curious patterns #4
On getting arrested for writing about gentrification, how disturbing documentaries change the world and thoughts on cultural impact investing.
After some very encouraging emails from you subscribers, a video call to collaboratively think about open reporting and evaluation structures, some super exciting project design sessions with friends and partners in Malawi, Cambodia and Aotearoa, and two nice weeks in 🦥 mode, I’m back with curious patterns, issue 4.
Thank you to new subscribers from CIEPS Panama, the University of Kinshasa, Creative Economy Australia, Queen’s University Belfast, Arts Midwest and the University of Cambridge for allowing me into your inbox.
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💸 Making money matter 💸
Even though I currently read Oli Mould’s Against Creativity and pretty much question all my life choices, I wanted to share with you some thoughts on impact investing in the cultural and creative industries. So please take the following points with a pinch of salt: playing the game here, not changing the system … just yet 😈
Triggered by the Bertha Centre MOOC on innovative finance that I shared in the last issue of curious patterns, I started to think about the potential for cultural impact investing in Southeast Asia - a region very dear to me. The situation actually screams opportunity, especially in a more digital, post-COVID global market: a whole lot of young and tech-savvy early adopters of new technologies, a robust digital infrastructure including fintech and e-commerce sectors, globally connected fast-growing economies, increasing regional integration through ASEAN, and very diverse cultures with incredibly rich and living heritage. On top of that, many operational models in the arts and culture sector are already pretty entrepreneurial in nature as the environment tends to be more business-friendly and less so for NGOs. Promisingly, beneficiaries of the general economic growth you see in Southeast Asia are starting to become more conscious of the social impact money can have in their communities.
Now, foundations are often recognised for their grantmaking or their own programmes. Yet, the money spent on these activities only represents a small fraction of the capital that foundations control. The vast majority is invested in financial markets, and in most cases with little regard for the nature of investments made. In the worst case, the money invested might even support harmful industries directly counteracting the foundation’s activities. What is needed then? Divestment! Away from general investment in the big firms and towards CCIs, which offer fast growth, relatively cheap operations as often it’s mostly labour costs and massive potential impact in social and cultural spheres.
So, how about setting up a cultural impact investment fund in Southeast Asia?
Such an investment fund would need to
build strong personal relationships with artists, arts managers and community networks in the region;
take on a coaching, advising, and/or capacity building role;
help to develop sustainable business models;
educate HNIs, foundations, corporates and potentially even foreign governments and development agencies on cultural investment opportunities; and,
be an impact translator.
As an impact translator, the fund would need to challenge the low risk / low return and high risk / high return paradigm, and make high risk / low financial return / high impact an attractive and viable alternative. Being able to understand, measure and communicate any potential social, cultural and economic impacts is absolute key! Here’s an attempt at two such translations:
Scenario 1: A foundation makes grants in the field of music education. The endowment is partially invested in a music production company. The grantmaking helps to build capacity of musicians that feed talent to the music production company. Musical products generate profit for the company whilst growing the shares of the endowment and spark interest in learning an instrument, the latter of which ensures a steady supply of students for the music education initiative.
Scenario 2: An insurance company invests in a contemporary gallery space and a museum. The gallery purchases insurance for the temporary exhibitions it programmes from the insurance company whilst the museum decides to insure its entire collection. The investment allows each art space to deliver better exhibition and engagement programmes, attracts new visitors and creates a need for artworks in future shows to be insured, creating constant business for the insurance company that has invested in its customers.
Obviously, I haven’t addressed why CCIs in Southeast Asia would benefit from investments in the first place and how they are important to society - that’s for another day. I also wonder if cultural impact investment would potentially white-wash established practices by fully commercialising artistic practice. Perhaps crowd-investing to build resilient collectives and communities is the way to go? Investing directly into artists and collectives rather than business models or artworks seems like a worthwhile approach to account for the many informal structures in Southeast Asia. In any case, to kick off a cultural impact investment fund, we’d probably need pioneering investors, a great team with deep roots and networks in the sector, a good understanding of local financial markets, as well as a whole lot of patience and passion.
📰 What’s new
🥳 2021 is already better than 2020: welcome to the International Year of Creative Economy for Sustainable Development - lots of action ahead!
