Mapping the boundaries of an inclusion producer

B+B R+D has commissioned this article as part of our ‘test’ and ‘reflect’ inclusion action research. All of the articles in this series represent the views of the author and not of B+B R+D or our partner organisations.

Some of the articles describe experiences of discrimination that readers may find upsetting.

Before you start reading this, I want you to take some time to ‘Reflect’ yourself. Can you tell me what it is you do for a living in a few words?

Don’t worry if you can’t, because I’ve always struggled to explain what I do to anyone who works outside of the arts or engagement sphere.

Over my career I’ve been an Associate, a Content Developer, a Curator, a Programme Manager, an Executive. Each of these roles has had a similar function within the organisation, but like the titles, the context and definition of that role also varied massively.

In March 2020 I left a job where my title had changed three times in as many years. Joining the organisation as their Creative Producer, I was brought in to develop a new style of programming, focussing on performance and visual arts inspired by science. At the same time, I was piloting ways that the organisation could co-design their programme in the future, working specifically with individuals not currently represented in the workforce. Providing skills and opportunity to people who have historically been excluded from cultural organisations.

My role felt more like an action research project, it changed and morphed several times over the years as we gained more insight into what was needed to deliver an inclusion programme. The only problem was that as it changed, and boundaries between what was my work and what was someone else’s in the organisation became incredibly blurred. The work was piling on, and my role was becoming harder and harder to define. It didn’t feel sustainable to carry on like this, and it felt like the only option for gaining respite, care and space from the project was to quit.

At the time I pinned a lot of this on my employer, I’d repeatedly asked for more support. However, all the options presented to ease my workload meant the project wouldn’t be delivered in the way it had been promised to the collaborators. Too many people inside and out of the organisation were emotionally invested for that to happen so I carried on until it was in a place for me to leave.

This wasn’t a new feeling, in fact in all my previous roles I’d noticed a similar pattern. Essentially my roles used public programmes to drive and diversify public participation in academic research or cultural experiences and drive culture change. My job description had to be loose enough to match the adaptive nature of that work. The problem is culture change work needs to underpin almost every function within the organisation. It’s far too much for one person, or a small team of people to achieve. This pattern always ended in the same way – with a group of individuals overcommitting themselves, burning out and leaving the organisations and their efforts behind.

The problem is culture change work needs to underpin almost every function within the organisation. It’s far too much for one person, or a small team of people to achieve.

The delicious metaphor of being plunged into a global pandemic straight after leaving this role wasn’t lost on me. However, having so much time and space to reflect on what was driving this pattern was undeniably helpful. It became more and more apparent that it was in fact not my employer that was the problem, instead I needed to be (as always) pointing the finger late-stage capitalism.

Perhaps some of it was to do with under researched/planned work practices, but largely it feels like these patterns are emerging from cultural organisations being overstretched, underfunded and forced into consistent identity crises by changes in funding guidelines and sector priorities.

Something I’ve noticed over the ten years of my career and working in communities which registered high on the indices of multiple deprivation, was the increased cuts in governmental funding social care and provisions for many in these communities. The introduction of David Cameron’s Big Society saw a shift in this provision being picked up by the community themselves. Cultural organisations and local authority have begun to work together to see how some of these services can be funded in alternative ways. As a result of this, socially engaged art projects are increasingly being used to plug a gap where social prescribing once existed.

My projects were a prime example of this, sometimes it felt like work more akin to social care, but without the training, safeguarding and supervision structures that usually come with this. Working with a diverse range of people from Youth Groups one day to and group of older participants who were socially isolated, in many contexts this workshop might have been their only opportunity to speak to someone that week.

Holding space for these participants to talk about their issues was manageable, but I often felt like I was making it up as I went along. Running with human centred facilitation techniques I’d seen used by artists, acting with empathy and in some respects pulling on lived experience, allowed me to navigate discussions. However, using this approach isn’t sustainable, and without peer support or a solid structure or process like supervision or counselling that I could lean on, it became apparent that I was experiencing emotional transference from these conversations. On top of that, a lot of us drawn to inclusion and participatory work are doing so because we’ve experienced trauma or oppression of our own and want to see change for our community. Running workshops which were bringing up topics of racism, homophobia, classism, all bring with them opportunities to trigger personal trauma.

In the cultural sector, we’re seeing an increased push from funders and local governments to integrate socially engaged practice into the processes of many cultural organisations and artists. Take for example the Let’s Create strategy from Arts Council England. What we aren’t seeing alongside is deep thought around what support and ethical processes are needed to support the practitioners facilitating this work. There’s no accountability or support from funders for organisations to safeguard employees in these emotionally charged spaces, and as a result I’m starting to notice a huge increase in the amount of my peers leaving the sector. Driven, I believe, by this and the lack of definability of our roles and function that mentioned at the beginning of this article.

As producers we spend a lot of time thinking about how to hold and care for other’s emotions and needs within a space – whether that be audiences, project participants, or the artists we work with. What I’ve now come to realise is that we often overlook our own needs and practice within this. Without giving ourselves time to be reflexive how can we begin to understand what our needs are?

In the midst of our current political climate where more and more public services are being stripped from us, these issues are only going to increase, so now feels like an incredibly prescient time to be asking ourselves these questions.

What I’ve now come to realise is that we often overlook our own needs and practice within this. Without giving ourselves time to be reflexive how can we begin to understand what our needs are?

I started to do this, talking to friends who work in social care or who volunteer for charities that hold space for emotionally complex conversations. Every single one of them reflected that the single most important safeguarding structure was having very clear boundaries set from the beginning of what their role in the conversation was. Many also included that supervision, peer support and properly funded training and counselling were essential.

I understand that our work isn’t rooted in the same purpose, a lot of the situations and conversations I described are arising because we are asking people to share human stories. These stories aren’t clear cut or predictable, they are messy. (I mean there’s another conversation to be had here about how problematic extracting stories in this way for art and exhibition is, but that’s for another long form piece of writing to unpick). Many of these projects rely on us building trust, providing safety for people to feel vulnerable. I found it hard to build this trust without taking a human centred approach. Putting distinct boundaries on what could and could not be talked about, or where I was available to listen felt like I was sanitising our conversations, and essentially striping the humanity from them.

Although I’m sure there is a way of doing this effectively it feels to me like a more achievable approach would be to think about what supervision and peer-to-peer support training and networks look like first. Especially one that doesn’t increase the burden already put on those in the organisation who are delivering the projects.

I want to close therefore with an invitation. How can we collectively imagine and design a way forward? One that provides the care and support we need to deliver human centred, and kindness filled approaches we all pride ourselves on, without losing these approaches when people leave the sector?

If you’re a cultural organisation how might this play out in your processes? What training can you provide, where can you commit proper funding to provide external supervision or mental health support for employees. Two examples of organisations doing this well include ManyMinds and Scottee and Friends. Processes like these have been embedded in their work from the inception of the organisation, but how can we look to integrate these processes into organisations where there isn’t distinct strategy or budget for these?

If you’re a producer, what does this training and support look like to you? There’s going to be some variability of course, but is there a baseline of support, or definition to our roles we can agree on? We all create our own unofficial peer-support networks, but how can we formalise some of these. More importantly, how can we develop ones that don’t create more of an emotional burden on our colleagues?

If you’re interested in exploring more of these things, you can find me on Twitter @will__hunter. We’re heading into an increasingly uncertain future, let’s make sure we’re doing it together.