curious patterns #2
Contemplating ethical storytelling for NGOs, income generation for refugees through festivals, and how to decolonise philanthropy.
This is the second issue of curious patterns, and I am very grateful for the feedback and recommendations some of you have offered. I strive to make this as useful a community resource as possible, so your input is very much appreciated.
A warm welcome to new subscribers from the European Commission, African Development Bank, Goethe-Institut, Aninver, the French MEFA, ISCTE Lisbon, EUNIC, Logos Open Culture Malawi, Mekong Cultural Hub, the Universities of Warwick and Leeds and the individual artists, evaluation and dataviz cracks I spotted on the list. It’s good to have you here 🥳
🎨 Ethical storytelling x localised design
A recent podcast by Bond, aptly named Bondcast, got me thinking about the role and value of storytelling in communication in the development sector. As one of the oldest and most essential forms of culture and community, storytelling comes with a whole lot of diversity: not just the content of the stories but how stories are told. While the podcast focuses on ethical approaches organisations can take in their communication and fundraising activities (e.g. fully explain people how their photographs would be used and whether they agree to such), it also opens up the question of localising communications. For the practitioners in the podcast, this means hiring local photographers at the very least and finding partners who want to honestly engage with people and communities, not just get a job done or translate. Actually the conversation should be so much broader, especially when the content of any communication is supposed to reach people in the communities these organisations operate in rather than just Western donors.
In the brilliant AIGA Eye on Design online magazine, Somnath Bhatt conducted a fascinating interview with three designers from Ivory Coast, India and Indonesia. The designers ask themselves how their cultural backgrounds and identities can be intrinsic to their work when design education and the global design discourse is heavily led by Western paradigms. The three designers talk about the visual richness in local folk cultures, the problematic form follows function doctrine, honest collaboration with craftspeople, how not all cultures pass down information textually, and the social function of design.
Design is humanist at its core, so there must be an interest and compassion in the people one designs for or with.
In a context where culture, enterprise, development and community intersect, these words of Ishan Khosla remind us that our industry needs to take a good look at itself. Cultural nuance is very rarely well executed by designers and communications professionals from other cultures and even requires a deep dive of local artists and designers to understand the core dynamics and symbolism of their own visual cultures. Perhaps this is an opportunity to get artists and designers from traditionally beneficiary communities on board and into the centre of this global development project. Hybridity is a strategy Kresna Dwitomo uses to navigate such a cross-cultural conundrum:
One of the approaches is to take the order and structure of a Westernized gaze and try to blend it with the elements of current cultural contexts, with high research and honest narrative concepts.
Wouldn't the ethical solution for all the INGOs be to have local artists front and centre then? Nuanced and honest narrative concepts are exactly what the public in the West needs to see and learn about. It is well overdue that organisations get rid of their poverty porn communications that are still prevalent in so many donor countries.
At Talanoa, an online magazine by and for people from Moana Oceania (or: the Pacific), storytelling is embraced both as the central method of communication and as an art form. Topics range from climate change to creative arts and cover current research as well as perspectives on ancient traditions. Talanoa founder Arieta Tora Rika is taking it a step further and directly collaborates with the development communicators of good will media on a new podcast, Vosa. While the podcast is yet to stream its first full episode, it hopes to address all kinds of developmental issues and deliver them by, with and for Pacific people.
These passionate, culturally nuanced efforts of not just utilising but living and uplifting local storytelling, visual cultures and design need to be recognised more in the technocratic space many international (and occasionally national) development organisations occupy. Artists, storytellers, craftspeople and designers hold the key to successful, localised and most of all soulful and honest communication true to its own visual and textual narratives.
📰 What’s new
🌏 UN Special Rapporteur calls upon GA to address the climate emergency now, as it threatens (also) cultural rights in places like the Maldives and Tuvalu.
🇿🇼 Creative industries in Zimbabwe contribute approximately 6.9% to the GDP and 44% of creatives export part of their work. Great infographics, Andani!
🌍 Many African architects are irritated and frustrated that their governments hire fly-in fly-out firms in Singapore or Dubai to design their urban master plans.
🇹🇭 What do Katniss Everdeen, El Profesor and Harry Potter have got to do with a King and a military commander-turned-Prime Minister? Go find out!
🇳🇬 Nigeria-based Ake Arts & Book Festival broadcasted their festival on DSTV and GOtv, thus making it available in 20 Sub-Saharan African countries.
🇨🇳 The Xinjiang Data Project released a pretty intense report on the systematic destruction of Islamic spiritual and cultural spaces in Northwestern China.
🎓 Capacity building is problematic. Incrementalism, legitimisation of inequitable systems and white moderation are only some of Vu Le’s critiques.
🇳🇱 More funding for individuals, less for organisations - this is the new strategy for the Prince Claus Fund. Also, heritage rescue activities will go independent.