🇧🇷 What if cultural institutions were more communal, more flexible, more permeable, more alive, more southerly? Vicini and Lopes have some thoughts.
🇮🇩 Street artists’ murals critique how unsustainable Bali’s tourism has become. I wonder what they say when these very murals turn into tourist attractions.
🇰🇪🇹🇿🇺🇬🇷🇼 HEVA Fund have just published their annual report, and it looks dope! Check out the highlighted e-commerce platform for an open-air market.
🇮🇳 If a battery-powered, mobile mini-studio and free marketing material for rural folk musicians isn’t grassroots, what is? And so the ICH journey continues…
💻 In the Arab art world, digital platforms connect but do not necessarily liberate. Róisín Tapponi takes us on a tour from North Africa to Southwest Asia.
🇲🇽 Mexico is channeling human rights, anti-racism, diversity and inclusion of indigenous people in their new cultural policy - hell yeah!
🇩🇪 In Berlin, the Humboldt-Forum just opened with a mission to exhibit colonial loot. While there is some debate, the Nigerian Ambassador is clearly annoyed.
And a little, unsettling piece of bonus news:
🇮🇱 Palestinian pianist Faraj Suleiman and writer Majd Kayyal recently released their aptly titled album "Better than Berlin" that features a song addressing the intersection of urban gentrification in Israel, the occupation of Palestine and brutalisation of its citizens. It is almost ironic how true this song rings since Majd Khayyal was detained just days after the album release. After 24 hours of intimidation he was released without charges.
Here’s the song (which is pretty amazing, by the way):
🔍 A Closer Look
Tension at the core 🕊️
Navigating the Nexus of Art and Peace: A reflective guide for peacebuilding practitioners and artists working together to transform conflict and inspire creativity
(2020: Carrie Herbert, Suyheang Kry, Raymond Hyma, Dona Park, María Antonia Pérez)
Straight out of 🇰🇭 comes Navigating the Nexus of Art and Peace, a selection of tested practice guidelines, thoughts and questions to apply art in peacebuilding. The publication was put together by NGO Women Peace Makers and features many well known concepts such as do-no-harm through the lens of gender and art in peacebuilding. Yet, the authors also remind us that art, which is often believed to be a panacea, can also have adverse effects if applied carelessly.
Executive Director of Women Peace Makers in Cambodia, Kry Suyheang acknowledges that conflict dynamics can be beyond the scope of artistic interventions. Interestingly, however, the role of artist or artist facilitator is fully established in all principles - artistic interventions are not seen as something everyone and anyone can implement. Peacebuilders are specialist knowledge holders and creative professionals in their own right but are, for the most part, portrayed as collaborators or counterparts to artists in the process. This also becomes evident in a central question that several authors pose pertaining to the conflict that might arise in interaction between the two disciplines: What takes precedence - the peace or the art? Later in the book, this resurfaces in the value debate of process vs product.
While creative tension is a well-known phenomenon in artistic collaboration, artists in a peacebuilding context might also intentionally stimulate conflict as a tool:
Artists can understand conflict in nuanced and profound ways. For example, an artist might employ conflict as a tool in their work. They might create elements of contradiction in their artwork to foster irony or even tension, to push the boundaries on controversy or dividing issues.
Artist Dona Park and peace scholar Raymond Hyma also acknowledge the creative facilities of many peacebuilders in addition to their being a bridge to the conflict actors with specialist and localised knowledge. Practically, however, the collaboration between artist and peacebuilder creates yet another set of tensions: who is the creator, who owns whatever artistic output is created, will there be compensation, is the output important at all if the process was successful?
Raymond explores the appeal of arts approaches in traditional peacebuilding, especially how artistic initiatives can help people to generate empathy by experiencing the other, offer distance to the conflict at hand, realise alternative futures, self-reflect and formulate feelings, learn through collaboration, and find a medium to communicate. Yet, he recognises the structural challenges of seeing art only as an activity rather than a programmatic approach that requires different cycles and management as other interventions might. I whole-heartedly agree with the notion that peacebuilders (or development workers) have a hard time to understand and fit the complexity of process and inherent uncertainty that an artistic approach brings into logframes and results-based management frameworks.
