Like everyone else at the moment, Australian arts and cultural organisations have been making headlines for what they are or are not saying or doing about the daily and devastating breaches of international law and human rights happening in Palestine and Israel right now.
I’ve been sharing a lot more than speaking on this topic, because although the last few months have been a masterclass in international law and how it’s being broken day after day on our watch, I am not an authority, nor am I a member of the communities closest to this particular grief – and it is vital that we continue to amplify the voices of those on the ground and those in the diaspora and multi-faith communities calling for ceasefire, justice, humanity and peace.
But this Board business put things firmly back in my lane. So, you can now check out my three short videos that call on Boards and Board members to make sure to talk about what’s happening, how that’s playing out for arts and cultural organisations in Australia (and beyond), and what we can learn to help meet our fiduciary duties to our organisations and duty of care to the people within and who engage with them.
- Watch Part 1 on TikTok or Insta – on boards in ‘turmoil’, departing donors, Board member behaviour and responsibilities, including case studies from Australian Centre for Contemporary Arts (ACCA), National Association and Visual Arts (NAVA) and Collingwood Yards.
- Watch Part 2 on TikTok or Insta – on leadership and politics, fiduciary duty and duty of care, cultural safety and media justice, and whether a scarf is just a scarf, including case studies from Sydney Theatre Company and Mushroom Records, and learnings from Dr Ruth De Souza in The Relationship is the Project.
- Watch Part 3 on TikTok or Insta – on censorship and silencing, risk and relationship management, First Nations solidarity and the responsibility of allies, including case studies from the Sydney Opera House, Biennale für aktuelle Fotografie and Australian journalism, and learnings from Diversity Council Australia, NonProfit AF and MEAA Members for Palestine.
Consider your own advocacy
The coda to the series turns to our duty of care to each other – our friends, families, relationships and communities – and how that intersects with care for ourselves at a time of great grief and great pain. Because duty of care applies to Boards and artists and arts and cultural workers, but it applies to everyone else too.
- Watch Part 4 on TikTok or Insta – on community and loneliness, circles of preoccupation and care, how history will judge us, and how nothing is ever lost online – including our silences.
These last few months have also been a masterclass in community and responsibility, in the difference between neo-liberal definitions of self-care (of drawing in, of separating ourselves, of looking or stepping away) and more Indigenised, collectivised definitions of self-care (of leaning in instead, of drawing strength from the communities who draw strength from us).
So, for our own sakes, for our own future selves, as well as for our organisations and communities and the people in our care, and all those relying on us on the other side of the world and in the diaspora in what we now call Australia – or wherever they may be – I ask you to consider your advocacy.
I ask you to consider whatever you are able to do – from your circles – from your circumstances – at this time… a call, an email, a petition, a donation, a post, a repost, a vigil, a march, a conversation, a decision who to boycott or who to buy from instead.
A call for a ceasefire. A call for the immediate release of hostages and prisoners – all those being held without crime and without charge. A call for media justice. A call for the enforcement of international law, not just encouragement to follow it, for the upholding of human rights to self-determination, equity and self-expression. A call for safety, for pluralism.
Because there aren’t two sides to human rights. Because we have legal and political instruments to prosecute those responsible for all of these war crimes, if we only choose to use them. Because we aren’t just losing humans, but our humanity. And because we will be seen to be culpable in the things we don’t help change.
Read more
This article was combined with my previous provocation on why Board members need to talk about Palestine and is now available on The Commons Social Change Library.
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