12 October 2021, online
Our experiences of the pandemic have served as a jumping off point in approaching the complexity of the proposition of ‘sustainable prosperity’. In placing limits on society—to social interaction, international travel, economic growth, work and leisure—the Covid-19 pandemic has exposed our dependencies and vulnerabilities in new ways; yet, it also illustrated our collective capacity and capability for change as a society. Broadly speaking, the immediate changes it brought to our everyday lives and work practices has revealed the fallibility of growth-dependent economic models, the importance and fragility of our sociality, underlined the massive inequalities existing both within and between nations and at hyper-local level in communities and what living locally – albeit with greater awareness of our global interdependence – might look like. Covid-19 has altered the arts sector’s social and environmental interaction. The halt to in-person arts events facilitated closure of arts organisations and sudden job losses and exacerbated employment insecurity and inequality. The pandemic also shifted local and global engagement within and to our homes. Arts production, consumption, and participation adjusted through online and socially-distanced festival programmes, theatrical performances, and art workshops. These opportunities helped to maintain livelihoods, both broadened and excluded audiences, and underlined the importance of arts in our everyday lives for expression and social connection.
In our first workshop, which took place on 12th October over zoom, we reflected on these experiences to come to grips with the proposition of less growth at the heart of an approach towards sustainable prosperity. We were inspired, in part, to do so by the work on the topic by Dr. Kate Oakley as well as Maurie Cohen’s article (2020) article ‘Does the Covid 19 outbreak mark the onset of a sustainable consumption transition?’. While acknowledging the existing geo-political divide in terms of accessing health care and digital technology for instance, Cohen proposes that the quick shift that the pandemic forced in our everyday lives—and in seemingly more impervious aspects of society like institutional cultures and the status of policymaking— served as a call to action to respond more quickly and differently to the urgent climate crisis.
Taking this proposition under consideration we shared with one another what we learnt about ourselves and/or our organisations’ capacity and capability for working within limits as a result. In doing so, we encountered the following issues:
Capability for change differs amongst practitioners, groups of people, and localities / locations. Capability is reflective of broader socio-political, economic and geographic inequality. Who can work from home? Who has outdoor space by way of a garden to gather outdoors with others? Which localities have residents with financial, social and cultural capital to foster initiatives, to push change? What type of caring responsibilities do people have? What staff do organisations have? What’s available in a given locality to meet with others, to access services?
One locality contains multiple layers of communities (of interest, of practice, of place). We questioned whether it was every possible to speak for, with and to all of them, but that in recognizing this challenge it is important to call out who and what is left out or excluded.
Affect and care is something of which we have become newly or differently aware. A desire for work-life balance, a recognition of the embodied experience of public policies, home life, professional practice and public spaces, an interest in promoting care in cultural work was shared.
Local histories are perceived, told, and experienced differently. Fostering more sustainable practices, such as changing or closing whole industries on which a locality has been dependent for its livelihood, sociality, and practice, is an undoing or re-doing of routine, relationships, traditions and culture. For some this may be a source of romantic nostalgia, for others a kind of ‘trauma’ or ‘stigma’ –where an industry once seen as a source of good (economically, socially, and culturally) is now simply ‘bad’ for the environment. This binary is unproductive.
National, local and hyper-local level bodies and organisations bring different skillsets and capacities to societal and sectoral challenges and opportunities. There are strengths in recognizing and better connecting these differences that is worth exploring.
We also set out to get to know one another and chat a bit about how we might work and learn together over the coming months. We found strength in the fact that we come from a variety of backgrounds and that our senses of place differ based on our personal experiences, educational backgrounds, family life (past and present), cultural and national identities and more.
Note:
In advance of the workshop, we read two articles:
Oakley, K., & Ward, J. (2018). The art of the good life: Culture and sustainable prosperity. Cultural Trends, 27(1), 4-17.
Cohen, M. (2020) Does the COVID-19 outbreak mark the onset of a sustainable consumption transition?. Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy, 16:1, 1-3.
Place-Specific Approaches to Sustainable Prosperity in the Arts & Cultural Sector 