🔍 A Closer Look
💰 as 💊, or how to revolutionise philanthropy
Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore Balance
(2018: Edgar Villanueva)
Some will say that the colonial system of wealth consolidation based on white supremacy has caused so much damage and suffering and is so intrinsically rotten that anything related to it, including the ostensibly altruistic worlds of philanthropy or aid, cannot be fixed, cannot be trusted, should not be saved.
Thankfully, this is not Edgar Villanueva’s opinion, not in its entirety anyway - Decolonizing Wealth is in fact an optimistic publication. Edgar starts this book with his own positionality as Native American (Lumbee) in the US philanthropy sector, how he perceives the many inequalities of the sector towards non-white people and how the coloniser virus has taken hold not just of the colonisers themselves but also of the colonised through internalised oppression. To navigate this system, he advocates for a both/and approach: both Native and White/Western values.
He traces back how wealth was accumulated and how ironic it is that said wealth accumulated through evil (i.e. slavery and exploitation) is now used to do 'good', except it is still concentrated in unregulated small groups of powerful elites who get to decide what to fund. It is prone to reinforce engrained white supremacy. This rings as true for the US philanthropic sector as it does for the international development industry.
Most funding is still stuck in issue-based silos.
Realising that funding often does not respond to intersectional problems is something many culture and development practitioners can certainly relate to. Our work must already start at framing the issue, establish that culture is the underlying factor of all activity, and that other big development challenges cannot be looked at in isolation.
Edgar then dives into a hands-on guide on how to address these issues and instead use money as ‘medicine’ (in the native sense of healing): recognise your own role, grieve and apologise, deeply listen, and start to prioritise relationships over transactions. The latter part really resonated with me as vulnerability in my work is something I certainly struggle with a lot.
He continues to lay out how the money invested to generate income for foundations to pay out must be social, cultural or environmental impact investments, because duh! While not directly spelled out, I wonder whether the full pay-out of all foundational assets to community organisations, who can then derive their own income from smart but impactful investments, might be a good if slightly radical idea? And how does this thinking hold up in a changing environment that sees massive private wealth accumulation in Asia and particularly China? Organisations such as AVPN seem to be paving the way on the impact investing side of things, but how are inherent inequalities of the nature of wealth accumulation addressed in places that only just start catch up with the level of exploitation the West has perpetrated for so long?
Many big words, many complex concepts - but unlike my clumsy writing, Edgar manages to make Decolonizing Wealth a very readable, vivid, deliberately unsettling and through-and-through optimistic account of what he believes is wrong with how wealth is managed and how to actively work through this together so we can all heal, possibly through money as medicine. Full recommendation for anyone working with money!
📊 Impact
🆘 The amount of international aid distributed in 1995 globally is similar to the amount spent on Yemen in 2018 alone. Job postings in the humanitarian sector have increased from 15k in 2009 to 40k in 2019. A long-term buzzword analysis shows that AIDS and counselling are on a downward trend, while data, innovation and localisation are on a steep upward curve. These are just some of the insights of TNH’s 25 Years of Humanitarian Data overview. Fascinating but also partly alarming developments.
🎤 A 90-minute podcast isn’t exactly for everyone, but this particular episode of Eval Cafe is not just very entertaining but also super informative. Guests and host discuss the importance of holistic evaluation and the infinite process, share artistic approaches in evaluation, how to include games and honour indigenous knowledge in the process. Many great thoughts and concepts - tune in!
👓 In this brief reflection, South African evaluator Boikanyo Moloto contemplates his positionality in carrying out his work in the townships he was brought up in, how strongly emotion and privilege affect his activities, and how to adopt a both/and rather than an either/or approach (similar to Edgar Villanueva).
🦄 Unicorns
A refugee camp’s unlikely cultural entrepreneurs
In many countries, refugees are not allowed to work and earn income to support themselves and their families. At the same time, refugee camps by their very nature are built as temporary settlements catering only for the most basic needs as determined by local governments and aid organisations (security, shelter, food and health that is). Yet, by prohibiting refugees to lift themselves out of this dependency, the temporary becomes a constant and people’s needs start to change and expand.
Tumaini Letu, founded by singer and poet Trésor Nzengu Mpauni (aka Menes la Plume) who hails from the DRC, addressed multiple of these issues (and more) by creating the annual Tumaini Festival at Dzaleka Refugee Camp in Malawi. Putting refugee and local artists on stage showcased the cultural wealth and diversity of these communities and promoted appreciation for each other, i.e. creating social value. Offering an artistic outlet and audiences for the many young people at Dzaleka whilst adding to the cultural landscape in Malawi created much cultural value.
