Who is at the table?
In which we must ask: where is the power held in the creative, cultural and arts sectors of Wales and, indeed, all over the world. A conversation starter, for deeper conversations.
Hello, y’all!
Six months ago, I moved into a refurbished “cottage”-style house that, I am told, was once unintentional nature reserve, with voles (Voles! I didn’t even know you could find them in cities!) and the occasional hawk coming for a feast that hid under thick bush of brambles. The new landlord “fixed” all of that, and now I live in a house with a barbecue-pretty lawn. The sort of space you would see on glossy leaflets for plastic grass gardening services come through your post as of late. And yet, throughout the Spring, shoots of bluebells came through this monoculture grass in defiance to the landlord’s vision. Some are growing in close clumps, others grow like inselbergs, alone, and right in the middle of the path I use in my mission of urban gardening.
The thought occurred to me that we in the cultural, creative and heritage sectors are very much like these bluebells; we are all defying the aesthetic, economic and social astroturfing of our ecosystems – our local contexts – by those with a lot of power and a lot to gain from the current system of inequality. I look out on this seemingly “Green” plot of land, rain droplets glistening on blades of grass under an iron-cast sky, and I know which of those plants will not survive to flower, alone and separated from the others. They are in the way of more “important things”, as defined by the person who steers the lawnmower.
The Covid-19 pandemic was like pouring liquid aluminium into an anthill: like the molten metal, the virus travels through the unseen tunnels and cracks, revealing what was once ignored. The social, cultural, economic, medical, and environmental repercussions of Covid-19 can be correlated to the existing inequalities in our society. More than a year on, a consensus is coalescing around the reasons why this terrible virus has also triggered this, our, what, fourth “crisis of capitalism” in twenty years? Shush for a moment and listen: we can already hear the chronic denialism of culpability, even as the human cost of designed poverty mounts.
We’ve accomplished a lot over the last year, and we’re starting to enact some positive change in our frustratingly beloved industry!
Cwm Taf Morgannwg Health Board, the local health board in the county borough of Rhondda Cynon Taf, in South Wales, even admitted that the County’s high deathrate was “predictable”, and that if an exercises predicting a pandemic had been run a year ago they would’ve almost predicted the current picture with “a reasonable degree of accuracy”. Oh, wait, that’s exactly what happened! Lest we not forget, the central UK Government ran something called Exercise Cygnus, a 2016 simulated outbreak of a fictitious swan flu, in which it was revealed that the UK Government’s ability to respond “is currently not sufficient to cope” with the demands on nationwide structures. Resources were spent, instead, on keeping the official report hidden.
I mean, really, who would’ve thought that health outcomes can be directly linked to decades of austerity, underdevelopment, and a deliberate de-investment in society in favour of speculative markets like Bitcoin and Financial Services? Something that can only become worse when our so-called representatives are unwilling, or perhaps ideologically incapable, of recognizing the role socioeconomic government policy has on facilitating citizens to have healthy lives.
It is in this whole complex and messy context that the Wales Culture Alliance/ Cynghrair Diwylliant Cymru and our allies in other networks like What Next? Cymru started to investigate what specific structural inequalities in the creative, cultural and heritage sectors of Wales. Asking ourselves deep questions about everything, from a fair wage to cocreation.
We’ve accomplished a lot over the last year, and we’re starting to enact some positive change in our frustratingly beloved industry! Let me point to you the work done to bring the Cultural Contract to life, as well as opening up conversations about an increasingly digital future and what that could mean for our communities. But even with all these wonderful discussions and actions taking place, there is one question that I feel is at the core of several issues in our sectors, as well as perhaps the biggest barrier to creating a culture of true collaboration. I hope that this comes around as an honest inquiry, and not naïve scepticism. But, answer me this: Where is power concentrated in Wales? But more salient to the Alliance’s interests: Where is power concentrated in the creative, cultural and heritage sectors?
I ask this because I am starting to realise that it is too easy to be given performative victories, and that these can easily be weaponized against the work we do in a way that zaps us of the long reserves of energy required of such enterprises. While it is amazing that mass movements have started reviews into Britain’s complex history with empire and race, I can’t help but look at any promises by corporations and economic interests as performative window-dressing. Until entrenched power that benefits from such structures is challenged and removed, I expect poison inside the meagre table scraps they throw our way as appeasement. As American commentator Kyle Kulinski says: “they [the establishment] will always cave in on the symbolism”. Changing the wallpaper is easier than fixing the foundations. And makes your brand look woke or whatever! Which is just good for business.
When it comes to changing a system, there are many levers we as citizens can pull. Best time to change things is in the aftermath of a crisis. But if we do not understand who’s managed to get into the kitchen to decide what is an “acceptable” menu of reforms, then we will forever be cursed to have no voice at the table. If we’re truly seeking to reform the system, we must, question our systems central premises of “private control and private profit”, a system that is, if not foundational, at least sharing a very aggressive ecosystem with one that pitches people against each other in a competitive model of organization that is, simply contrary to prosperity and to human nature, as Rupert Bregman argues.
So, I ask again:
Where, in the creative and cultural and heritage sectors of Wales, where is power entrenched?
Consider these questions a conversation starter. Collectively we have more information, more experience, and a better understanding of the whole ecosystem we not just work in, but live in.
I’ll be collecting your comments, replies, rebuttals, corrections and other conversations towards a future article, or perhaps as part of a video conversation! Who knows, we might have our own podcast in a years’ time!
Thank you for reading!
ian cooke-tapia
Started April 2021, Finished July 2021