's a lot of kind of branches to the tree. And if we can potentially outline the tree, that people can populate it. So a leadership team or a community, it might be useful in building empathy about well, who's going through what at what time, and what might be great resources for them at that point.

Lauren Ruffin:

I do think this time has been, one of the cool things has been just seeing people be really explicit about what they need, in a way that like, I actually can't talk on Zoom anymore. Or whatever the thing is, it's forcing us to really be clear with our colleagues where we can sometimes stay in that polite zone and being able to say no. Like I'm having people say no to things that are usually kind of yes people. But that decision tree kind of reminds me of our personal handbook or our user manuals, Tim.

Tim Cynova:

Yeah, and we've been iterating on it on different teams in the organization. But those who are unfamiliar, the idea is there are several questions that people would answer about, when you do your best work, when you do your writing work, or what are your pet peeves or what do you really value in teamwork? And it's a way, I think increasingly and importantly, for those who have never worked together in 3D, to share, we each have this. And then you can share it with Lauren, and Lauren can read mine, I can read hers and you can understand, oh right, Lauren doesn't want anyone to talk to her before 10:00 AM her time, or 8:00 AM, whatever it might be. Or the best way to get something done is to use Slack versus Zoom or email.

Tim Cynova:

And I think it's not a perfect tool, but I think, be explicit, it fills in some of the gaps that you might learn about people over time and when you work in an office with them, just over here and you learn those things. And I think an explicit tool that people can have to sort of speed up that learning process is useful, especially as we hire people at Fractured Atlas, who we might not meet in person for a year. And how might we fill in those gaps in different ways. So yeah, the user manual exists in a lot of different formats.

Gail Crider:

And we've used, actually Tim, some of your questions over the years too when we hire and try and culturate people. It's the way because the culture doesn't necessarily, people adapt to a culture, but also they change the culture. And so it's really helped us be more, I think explicit about that. I think you're right, the architecture of a culture and the way people work when you have a physical space versus when you don't, big change.

Tim Cynova:

Well, and one of our previous guests was saying, even when you're interviewing people, if you're interviewing for a role and you think it's in person, you might be asking different questions than you would if it's an entirely virtual role. And as candidates, we would be weighing different things about, can I work that way? Can I not work that way? And I think what a lot of us are dealing with is like, all of a sudden, the chips have just been thrown up and there's a lot of moving pieces that people are finding out that it might not be what they thought. Plus, as you've mentioned earlier, just life is happening and uncertainty and other commitments. And how when life and work all of a sudden, sometimes seem one in the same, it makes that even more challenging.

Gail Crider:

Also what's important to know about NAS is we are very privileged. There are no furloughs, there are no layoffs. We can keep the staff team whole for a number of months and we're stepping out of the funding stream. We don't need it as much as others. And so it feels most appropriate, our team felt, to step back in this time.

Tim Cynova:

Gail, you were instrumental in the NAS transition from the National Arts Stabilization Fund to National Arts Strategies. You've been a part of a lot of different collaborations. Thinking to the future, where it's likely organizations are going to be exploring acquisitions, mergers, collaborations, certainly transformations and change, what do you think is important for leaders to keep in mind as they're going through this with their teams and organizations?

Gail Crider:

There are quite a few frameworks out there to think about the give and get, the way you actually collaborate. There's also frameworks around thinking about the difference in cultures of organizations, if it's established organizations that are collaborating. But one of the things I find that I have to keep relearning, in a way, as a leader in part of the collaboration, is the clarity of roles, which is incredibly important. The passion for the horizon. What the definition of that horizon and what you're all working towards, is the first thing. Clarity of roles is probably second. But the fact that there'll be times where it does get messy and times where your emotions will come into play, or you'll react in a way that you might react inside of your organization, but not with the collaborative. And so having that recognition about what's appropriate behaviors, at what point, and the generosity of spirit, I think it takes to be in a collaborative, has been really a wonderful experience for us at NAS and certainly for me personally and the collaborations I've been part of.

Lauren Ruffin:

One of the things I've been thinking about, well as a student of politics for the last, since Trump was elected really, but has been this struggle between federal regulations and how States are behaving. And we're seeing so many States behave like their own countries. And yesterday, I was reading that like all the States in the Western part of the U.S. have sort of banded together to say like, we're going to open up when we're ready to open up, and not when the federal government says. This is going to be like the next thing I'm going to be watching, like it's a tabloid show, just totally into it. Like, who's going to win.

Lauren Ruffin:

But from the cultural sector, it strikes me that there's going to be a point in time when leaders are going to have to figure out when their organizations get back to normal, like whatever normal is. There's going to be this like States say we can go out and hang out again. And then you're going to have staff members who might be immunocompromised or just not comfortable being out. Do you have any sort of thoughts for leaders? As we try to navigate, we're going to be getting all of these different sorts of directives. Can you talk a little bit about what you're thinking about or have started thinking about how NAS gets back to life as normal, whatever normal is going to be?

Gail Crider:

Well that's the question, right? We could hazard a guess and it's going to be messy, economically and structurally. And as we've touched on, and I've heard you speak with others on the show, I think it's really, there's a powerful opportunity inside of this. Now, how we structure the process to get there is an interesting question. But the powerful opportunity is to imagine a future and a roadmap. And when I say a roadmap, it's not a single one because a lot of people will have different paths to getting there. But towards a more equitable future, a more equitable structures for people and planet. And that the positive future we know is possible. And so I think it's that interesting coordination, if you will, like State and federal in some ways it's not happened. But my idea doesn't have to match your idea, but that we hold similar values and are aiming towards similar things and are in communication.

Gail Crider:

So if you think about network theory as potentially being useful in conversations, linking ideas together. Not as best practice necessarily, but more as information on the directions that a group of people or community are moving towards. We've heard from any number of our alumni that they feel like the change will happen geographically specific, locally first, and then have kind of a ripple effect of some sort. So this is something we're turning our energies to now, is to how to stand with others because we know, like Fractured Atlas and several others, you're thinking about what could be the future. How might we create these spaces for people to be creative and practical?

Tim Cynova:

Gail, as we pivot to our final question, I just wanted to highlight a comment from one of our viewers. Thanks Gail. Such wise and generous ideas you have shared with us today. Totally agree. As land the plane. What are your parting thoughts for us?

Gail Crider:

I so appreciate the space for this conversation and the two of you for organizing this. Thank you. I think in this moment in time, it's important that we be kind to ourselves, and I think that's often difficult in an interesting way. And so just to be kind, to continue to look for possibility and hope and to stay connected and to be brave.

Tim Cynova:

Great. Gail, always wonderful spending time with you.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah, this is great.

Tim Cynova:

Thank you so much for being on the show.

Gail Crider:

Thank you both. Great to be here.

Tim Cynova:

Continue the Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE adventure with us on our next episode when we're joined by Kristina Newman-Scott, President of Brooklyn's BRIC. Miss us in the meantime, you can download more Work. Shouldn't. Suck. episodes from your favorite podcasting platform of choice. And re-watch Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE episodes over on workshouldntsuck.co. If you've enjoyed the conversation or just feeling generous today, please consider writing a review on iTunes so that others who might be interested in the topic and join the fun too. Give it a thumbs up or five stars or phone a friend, whatever your podcasting platform of choice offers. If you didn't enjoy this chat, please tell someone about it who you don't like as much. Until next time, thanks for listening.