The most fascinating part of this undertaking, however, is how the festival’s spillover effect presents a unique opportunity for camp residents to generate income. Tumaini Festival not only employs many residents in festival tasks such as stage building and security but actively encourages young cultural entrepreneurs to use the opportunity to sell handicrafts, provide food and drinks or rent out accommodation to collect capital to start their own ventures and cultural projects in the future. It’s as hard earned cash as it comes. Sadly, due to COVID, the festival is not taking place this year but is set to happen again in November 2021 and welcome the 50,000+ people they have attracted in the past.
🔧 Toolbox
Databases for the masses
Airtable is a mix between a spreadsheet and a database, entirely online and collaboration-friendly. In my household, we have used Airtable to keep track of books we have lent to friends and to meticulously monitor our houseplants’ water intake. At work, I use it as a flexible project database, to categorise content for publications and to organise survey responses which are automatically entered through an API. The Mingei International Museum used Airtable to catalogue their entire collection of 26,000 objects and move it to another location.
It’s just an incredibly flexible tool that is still fairly easy to use even for those that are not the most tech-savvy. From tracking fundraising campaigns to workflow management, Airtable has many templates for easy starts. For more complex problems, it might just take some time and expertise to set up, but once it’s running you’ll love it. And the best thing: the basic version is free.
🎤 Humans
An interview with Sous Sinath
For this second edition of curious patterns, Sous Sinath wants us to think about the environment and rural communities. Sinath is the founder of the Cambodian Arts & Environment Festival (since 2018) and the Director of HR and Community Engagement at Phare, the Cambodian Circus. Stay in touch via Facebook.
A fascinating concept you were introduced to recently?
We need to think arts and the environment together. I strongly believe that through arts and creativity we can make a big impact of social change. We can use performances, exhibitions and workshops for social development. Through participatory arts activities, communities learn about the harm that plastic can cause and the importance of maintaining a vital ecosystem. Through creative workshops, collaborating and sharing ideas we can imagine a future through the lens of climate change.
An artist with an urgent message?
Cheav Chorng is a traditional singer performing alongside the Ken mouth organ. She is very passionate to transmit these old, rural traditions to the younger generation and show them how music can affect people. Purely based donations, she often performs at funerals helping the family of the deceased to grieve - something I find very noble.
A question worth asking?
How can we better support artists in our rural communities in this period of time?
🚀 Opportunities
November 2-13: What value culture?
Why have one event on #valuingculture if you can have eleven, right? Leeds’ Centre for Cultural Value pulls out all the stops and hosts this online festival of ideas. While as a non-native English speaker I find the title grammatically rather confusing, I am stoked to see a session on co-creating cultural evaluation principles. Please mind the strong UK focus.
By November 16: Pilot project for the safeguard and promotion of culture in the Outermost regions and the Overseas Countries and Territories
What a mouthful of a grant name. For the tl;dr folks: The EU realised their still-intact colonies in the Caribbean, the Pacific and other places don’t have access to cultural funding. So, they’re looking for an intermediary organisation to sub-grant funds to artists and cultural initiatives in these places, all in the name of cultural diversity. I am going to leave it to you to unpack all the layers of complexity here. All the application documents are here. I’m a bit torn.
November 26: Forces of Art: Perspectives from a Changing World
Digital book launch event for this Prince Claus Fund/European Cultural Foundation/Hivos collaboration at 3pm CEST on November 26 coming up. There is a bit of mystery around what exactly will happen at this book launch, but the chapters have me very excited (as pointed out in the previous issue).
Until the end of 2020: Media and Arts for Peace
For those of you facing another lockdown soon (much love and strength from somewhat COVID-free Aotearoa ♥), here’s an online course on media and arts for peacebuilding, which USIP made freely accessible until the end of 2020. I reckon it’s always good to learn about US perspectives, evaluate them critically and know how to connect/react.
📻 Media
I think we all agree that writing about art is important, whether it is nuanced critique or simply sharing what is out there. In a region that has more than its fair share of authoritarian leadership and crumbling freedom of expression, online arts media ArtsEquator is holding up the torch to illuminate and engage critically with the Southeast Asian arts sector. Consider showing your support.
The new Humanities, Arts and Society (HAS) magazine is a philosophical glimpse into very current themes affecting our lives - in the case of this first issue: big data. Available in English and French (and supposedly Chinese but it doesn’t seem online yet), the essays and artistic reflections explore whether soul in art is quantifiable, perform signals in noisy data, and differentiate between human memory and artificial intelligence. Brainy stuff for the quiet hours.
🐦 Meanwhile on Twitter
curious patterns is a monthly email newsletter on all things culture, impact and development, written by Kai T. Brennert (Twitter | edge & story).
Send a message, share your feedback or reach out with content recommendations for future newsletters - I’d love to hear from you: kai@edgeandstory.com