In contrast to these institutional challenges, Dona reflects upon separating her work with communities from her own artistic endeavours. The artist should become an observer and listener. She also poses important questions for project initiators to consider when setting up an art project in the context of peacebuilding. What language is being used, whose needs are accommodated, how can the artist deal with culture shock, how to explain significance of the art? This dialogue between the two parties that are clearly the addressees of this publication is incredibly refreshing.
For many practitioners that have worked in the space of art in peacebuilding, conflict transformation and memory, many of the ideas in this publication might not be entirely new, but it is an important reminder to reflect upon the principles we want to base our work on. Don't be misled by the slightly esoteric intro and outro. Navigating the Nexus of Art and Peace offers a set of very hands-on questions to help guide one's own practice in the future and boost your self-reflection capacity. I particularly like the code-of-conducty document with a set of principles at the very end, each of which has a definition, asks both parties (artist + peacebuilder) to agree or disagree and holds space for notes on agreements that have been made verbally following deliberation. Take a look, try it out 🚀
📊 Impact
🎥 Making a documentary film is one thing. Using that very documentary film to intentionally create impact around your chosen issue area beyond the, dare I say, lazy goal of raising awareness is another thing altogether. Impact producing in the world of documentary filmmaking is slowly becoming a major focus, and to help filmmakers and producers to dive deep into the topic, Doc Society has created the Impact Field Guide. From planning to implementation, distribution and measuring your impact (including a range of potential indicators), the guide has plenty of resources and great case studies, including one of the most disturbing documentaries I have ever watched: The Act of Killing. Could this perhaps also be a playbook for other socially minded art projects, say a performing arts production or a travelling exhibition?
🌐 A recent report by hiveonline, the Danish Red Cross and Mercy Corps calls for “the development of a shared, sector-wide ‘blockchain for good’ to allow the aid sector to better automate and track processes in real-time, and maintain secure records.” Yes, blockchain could certainly help to address some of the issues we have in aid as well as development processes (in our field, think copyright and royalties or provenance of cultural objects), but the real issue here is feeding data into a large, open, distributed system that everyone could benefit from. Could because data collection isn't apolitical. “A methodology that relies on datasets too large to document is therefore inherently risky," reasons the paper that got Timnit Gebru fired from Google. Obviously, this is a much bigger discussion, and I plan to have a go at it in one of the upcoming issues of curious patterns - stay tuned!
🦄 Unicorns
🇪🇹 Rocking the balance between ICH and contemporaneity
I have travelled to Ethiopia twice in the past three years. Once to visit a friend in Addis Ababa, and the other time on an evaluation assignment for a bilateral music exchange project that took us around the country. The group I was with engaged in concerts and music workshops in Addis, Gondar and Mekele, the capital of the Tigray region that is now the site of violent conflict between government forces and the Tigray People's Liberation Front that has sent tens of thousands of people fleeing toward Sudan. It hurts my heart to follow the news and read about what is happening. I have spent very little time in Ethiopia and have only made very shallow attempts at trying to comprehend the complexity of the country's brewing internal and external conflicts, but I have developed a distinct fondness for this beautiful spot of land, its people and cultures.
Ethiopia's musical traditions and the contemporary applications of tizita were among the first things that absolutely captivated me. Watching the legendary Mulatu Astatke perform at his African Jazz Village and listening to the immense talent Yared School of Music is churning out left me in awe. Another highlight of my first trip was a visit to the Fendika Cultural Centre:
At Fendika Cultural Center, we celebrate and renew Ethiopia’s rich cultural heritage. We welcome all creative souls; through exchange of music, dance, art, and poetry, we meditate on humanity’s one-ness, and pray for a peaceful world.
A motto well-lived by this certainly leading but very underground-looking cultural venue. For artists, Fendika Cultural Centre has been a pioneering force as it offers stable employment and regular pay - something not common in the local performing arts sector. Fendika does fantastic, multi-disciplinary programming between traditional dance, contemporary poetry and the ever-fervent ethio-jazz whilst celebrating heritage all the way through.