The podcast is available for free on your favorite podcasting platforms:

If you enjoy the show, please leave a review on iTunes to help others discover the podcast.

Guest User 4/15/20 Guest User 4/15/20

Live with Syrus Marcus Ware! (EP.23)

Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guest Syrus Marcus Ware, a Vanier Scholar, visual artist, activist, curator and educator. [Live show recorded: April 13, 2020.]

Last Updated

April 15, 2020

Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guest Syrus Marcus Ware, scholar, visual artist, activist, curator and educator. [Live show recorded: April 13, 2020.]

Guest: Syrus Marcus Ware

Co-Hosts: Tim Cynova & Lauren Ruffin

Episode Transcript

Guest

He is part of the PDA (Performance Disability Art) Collective and co-programmed Crip Your World: An Intergalactic Queer/POC Sick and Disabled Extravaganza as part of Mayworks 2014. Syrus' recent curatorial projects include That’s So Gay (Gladstone Hotel, 2016-2019), Re:Purpose (Robert McLaughlin Gallery, 2014) and The Church Street Mural Project (Church-Wellesley Village, 2013). Syrus is also co-curator of The Cycle, a two-year disability arts performance initiative of the National Arts Centre.

Syrus is a core-team member of Black Lives Matter-Toronto. Syrus is a co-curator of Blackness Yes!/Blockorama. Syrus has won several awards, including the TD Diversity Award in 2017. Syrus was voted “Best Queer Activist” by NOW Magazine (2005) and was awarded the Steinert and Ferreiro Award (2012). Syrus is a facilitator/designer at the Banff Centre. Syrus is a PhD candidate at York University in the Faculty of Environmental Studies.

Transcript

Tim Cynova:

Hi, I'm Tim Cynova and welcome to Work. Shouldn't. Suck. Live, the morning-ish show. On today's episode, Lauren Ruffin and I are joined by Syrus Marcus Ware. Syrus wears a multitude of hats as a scholar, visual artist, activists, curator and educator. He uses painting, installation and performance to explore social justice frameworks and black activist culture. He is a part of the PDA, Performance Disability Art Collective and co-programmed Crip Your World: An Intergalactic Queer/POC Sick and Disabled Extravaganza. Syrus is also a co-curator of The Cycle, a two-year disability arts performance initiative of Canada's National Arts Center. He is a core team member of Black Lives Matter Toronto and a PhD candidate at York University, in the faculty of Environmental Studies. Syrus was an editor of the recently published, Until We Are Free: Reflections on Black Lives Matter in Canada. And he also illustrated, I Promise, a recently published picture book that shares a conversation between a parent and a child about how different types of families form. And I have the distinct pleasure of getting to teach with him in the Cultural Leadership Program at Canada's Banff Center for the Arts. Without further ado, Syrus, welcome to the show.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

Hello. Thanks for having me.

Lauren Ruffin:

So Syrus give us, how are you doing, maybe an update on what the tenor is right now in Toronto.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

It's a rainy day here as well. I'm doing well. I've been self isolating for a while just because of some health stuff. So it's not so safe for me to be going outside, so I've been inside. So the trip onto the balcony, the long journey onto the balcony to look at the sunlight is my big adventure for the day. Toronto is, it's a complex, beautiful city. It's a city that has an active disability community. So there's people who are actively saying, "Hey, we need to be thinking of those who are going to be most hardest hit by this crisis and stay inside for them." But we also have a lot of targeted policing in Toronto. And so there's been issues on the weekend about folks getting ticketed from being outside and some people aren't and some people are. And so those are some of the things that we're sort of dealing with in Toronto. But in general, we are well, we are healthy, we're starting to show signs of flattening the curve. Things are moving the way that they're supposed to.

Lauren Ruffin:

That's good news. So Tim gave you a lovely bio, but how do you usually introduce yourself? What about you and about your journey sort of pops to the forefront?

Syrus Marcus Ware:

I would normally start by saying that I'm an identical twin. I love being a twin, it's my favorite thing. And I'm so thankful that I get to be twins with this amazing person, Jessica Ware, she's a scientist and a geneticist. So she's been helping in the fight, trying to understand how things have shaped up the way that they have. So I'm a twin. As you mentioned, I'm an activist. I love being an activist. I've been organizing for about 25 years around things like racial justice, disability justice and prison justice. And I'm an academic, a scholar, activist. I've been working on a PhD and I'm almost finished, specifically looking at the experiences of black disabled people in contemporary art environments. And I'm a dad. I'm a father to an eight year old, almost nine year old, and we have done every craft that you can think of in the last few weeks. Everything like making dough, making cookies, coloring, drawing, making videos, like going to the garbage chute is our big adventure. That's what we've been doing.

Lauren Ruffin:

I understand.

Tim Cynova:

Syrus, I love this story of when you were at Banff, about bacon and getting up really early in the morning for the bacon with your daughter. It just like warms my heart every time I think about that story.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

Yeah, my daughter's pretty great. I would gush about her all the time and she's a little activist. She went to her first protest when she was eight weeks old. She went to an Occupy protest that we had in the city and she's pretty amazing.

Tim Cynova:

I mentioned in your intro, I have the pleasure of getting to teach alongside you in the same module at Banff Centre for the Arts. And we were there two months ago at the beginning of February, it feels like a lifetime ago since that time. Our module is focused on change management and little did many people probably know, they would have an opportunity to be experimenting with some of the things we were talking about then. And I was fascinated by your session for a number of reasons. First, your an amazing teacher and what you had to offer was really amazing. The idea or the concept or the framework around panarchy cycles was new to me. And I've been reflecting on this since that time about, as Lauren and I have conversations with people about what might a new normal look like, or what's going to happen as people start to interact again and where are we in this cycle and what's happening. Could you break down for people, or give people a quick overview of what our panarchy cycles, and your thoughts reflecting on that as we're in the midst of global pandemic?