The venue, a surviving azmari bet right in the city centre of Addis and mere blocks away from a large UN compound, mesmerises with its unique and intimate atmosphere created by low ceilings, textile-clad walls and a rich display of all kinds of cultural objects. As somebody perpetually occupied with measuring the unmeasurable, I wonder whether this feeling of intimacy, warmth and community upon entering the place could be turned into an indicator - let me know what you think in the comments!
I am happy to see that Fendika's efforts are recognised globally and would like to congratulate Melaku and his team for winning a Prince Claus Award for Culture and Development - you deserve it!
🔧 Toolbox
Organise just about anything 🗒️
As I was starting this newsletter a few months back, I was looking for the optimal tool to organise all the content that goes in here every month. Sometimes, I want to jot down a quick thought or need to save a link to a great podcast episode. Other times, I am determined to organise potential readings in an elaborate database or put together a recurring to-do list for each issue. And after trying a bunch of different apps, my tool of choice quickly became Notion. This unsuspecting app (both web and mobile) has an incredible amount of functions if you are after intuitive and flexible content organisation, note-taking and database management. You can automate processes, share workspaces and even make pages and sub-pages open to the public - in fact, you can even run a full website on it. And best of all, it’s 🆓
🚀 Opportunities
By January 7: Cultural Alliances in MENA (grant)
Network grants have long been a cornerstone of EU cultural funding. It seems, Europe is also keen for other regions to have a go at it. The Cultural Alliances grant of the All Around Culture programme seeks to support cultural ecosystems within several North African and Middle Eastern countries. Applicants must be legally registered, have proper documentation dating back to 2017 and take two emerging organisations under their wings. The grants also come with learning material to strengthen these alliances. Looks very promising to me. Let’s see how well they will be able to establish a platform advocating for open access to culture 🔍
By January 10: Research on Arts & Homelessness (research consultancy)
This looks like a brilliant research opportunity for a freelancer interested in collecting data on and analysing what is happening at the intersection of arts and homelessness in the Global South. The work includes a good deal of mapping and policy analysis but also direct engagement and, if I read correctly, first steps toward the setup of a committee of Global South actors in this particular field. A very ambitious project and super interesting research project, don’t you think?
January 17-18: Harnessing the Power of Culture: In Mediation, Conflict Prevention, and Resolution (online conference)
A strong 🇷🇸-🇨🇳 connection is organising this online conference on culture in conflict transformation. An impressive selection of senior speakers from a variety of countries including 🇬🇭🇱🇧🇪🇬🇮🇳 will look into the two sides of culture in conflict, both as source and remedy. The whole thing is co-chaired by one of my academic heroines, Milena Dragićević-Šešić, so I am very hopeful for the event. And if you’re so inclined, you could also pay for a multi-day online course on managing the cultural dimension in conflict resolution just following the conference.
Ongoing: UNDP Ministry of Change (online course)
There is a lot of exciting stuff happening in the massive machinery that is the United Nations Development Programme. I have been following UNDP’s Qatar-funded design thinking initiative Accelerator Labs opening offices all across the globe. But there’s also the UNDP Innovation department (funded by Denmark) doing fascinating things with data, tech, behavioural insights, alternative finance and public service delivery. Ministry of Change was a recent internal innovation gathering around systems transformation. Yes, it sounds intimidating, but the four videos of the Edge Track have some super specific insights on data sovereignty and alternative development among other topics, whereas the Systems Spectrum track is more looking at the basics of innovating systems. Brain crunch!
📻 Media
If you hadn’t noticed, I’m a big sucker for great data journalism and interactive visualisations that guide you through a story. And having spent 5+ years in Southeast Asia, Kontinentalist ticks all the boxes for me. This online publication from 🇸🇬 takes a distinct regional perspective and explores topics from politics and economics to environment, arts and history. Get an overview of the region’s alcohol universe, explore the state of protection of Singapore’s built heritage or dive deep into how Asia understands democracy through pop culture.
Postcolonial Cultural Management. Quite the project, if you ask me, but Arts Management Quarterly decided to take on the mammoth task of unpacking this topic in their latest issue. Some articles have more unique and in-depth thoughts than others, that’s cool, but I miss a red thread that ties everything together. Well, read for yourself. Also, check out the Arts Management Network website - they hide some great articles there.
🐦 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