Syrus Marcus Ware:

Absolutely. I mean panarchy is this conceptual framework that helps us to understand complex systems. So in particular, it helps us to understand the two seemingly contradictory characteristics of all complex systems, and that is stability and change. This idea of being in stasis and this idea of being in constant flux, held together as a complexity that helps us to understand what's happening in a system. So there's this idea of a cycle of life that happens in a system. And you can sort of imagine it as a forest life cycle. You know how trees kind of grow and flourish, and then build a canopy and all of the ecosystems and biodiversity that go along with a forest grow and change in shape along with those trees. Until you have huge canopy, you have a forest floor that's full of plants, and you have this complex system that is reliant on each other in order for its survival.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

But then you get to a point where there is too much, there is too much growth, there's more than the forest can sustain. And this is when you see things like rapid changes or collapse, something like a forest fire, or something else that dramatically changes the system. It creates sort of a clean forest floor and new opportunities for other things to grow, for new plants and for opportunistic growth in the rebel and the decay from the forest fire. So this panarchy cycle is sort of like a life cycle, and it helps us to understand stages of growth and stages of collapse, and how they go together to help shape and create complex systems. Originally, it was conceptualized in 1860, the panarchy cycle, by Paul de Puydt, but it grows out of indigenous knowledge. And if you think about it in terms of a plant life cycle or a forest like cycle, this is something that indigenous elders had been talking about for millennia, and it's a way of understanding the world.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

So if we understand that systems never stay the same, as Octavia Butler says, "All that you touch, you Change. All that you change, changes you." If systems never stayed the same and they're constantly in states of flux and change, how do we understand where we are in the cycle? How do we help influence change in a certain kind of way? And how do we make sure that we are those plants that are growing in the forest after debris, in order to build a new forest. So you can sort of understand it through the panarchy cycle. It's a really great way of understanding complex systems change.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

As an activist, I mean I've studied systems forever. So this idea that things don't stay the same forever is something that we know to be true. And as an activist, I'm very excited about the possibility right now because we are in a state of collapse. The system has grown and grown and grown and grown and grown and mushroomed, and now it can no longer sustain itself in part because of capitalism not working as the way that it used to, in part because of climate change, in part because of all of these things. And now we're seeing this COVID-19 crisis, so we're seeing the system right now in this state of collapse, and something new is about to grow. And we don't know what that new thing is, but I'm really excited to find out.

Lauren Ruffin:

If you were to, and I had a conversation a couple of weeks ago with another good friend of mine who is in Ottawa, and he was talking about, we're not going to go back to normal, and things aren't all going to open up all at once. Do you have a prediction for what happens at the end of the cycle or end? I guess, now that I'm saying at the end of the cycle, how do we know when we're at the end of a cycle?

Syrus Marcus Ware:

It's really hard to tell where exactly you are the cycle at any given moment.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

Just because there's often multiple things happening at any given time, that's the complexity of it. But we are definitely at the rapid, the sort of reorganization phase, where things are changing and about to become something different. The hopeful part of me, the person who wants a better world, the person who wants us all to be free. I would hope that what would emerge after this, is a society that looks a bit different than it did before, that wasn't so reliant on capitalism as its main structure, because we know so many people are being left out. So many people don't have access to the resources that they need to survive and thrive under capitalism. So my hope would be that we have a different system, where there could still be trade and there could still be exchange, and all of those wonderful things that we've grown to love, but that it wasn't rooted in a monetary system that created a class structure where some people have and some people don't have.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

So my hope would be that when we reorganize our society, through this adaptive change moment that we're in, when we come back, we have things like what we're talking about now on the table in Canada, this idea of a universal basic income. In some places where they didn't have standardized healthcare, now they're seriously considering standardized healthcare. Like in the States, wouldn't it be wonderful if we emerged from this with standardized healthcare for all. And some of the sort of resources that are out there that would allow everybody to be able to be free and to survive and thrive. So I'm hopeful of that. At the very least, I think we're going to emerge from this as a society of people who have recognized that a lot of things that we do in public could be done from home. And I love science fiction, I love science fiction.

Lauren Ruffin:

Me too.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

And I love Star Trek.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yes.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

I confess to be a, not even in the closet Trekkie, fully out and marching at the front of the parade.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yes.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

But one of the things that I loved about that, was that there was this episode once where they had these people who had been frozen in the 1990s, and they get woken up in a pod and end up on the Enterprise. And they're like, "But what do you guys do for work?" And Captain Picard is like, "We all have all of the resources we need to survive, so we spend our time doing the things that we're interested in." And I was like, "There you go." That's it. That's what I would love to come out of this, is that we all had what we needed to survive and we were able to spend our time doing the things that were most interesting to us. Wouldn't that be a wonderful outcome that would come out of this?

Syrus Marcus Ware:

And that, in part, will happen if we have more time because we're not commuting and flying all over the world and commuting for work and all of those things. If we were able to continue some of this work from home practices, we'd be allowed to maybe use our time in a different way. And that makes me really excited.

Lauren Ruffin:

Have you watched Picard or Discovery?

Syrus Marcus Ware:

Of course. Oh yes, of course. Oh yes.

Lauren Ruffin:

So good.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

And my daughter is really into it too, and on Thursdays, it's just very exciting.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

We have to do something in a pandemic, right? So why not binge watch Star Trek?

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. Exactly. I went all the way back and started watching Enterprise again.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

Great.

Lauren Ruffin:

So it's sort of on in the background while I'm working during the day.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

Yeah. There's so many possibilities. And so when you think about sort of speculative fiction and Octavia Butler and Star Trek and all of these things that sort of suggest a future, one of the common things that I think that we look to in those stories is this future where we all basically have more free time, and we're able to do the things that we want to survive.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. I think about The Jetsons all the time. Watching that as a kid, I'm like, "When do we get to where they are?" Isn't that supposed to be happening now?

Syrus Marcus Ware:

Totally.

Tim Cynova:

Syrus, about a month ago you tweeted, this was as people were starting to self quarantine, quarantine, shelter in place, you tweeted something, a message saying, "Disabled people know how to survive in these times and throughout social distancing. I've got so many messages from folks doing check-ins and supporting each other behind the scenes in these hard times and it's F-in beautiful." One of the things we've talked about is how, what Lauren and I have talked about with guests, is how things that were previously too expensive or too difficult to do, online gatherings, things that had to be done in 3D in office, are now suddenly possible or people are realizing that they're now possible. However, people have been doing this work, organizations have been doing the work around this for years. And I'm wondering if you could talk about some of the organizations, some of the people that you work with that you know, who have been really doing the work of making places, making workplaces, making gatherings inclusive and accessible.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

Yeah, I mean we can turn to disability justice and disability activism right now and sort of figure out what are some of the best practices because disabled folks have been doing this forever. We've been calling and we've been Zooming in for a while because for a variety of reasons we can't always go in person to things. And it is, I mean it was really beautiful when the crisis first began, the ways that disabled people check up on each other is something that everybody can practice. Reach out to that person that you haven't spoken to in a while and just say, "Oh, by the way, Hey, how are you? Do you have all that you need to survive, to thrive?" I think that there's a lot of possibilities there. I mean there's some amazing and incredible work coming out of the States.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha. If folks aren't familiar with their work, she is an author and a playwright and a performer and an activist, and one of the folks who helped to start Sins Invalid, which is the disability justice arts incubator based out of the Bay Area. And Leah has created a mutual aid, Google Drive, with all sorts of resources in there about mutual aid, collective care, supporting each other through a crisis, everything that you would need to know. I think she calls it a half-ass disability prepper guide, in there for how to prepare for any emergency, so there's just so many resources in there, that's amazing, that I would definitely suggest folks check out. Also, Stacey Melbourne has done some amazing work, again out of the Bay Area, around disability collectives, supporting and caring for each other. Anything that Sins Invalid is doing I think is incredible. There's so many resources out there, but I would start with Leah's mutual aid pack just because it's a really good place to kind of get your toes wet if you're just starting to get involved in how to build community care webs.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

There's a really great resource in there by Rebel Sidney Black about pod mapping and how you can map who's in your pod, who you're looking out for, who's looking out for you, who are your immediate circle, and then who's the tertiary circle just outside of that and outside of that. And how you would draw in those people if you needed them, if you did get COVID-19, if you were trying to not get COVID-19, and how you would sort of tap on those shoulders. So there's some great stuff out there. Again, I would just turn to some of the brilliant disability activists who can show us the way in these times.

Lauren Ruffin:

I've been following a lot of that work online. I feel like I learned so much from disability activists, and I'm 100% with you. Well one, has your sort of way of working changed besides crafting with your daughter, in every way possible, has your way of working change at all?

Syrus Marcus Ware:

Yeah, I mean, one of the things I didn't mention that I love to do is that I am a DJ, and I've been deejaying with, and helping to put on a black arts festival called Blackorama for 22 years, here in the city. It's part of Pride. It's the largest stage of Pride, it's the biggest stage of Pride. I love it and I just DJ throughout the year too, but my main focus is on Blackorama. And what we've seen now in this new world that we're in, is the emergence of the online Zoom dance party.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

And I just deejayed for an Aries themed one on Saturday and, oh my goodness, I actually think I prefer deejaying from home. I actually prefer it. It's so nice to be in a party and people are there and you can see them dancing and you can see them moving. But I actually prefer, I did it from my bedroom. I just played the songs that I wanted to play. I could see people in their little squares having their little one-two, boogeying and it was wonderful. So I definitely been changing the way that I've been working. Deejaying from home is wonderful. I've had a lot of Zoom calls like this with collaborators all over, artists who I have met through, I travel a lot, I'm a very, very busy traveler. My art practice keeps me on the road a lot. And so I go to a lot of different places and meet people who I would love to collaborate with, but there's never time. And so right now there's time. And so I've been having all of these Zoom calls and connections to build collaboration plans going forward with folks in Australia and in Zurich, and in all over, the places that I've met with collaborators. So that also feels like a really exciting moment right now, is that there's just potential for collaboration across distance in new ways than we would've otherwise done before. And that feels really exciting.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. I went to a dive bar last night and listened to one of my favorite artists on Zoom, Asha Santee. She's a DC based, pretty fantastic. I was like, this is exactly how an introvert should party.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

Yeah, it's incredibly better than being at the awkward part of, I mean to actually go out. I mean put on pants and go out and stand in a line, come on.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. As a recent non-drinker, I really don't want to be around people. I don't have enough niceness in there to be out in a bar anymore.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

But at home, you could have your hot chocolate, you can just boogey down.

Lauren Ruffin:

It's like, grab my little non-alcoholic beer and kept it moving. It was great.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

It's great. It's really great.

Tim Cynova:

This is the conversation that I needed to start my week. This is really amazing, you two. One of the things we're hearing is about the overload though, of connecting online. Whereas it is amazing, I've been doing this with my own friends who I haven't seen for months, to connect on Zoom. But then it becomes a Zoom meeting, after Zoom cocktails, after Zoom dance party, and then a FaceTime. And then you're like, my whole day has been in front of this screen in this chair. Syrus, how do you approach this? How do you approach your self care and resilience in this time?

Syrus Marcus Ware:

Yeah, I think so much of it again, goes back to drawing on disability justice. So like what do we need to know in order to have a good day and to sort of thrive in our day? And so we know that as many times as we take breaks, we probably should be taking 10 times as many breaks as we take. All those times when you feel tired and feel like you need to take a nap because it is so draining staring at a screen all day, and under the normal capitalist system and our busy lives, we normally just say, "No, I'll nap later." No, nap now actually. Nap when you can nap. Take breaks when you can take breaks. Like these are strategies that we learned from just then. You mentioned in my bio when we did the cycle, it was a curated program trying to understand how to crip theater. And so in theater it's such a command performance. You have to go on stage, you have to perform, it's opening night.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

And we were trying to say, well what would happen if we did it from a disability frame? What if we took longer breaks? What if we took more breaks? What if we rehearsed by Zoom? What if we didn't always have to be there on opening night? And sort of imagining other ways. So I think we can kind of draw on those strategies and say, okay, how do we take more breaks? How do we build in more bubble bath time, more stare at the sky time, more watch paint dry time, because those things allow us to kind of rejuvenate and enliven ourselves. Similar to that panarchy cycle, we are a complex system and we go through periods of growth, and we go through periods of collapse. And we are also complex systems and we need rejuvenation time. We need that forest fire and then the breath after it, where we can kind of rejuvenate and gather what we need to gather in order to go into the next thing.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

And I think if you're doing Zoom all day, you need to build in a lot of love time and care time and nap time in order to be able to continue doing that. And then also to say that we are getting a crash course on what it is to be alone. And for a lot of disabled people who require attendant care in order to even get out of their beds, being alone is something that we've practiced, that we've had to practice. And I think that we have a lot that we can share of how to get through long stretches of time alone, because maybe you don't need to fill your day with Zoom catch-ups. Maybe there's one day a week where you're just alone and that that's okay. And to figure out ways to be comfortable being alone and just sort of having that quiet alone time. Again, we can draw from that. So I would say again, check out those collective care strategies and we can figure this out together.

Tim Cynova:

Yeah. That was one of the things that resonated with me with the panarchy cycles was, once you learn it, then you realize that it's not just one. You pointed this out, like each one of us have that. And then you start to layer them together and then our organization has that, and then our sector has that, and our world has that and our city has that. And you get to see just how complex this is and how you might be in one part, but the people on your team might be in another part. And then the tensions around those things and what you're dealing with. It was quite resonant to me and I'm really thankful to you and the rest of the Banff team who included that. I feel bad every time I go to Banff, I'm like, I think I learn more than I'm giving, but hopefully it's at least like net neutral here. That really was powerful framework.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

The cycles can be nested into themselves exponentially and in an infinite way. So you never know where someone is in that cycle. I mean sometimes we don't even know where we are in the cycle because we're in a state of flux. But yeah, absolutely.

Lauren Ruffin:

That's way messier than some of the other sort of organizational development. Like ways people think about it, like you've got, who was it, Tuckman, who's like, "Groups get together and then you're norming and your storming and forming and performing." And it seems that we're all moving at the same pace as individuals, and that all organizations go through those cycles. But I do like the sort of chaos in this and I love it, of course, it's panarchy. But it really works for me.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

Yeah, I don't know if there's a possibility to show images, but we can always post. There's a beautiful image of this forest rejuvenation that helps to kind of, I'm drawing it, but imagine an infinity symbol as sort of how panarchy works.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. Yeah. But the organizational development stuff that we typically think about happens in a really, really orderly way. And the other thing about the forest cycle is, and living in the Southwest now, wildfire can happen anytime. Or you could be going way past your typical cycle and a wildfire hits. I'm also thinking about in your personal cycle, have you had that moment where you felt like things were going pretty well, besides this pandemic? I mean I feel like we all go through it, but once you get smacked by something, how do you stay resilient in sort of picking yourself back up and then stay within your mind to be able to know where you are in that cycle? Or how to get back on cycle?

Syrus Marcus Ware:

Yeah, totally. I mean it helps to remember that this is a natural thing. I mean part of why I am so drawn to the panarchy cycle as a concept is that it's something to hold onto when you're in the middle of the storm and you're being battered all over, is that you know that things are changing and that they're going to continue to change. I mean, this is what Octavia Butler was saying in Parable of the Sower, "All that you touch, you change. All that you change, changes you." Touch change, shape change, change is the only constant. To be able to hold onto the fact that this is part of a cycle and that you will come out of it, there are these two four loops and ground loops that sort of growth and then collapse and that you will get to the next part, is something to hold onto. I actually had the opportunity to have lunch with Octavia Butler and-

Lauren Ruffin:

Oh, we can end it all now.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

And spend the day with her. And I asked her how she was able to sort predict the future in the way that she did, and how she was able to kind of imagine these worlds. And she just basically said, "If you just continue on the trajectory that we're going on right now, it's very easy to imagine the collapse and the fall, and the rise and the collapse." I mean this is just something that happens again and again and again. And so she felt that she wasn't predicting the future. She was just saying, if we continue on this road with no changes, this is the direction we're going in. So she understood systems change and system thinking and wrote it into her books.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah, I stumbled upon her relatively late in life, like in my 30s. And I've always been like a sci-fi reader. I feel like I cracked Parable of the Sower. I'm afraid of violence, which is weird. In my real life, fine, but I can't read about it or watch it on television. So I felt like I picked it up and just kept putting it back down. I owned it and I finally read it in my early 30s, and it was life changing.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

Yeah. If folks haven't read it, I mean what a time to read Parable of the Sower. This is the time to read it. But it's really about a society that's right at the moment of collapse and that it's been in a steady decline, but now they're at the bottom of that collapse loop. And the main character, Lauren Olamina, without realizing it, she's actually planting the seeds for the forest that's about to grow.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. Yeah.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

And it's amazing.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. I would say her and then Broken Earth trilogy, by N.K. Jemisin. There's another one that's sort of, as I'm thinking about putting panarchy cycles into some of my favorite reads. Jemisin's talking about sort of how the earth heaves and breaks apart and separates, and I mean that whole story is about cycles of growth and change.

Tim Cynova:

Oh well, we have to land the planet at sometime people.

Lauren Ruffin:

Are you really drawing the image?

Tim Cynova:

I did, but I'll post a link to it. It'll be easy for people to explore because I found a lot of images and I was wary that I might cut off our live feed if I start poking around too much. So in the interest of keeping the conversation going, we'll just post a link to it. Syrus, what are some of your thoughts as we close our time together today?

Syrus Marcus Ware:

I just want to say we are going to survive this. We are going to make it through this stronger and better. All of the things that we were doing when we were sort of imagining these prefigurative politics, we were imagining these future worlds that were possible. Now is the time to try to put those plans into action. We have the possibility of building a world where we all get to be free and where we all get to thrive. And I can't wait to get involved in organizing to try to make that happen.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

When we come out of this, we're going to come out of this different and I hope that we come out of this better than ever. I am so thankful, Tim, to have had the chance to work alongside you at Banff, and to have learned from you. And it's so great to meet you and just to be able to be part of this conversation, and to know that I'm standing shoulder to shoulder from my apartment to your apartment trying to make the world a better place. We're going to come out of this stronger and better, and I can't wait.

Tim Cynova:

It's been an absolutely wonderful morning with you, Syrus. Thank you so much for being on the show.

Syrus Marcus Ware:

Thank you.

Tim Cynova:

Continue the Work. Shouldn't. Suck. Live adventure with us on our next episode, when we're joined by Gail Crider, President and CEO at National Arts Strategies. Miss us in the meantime, you can download more Work. Shouldn't. Suck. episodes from your favorite podcasting platform of choice and re-watch Work. Shouldn't. Suck. Live episodes over on workshouldntsuck.co. If you've enjoyed the conversation or just feeling generous today, please consider writing a review in iTunes so that others who might be interested in the topic can join the fun too. Give it a thumbs up or five stars or phone a friend, whatever your podcasting platform of choice offers. If you didn't enjoy this chat, please tell someone about it who you don't like as much. Until next time, thanks for listening.

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Live with Mara Walker! (EP.22)

Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guest Mara Walker, Chief Operating Officer, Americans for the Arts. [Live show recorded: April 10, 2020.]

Last Updated

April 11, 2020

Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guest Mara Walker, Chief Operating Officer, Americans for the Arts. [Live show recorded: April 10, 2020.]

Guest: Mara Walker

Co-Hosts: Tim Cynova & Lauren Ruffin

Episode Transcript

Guest

MARA WALKER is the chief operating officer for Americans for the Arts and is responsible for the overall performance of the organization, working to ensure its resources are used effectively to accomplish the organization’s complex strategic plan. Prior to that role, Mara developed targeted programming to meet the needs of a growing constituency of organizations and individuals committed to using the arts to impact communities and lives. She was instrumental in the merger of the National Assembly of Local Arts Agencies and American Council for the Arts that led to the formation of Americans for the Arts and has played an active role in other partnerships and mergers that have grown the organization’s reach. When she first came to the organization there were 5 staff members and a budget of $300,000. Today there are 65 people in multiple offices and a budget of over $19 million.

Mara, a native New Yorker, has worked in arts administration for more than 25 years at a variety of theater companies and arts organizations nationwide. She is currently Vice Chair of theatreWashington and serves on the International Advisory Board of the Hong Kong Arts Development Council. She holds a B.A. in theatre from George Washington University and an MFA in theatre management from the University of Maryland.

Transcript

Tim Cynova:

Hi, I'm Tim Cynova, and welcome to Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show. On today's episode, Lauren Ruffin and I are joined by Mara Walker. Mara is currently serving as the Chief Operating Officer of Americans for the Arts. She was instrumental in the merger of the National Assembly of Local Arts Agencies and the American Council for the Arts that led to the formation of Americans for the Arts, and has played an active role in other partnerships and mergers that have grown the organization's reach. Mara has seen Americans for the Arts grow from five staff members with a budget of $300,000, to 65 people with a budget of over $19 million. She is currently Vice Chair of Theater Washington, and serves on the International Advisory Board of the Hong Kong Arts Development Council. And we are very excited for her to be joining us today. Without further ado, Mara, welcome to the show.

Mara Walker:

Good morning-ish. It's good to see you both.

Lauren Ruffin:

It is good to see everybody this morning. I'm feeling really grateful.

Mara Walker:

Yes. Yes.

Tim Cynova:

Me, too.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. I was wondering, this is Champions Week. Jeopardy also does University Week. Is next week University Week, no matter who we have on?

Tim Cynova:

It could be. We'll have to work on it over the weekend.

Lauren Ruffin:

We'll have to figure it out over the weekend, yeah.

Tim Cynova:

Yeah.

Lauren Ruffin:

That's how we'll spend our weekend. So Mara, thank you so much for being here. How are you? How are you doing and how's your community doing?

Mara Walker:

Yeah, that's a tough question for me to answer. We're starting with a hard one. I am an emotionally conflicted human being to begin with. And right now, I think I am probably in a heightened sense of that. I am very happy that I and my family, my friends, my colleagues, are healthy and we're fortunate in that regard. But I know a lot of them have had experiences with family members or friends who have been sick or even in the worst case, passed away. So I am sad for them. I am both happy and sad.

Mara Walker:

I am appreciative of the people who are working so hard on our behalf. The medical workers, the people who are stocking our grocery stores, the people who are delivering our mail and our packages, and are doing so many things on our behalf. But I am sad, because I go for a walk every night and I still see people in groups. And I get all this conflicted information from our nation's leadership. I am both appreciative, but also a little bit confused about what's going on. I would say one word right now I think would be conflicted, as to how I'm doing.

Lauren Ruffin:

That makes sense. There haven't been too many folks in groups in my neighborhood. But I would be pretty, "What the ef are you guys doing?" You know?

Mara Walker:

What are you doing? Yes. I walk around them. I try to illustrate how I would hope people would be behaving, but it still exists. People are still blind to what's going on. It's amazing to me. You asked about community. I think you also asked about how our community was doing.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah.

Mara Walker:

Americans for the Arts is a national organization working to help advance all the arts in this country. I can explain that much further if you'd like. But what we're seeing through the great research of our research team, is that we're looking at over a $10 billion problem here. A direct hit of about $4.5 billion to our nation's arts organizations, plus an additional over $6 billion hit from our audience spending. So the economic impact on our communities with this devastation that's happening with the arts has been unbelievable.

Mara Walker:

And then we're seeing through also great research we've been doing, the hit to individual artists has just been unbelievable. I mean, two-thirds right now are out of work. We are seeing more than half of them just don't have a safety net or any kind of backup. I would say right now, our community is pretty devastated. And yet, there's such resiliency. What are nation's local arts agencies are doing to support the artists and arts organizations in their communities and engaging them in thinking about new ways to rebuild our communities. So again, there's that conflict of the pain that people are feeling right now with this incredible amount of work that's happening to engage artists and arts organizations, has really been incredible.

Tim Cynova:

What are the conversations like inside of Americans for the Arts about this? How to respond, what role to play at this time?

Mara Walker:

Well, we've been gathering up people. One of the primary things we do is really to convene people. We've been holding webinars and online conversations, and allowing people to share their strategies or just share their emotions. Our incredible legislative team has been providing information on how to access the Care Act resources or other kinds of relief programs that are going on through a resource center that we created. I guess, I think our team has been so innovative in trying to figure out what's going on, creating case-making research. Just really actively engaging with our members and our partners in how we can get information out and share information that will be valuable to them, and how to get through all of this.

Tim Cynova:

What does it look like practically, working at Americans for the Arts right now? I mean, we in the past have had conversations about my prior skepticism about working remote, virtual workplaces, and my own journey to get to a place where I'm like, "Actually, this does other things that being in person can't." But I think my default is maybe similar to yours, where I like going to the office and seeing people in 3D. What does it look like at Americans for the Arts? What has your journey been like now that we're all distributed from each other?

Mara Walker:

Well, yeah. I have a reputation on staff that regardless of what's happening in the universe, I would be on my hands and knees just trying to get into the office no matter what. Just under clouds of smoke, and I'd still be crawling to the office. I want to be there and I want to be in human contact with the people that we work with every single day.

Mara Walker:

What happened a few weeks before this crisis hit, our incredible operations team got together and made sure everybody, all 65 of us, had the equipment that they needed to be able to work from home. And so we've all been online and prepared to do this. We've been on Zoom calls, or I have been on Zoom calls, literally from 9:00 am to 6:00 pm at night. And that's tough. On the other hand, it's the best way to make sure that everybody's voices are getting heard in the variety of conversations we've been having about how to serve the field, how to do business continuity. And so we're constantly brainstorming and looking at new ways to do that.

Mara Walker:

It's not my favorite way of working. I was not a huge proponent of working from home. I like human to human contact, and the brainstorming and creativity that comes with that. But in the absence of that, we've been making it work. The team is phenomenal. They've been sharing food strategies and balancing life and work strategies and how to exercise, and how to engage and incorporate the arts into our lives every single day. We share poems. We share lots and lots of stories. We have happy hours. We have lots of ways to connect outside of the intensity of the work that's happening right now. I feel like that balance has helped me see everybody's face. Not just a subset of people that I'm working with on a regular basis about Covid work, but the operational continuity too. The creativity has been really wonderful to see.

Tim Cynova:

Have you had a chance to think yet about what might make it to the other side now that you're forced to be entirely virtual, when it goes back to maybe being in person in offices? What maybe surprised you? Like actually, that's a really great thing, we should try and hold onto that as we iterate into what's next.

Mara Walker:

I think a lot of that takes the form is, we're looking... We, just like every other organization out there, has been hit with a revenue challenge. Whether that's contributed dollars or earned income dollars, we've really been hit.

Mara Walker:

We're trying to do budget scenarios, rethink all of our programs, just creatively reinvent the organization as we're going through. And so what does that mean 6, 12, 18, 24 months? That's what I am really thinking about from now. What's the field going to need? What are our communities going to need? And as an organization, I think people are going to kind of like it. I like my commute down the hallway and being able to wear jeans every day, and my slippers to the office.

Lauren Ruffin:

Wow, you're wearing the hard pants.

Mara Walker:

Yeah.

Lauren Ruffin:

Come over to the soft pants side, come on.

Mara Walker:

I like having crazy curly hair Monday through Friday, and not having to worry about any of that. People have been very kind and generous about that. But I still will probably want to be back with everybody. But that might mean office sharing, and we might be able to save on space.

Mara Walker:

We may be able to have a lot more flexibility with people who do want to work from home or are working from home, in a variety of ways. So I don't know yet how it's all going to play out for a group as intense as ours and a group that's used to traveling and being out there, that's been curtailed and been in the office. I think it's going to take a long time for all of this to come back into a very different normal. And I want us to be open and creative as to what that will be, and not challenge myself to have a vision of it right now. But to learn from every day, as we're getting together and brainstorming the tense moments that come with some people feeling like they're not being heard or seen in a Zoom call with the ability to get people into a room together. I think it'll be different, but I'm not quite sure how yet.

Tim Cynova:

One of the ways you bring people together is through the annual convening in late June. I imagine there are conversations that are going on, challenging conversations, deep conversations about bringing people together and what that means at this time. Can you give us any insight into what might be going on behind the scenes with the annual convention?

Mara Walker:

Yeah. Well, I'll take it even broader than the annual convention. We have about 12 national gatherings that we do every year, from the National Arts Action Summit to the annual convention, to the National Arts Awards, arts and business partnership awards, our arts and business round table that we do up at Sundance. We are taking every single one of those programs and re-imagining what they could be in this scenario where you can't bring 1,000 people together or 500 people together.

Mara Walker:

So for example, the National Arts Action Summit, which was poised to happen at the end of March right as everything was happening, the creative team there really got together to reimagine what an online program could look like that has over 85 national partners that all come together. At the end of April, we'll be releasing very soon actually... that at the end of April, we'll be taking that whole program online and giving people an opportunity to engage in advocacy strategies in an online program.

Mara Walker:

We are thinking about the convention, we are thinking about in lieu of taking a number of leaders up to Sundance and up to the mountain which we would normally do in September, how can we have an online dialogue about what does this mean for mental health? What have we been learning about taking care of one another and having conversations like that? We do, as I said, the National Arts Awards Gala in New York in October. That's not going to be a very smart choice for us this year. So what are we looking at in terms of how you do fundraisers and how you do other kinds of activities?

Mara Walker:

We're re-imagining every single program that we do, whether it's a small group of 12 to a group of 1200 at the convention. And thinking about ways that people can be together. There's going to be a limitation I feel like, for how many virtual things people are going to want to do, but they're going to want to see each other. I see that now when we bring together groups like our United States Urban Arts Federation. They're just like, "It's so good to see everybody's faces." And, "It's so good to hear from our colleagues across the country." I think we'll be continuing in the virtual model for the rest of this year, and understanding and researching how people want to be together in that way considering that there are no limitations to how many of those opportunities exist for all of us right now.

Tim Cynova:

You were integral and involved in the merger that created Americans for the Arts. I'm curious, I can imagine as we go through this, organizations will think about mergers and acquisitions. Sadly, organizations will go out of business. What advice do you have for organizations where... Let's explore a merger. Let's explore an acquisition. From the things that you've learned that are really important, what would you have to offer?

Mara Walker:

I'll say a couple of things about this. First, we've always been a huge proponent, particularly of small organizations or medium-sized organizations, for them to share backend services, for them to think about how they could be looking at shared administration and finance kind of services. I'm hopeful that more organizations will consider partnership opportunities like that. That their art will continue, but they might continue in different kind of models. That's something that we have always been encouraging arts organizations to think about.

Mara Walker:

On a national scale, there are a lot of organizations that have resources so that they'll be able to continue, whether they have endowments or other kinds of things. But I do think there will be a number of organizations that say, "Hey, let's consider where there are mutual goals and mutual objectives in the work we do, and how can we accomplish those by being together?" Whether our staff has become unified or there are new kind of partnership models, or new programming that we could do together. Now, that only works successfully when people are very clear up front about what they want to accomplish, what their goals are. So that no one feels a loss through a merger or an acquisition, but they feel like they are able to continue in the incredible and impressive goals that they had.

Mara Walker:

When we created Americans for the Arts, it was a beautiful marriage between the National Assembly of Local Arts Agencies that had all of these on the ground workers who were building better communities, supporting the artists, supporting the arts organizations in their local communities with the American Council on the Arts. Which had a lot of patrons, it had higher level people who were thinking about the education system and that kind of thing. When we combined those, we had all levels of people who were thinking about the arts come together.

Mara Walker:

People say that Americans for the Arts is a very complex place. "Where's my point of entry? I don't understand the complexity and the depth of the organization." But that's because it represents private sector leadership and public sector leadership and local arts leadership, and state and national leaders of all kinds, who are really invested in making sure that we're building communities in which the arts can thrive.

Lauren Ruffin:

You mentioned backend services and operations. I'm curious, one of the things that we found with Fractured Atlas when we went a 100% remote, that there were these little things that we hadn't thought about that actually became really big things and were really time consuming for staff in terms of change management. Check processing, we had down. Mail was a little weird. Are you finding any nitty gritty obstacles that are kind of unexpected as you all quickly almost overnight, go to 100% remote?

Mara Walker:

That's really an interesting question. I think there is an expectation that we can, the organization, can make it all better very quickly. And what are you doing for me, how can you help me? We're trying as much as possible to engage our partners in that effort and engage lots of other people. That's why we built out this resource center, so that people know there are a lot of other people that they can turn to. It's not just about one person being able to do it all, but that it is a multi organization 10-tiered strategy on this.

Mara Walker:

I think the other thing is that you've got 65 people, and things are shifting. If a lot of work is going virtual, and we have this amazing meetings and events team that has been putting together all of these meetings... when things go virtual, they're shifting their roles. On our finance practices, moving business continuity into an online practice means people are shifting. They're thinking about standard operating practices and procedures in different ways. And our tech team is thinking about new phone systems and new applications so that it's easy to access your documents from home.

Mara Walker:

What I've been really proud about the Americans for the Arts staff is, in every challenge that's been presented, somebody has stepped up with an incredible solution. A creative solution that we may or may not have been thinking about when we were at the office, because we didn't need to. Or we didn't need to, yet. So aside from people saying, "Hey, hang on a second, I'd like to be included in that conversation." Finding a way to insert themselves into conversations that are going on where they want to make sure their voice is heard.

Mara Walker:

For the most part, challenges that have come up, we've been able to resolve. Whether it's through great uses of technology or somebody saying, "You know who'd be great for that conversation? Let's make sure so and so is invited into this." And that can be tricky sometimes. As program people are running to try and reinvent programs, you have to make sure your marketing communication is going along with that at the same time that your finance team is being able to make sure that members know how they can get the access to continued services that they are doing.

Tim Cynova:

Our colleague-

Lauren Ruffin:

You are speaking to Tim's heart.

Tim Cynova:

Yes.

Lauren Ruffin:

There was a lot of deep nods in there.

Tim Cynova:

Yeah. Our colleague, Nicola... When we were as an organization, working on what you do with mail when you don't have a physical location to receive mail? We had these conversations and it started to get really complicated. She took a step back and just sketched out all the way mail comes into and leaves our office. It illustrated the complexity that we really never had to think about before, because it just comes through our office and it leaves our office. But they are 13 different ways mail can come into and leave our office. All of a sudden, we're like, "Right." This is why it's been so challenging to figure out that thing because checks come in three ways, and bills come in this way and packages.

Tim Cynova:

And then we did the same thing with our financial schematics. How does money come into and leave the organization? Which allowed us to take that step back to say, "How do we move money when we don't have a stack of checks that were sitting next to a printer and feeding it?" It really allowed us to figure that out. But it took just to put this all on paper. Because you hold some of it, Lauren holds some of it, I hold the others... For all of us to have the complete sketch. Nicola is actually going to be sharing that soon, or someone on the ops team will be sharing our mail schematic and how we adapted that with using a caging service for checks and a virtual office. We use Earth Class mail as a virtual for our mail.

Tim Cynova:

Once you start digging, it seems easy. Just find a different bill service. Then you start digging into it, and you're like, "Crap, this is really complex." And that's just one piece of all of the things we went down the list.

Lauren Ruffin:

That just us trying to understand it. That's not us trying to understand it and then communicating it to people so we can do behavior change outside of the organization, because you actually can't send stuff to this address anymore.

Tim Cynova:

Yeah.

Lauren Ruffin:

Yeah. I mean, mail. Mail.

Mara Walker:

Yeah. We've had a number of brave staff who go in. One person goes in once a week to go through, because you still have mail coming into a location. So we've had to do that and rethink all of our finance systems, which we were in the process of actually thank goodness, rethinking anyway. We are able now to just speed up that process a bit. I mean, we're about to go into a budgeting season over the course of the summer, and we are reinventing how we're doing everything. From budgeting to scenario building, to all of that. And really as I said, fortunately, we were in the midst of a lot of that anyway... of rethinking about where checks are going and how they're processed in a totally different way. So our finance systems are going to look very, very different in a few months than that than they were six months ago.

Lauren Ruffin:

Can you share a little bit about those scenarios? Just in terms of the optimistic thought that maybe we'll be back to normal, if you want normal, some of us don't... by the fall. Then there's, are you thinking about all of the potential for us being in this space of you doing Zoom from 9:00 to 6:00 for the next 18 to 24 months? Are you planning for worst case scenarios or best case scenarios, or is there some nuance in how you are thinking about that?

Mara Walker:

I think the answer is yes, which is always the answer at Americans for the Arts. Yes. We're going to be doing budgeting. Or financial analysis, I guess, if you could. But I think I want to step back from just thinking about operations, to what the world is going to be like. How are we making sure that artists and arts organizations are core to the rebuild of our economy and our community, and how they're going to play a critical role in that next step of getting everything back up. And not back up in the way it was.

Mara Walker:

I think we have an opportunity to rethink government structures, rethink how we are living our lives on a regular basis. I want to be sure that the arts are included in that rebuild process. It's not just a question of rethinking the operations of the organization, it's also rethinking the programs and services that we're doing. And from that, then what kind of new systems are we going to need in place in order to meet that new change and demand? In the scenario building that we're doing, I'm conscious of both sides of that equation to make sure that it isn't just how we do what we're doing, but it's why we're doing it, and a new vision for that also. I don't know if that entirely answers your question.

Mara Walker:

Our budgeting scenario, our financial scenario, will be best case all the way to worst-case. I'm going to look at probably about four different scenarios. But you can't really do that in our case until you understand the kind of delivery mechanisms of servicing that we have to do. And until we can make sure... and our legislative team is doing that all the time, that the arts are included in the next stimulus package, that we understand the impact of artists right now and what they're going to need in order to rebuild. I can't create a budget that doesn't look at the kind of programs and services that we're going to need to be delivering over the next three years. I'm just looking three years out. There's a five-year window and probably beyond too. Yes, we're going to be working on a best case all the way to a worst case. But I have to have a better understanding right now of several different visions of how we are going to engage with partners and members as we go forward.

Tim Cynova:

Spending all day in back-to-back Zoom calls is exhausting, to say the least, or at best. What are you doing for your resilience and self-care right now? We're human beings. We're in positions of leadership with people looking to us for answers that we probably don't have answers to everything. How are you approaching your own resilience and self-care in all of this?

Mara Walker:

I've never been one to think very much about my own self-care. I have always been much more interested in the care of others. That is not something that I am particularly good at. I think that I am doing my best to stay connected to my family, and that is the support system that I have... is the way that we make each other laugh. I mean, laughter is a huge part of our family. I am walking more. So at the end of the day when my shoulders have been like this for eight hours, then I go for a walk and I remind myself to put them down. I'm very concerned that I'm not going to be able to fit through the door of my office when I get back, so I am trying to think about food. I am the worst cook on the planet, and my husband's been very kind about what's been on the table. But I've been trying to think about making sure there are more vegetables than pasta on those plates and things like that.

Mara Walker:

So I am desperately trying. And I'm desperately surrounding myself by people who really do know how to make me laugh, and that is the best medicine for me. On staff, we are very conscious of that too. We created something called the Learning Lab, the Americans for the Arts Learning Lab. What that is, is staff-driven training program for us where we're thinking about anywhere from understanding history of oppression, microaggressions, to self-care and self-esteem building and those kinds of issues. We do training all year round on how to help one another, which is really incredibly helpful for me. I've learned so much from folks. But I've also learned that it's a really important thing to remember how to breathe, because I am just rushing from thing to thing to thing. I don't necessarily stop and think, "Okay, just take a breath. Just calm down for a second and get into the next thing well prepared."

Tim Cynova:

I've been meditating for a while, and it never fails. As you're going into it, you feel yourself sitting. One of the prompts is, and you'll notice yourself breathing. And I'm like, "I am breathing." But it surprises me every time. It shouldn't be. But yes, I am breathing. That re-centers me in a helpful way. But yeah, you just go from one thing to the next. It feels like being present in the moment in life, and tapping into those things are really helpful.

Mara Walker:

Being present, I think is possibly the greatest gift I can give to anybody, and it's probably the hardest thing I do in this job. Because when you run from something to something, and someone's calling me and someone's texting me and someone's chatting me, and all of those things are happening at the same time and I really want to be there for the person on the other side, and to lend them the greatest support or brainstorming or ideas... that's a really hard thing for me. I do try and work on that.

Lauren Ruffin:

9:00 to 6:00 on Zoom is... I am skeptical about people, at best. Woo, that is a lot of talking to folks. I'll be thinking about you for a while.

Mara Walker:

I appreciate it.

Lauren Ruffin:

If you ever just want to sit in silence on Zoom with somebody, feel free to put a time on my calendar.

Mara Walker:

I'm not sure I'm capable of it, but I appreciate the offer.

Lauren Ruffin:

I'm just going to say, everything else you're doing is best practice, but 9:00 to 6:00 on Zoom is not. But no, this has been really lovely, Mara. As we are sort of closing out the episode, you've talked about so much meat. I feel like this is the episode where we actually got to work the most, which is awesome given the title of this live stream. What's still top of mind for you that we haven't spoken about? Is there anything you want to leave our audience with?

Mara Walker:

I'll say one thing. I have loved the way that the arts have been essential to everybody's survival of this crisis. You see people doing art, doing poetry doing... I just saw a video of Brian Stokes Mitchell, who's on our board and on our Artists Committee, singing Man of La Mancha out his window. The way that people are designing masks and getting things to the hospital. I mean, the art has been central to I think, the day-to-day survival for people who have been in their homes.

Mara Walker:

I want to make sure that the arts stay core to building better lives in communities and workplaces and our education system, as we move forward. And that is what Americans for the Arts will be doing, and that is hard work. It is advocacy work. It's data. It's research work. It's convening work. It's partnership work. It's all of those things wrapped in so that we get pro arts policy. It's core to the rebuild of America's communities and economy. So I'm thinking about that, and I'm thinking about our people, our board, our staff. And all of the people that we work with are incredible partners on how to make sure we come to the other side of this with a reminder to people that the arts are essential to how we move forward, and to our 65 people as well.

Tim Cynova:

Mara, thank you so much for being on this show. Thanks. We've got some great chat comments here. It's been really wonderful to spend the morning with you. Thanks for making time.

Mara Walker:

Thanks for having me. It's great to see you both.

Tim Cynova:

Continue the Work Shouldn't Suck Live adventure with us on our next episodes, when we're joined by Syrus Marcus Ware, Gail Crider, Kristina Newman-Scott, and Dave Archuletta. Miss us in the meantime? You can download more Work Shouldn't Suck episodes from your favorite podcasting platform of choice. And re-watch Work Shouldn't Suck Live episodes over on workshouldntsuck.co.

Tim Cynova:

The podcast is available for free on your favorite podcasting platforms:

If you enjoy the show, please leave a review on iTunes to help others discover the podcast.

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