IMAGE DESCRIPTION: First slide: Announcement of Episode 5 for Are You For Sale? Background is a collaged image of paper money from Australia, Switzerland and Singapore. The image has a rainbow filter applied so the money appears bright and almost psychedelic. Left top corner of the image is the podcast logo which reads “ARE YOU FOR SALE?” in white text. Logo features a small white microphone with a dollar sign on it. The logo is framed by two small white lined boxes. In the middle of the image is a banner of white text that reads “Episode 5: International relationships to art and money...is the grass (money) greener?” and an additional banner near the bottom reads “Featuring a suite of international artists” Bottom left corner features icons for Spotify and Instagram and areyouforsalepodcast.com is written in black in the bottom right corner.
Episode 5: International relationships to art and money...is the grass (money) greener?
Miguel interviews a suite of international artists to understand how it works (or doesn't) in other places. Featuring conversations with Simone Aughterlony, Dana Michel, Zihan Loo, Luke George and Eleanor Bauer.
Episode 5 Transcription
[Music Strumming]
Voice 1 (Edgar Villanueva)
Philanthropy as a sector exists because of capitalism and the accumulation of wealth in the first place…
Voice 2 (Stephanie Acosta)
There is no such thing as making wealth that isn’t part of a community…
Voice 3 (Karen Finley)
Why I was so committed to non-profits or NEA or funding for the arts is because then people do not have to be dependent on only the wealthy...
Voice 4 (Sara Juli)
It’s still at the end of the day, you fighting for your work, which... we fight for our work in all sorts of other ways
MIGUEL
[Sung with playful music] Art and money and dance and money and what is the right thing to do with that? When the system's so fucked up, [gets louder and harmonizes] are you for sale?
MIGUEL
Hello and welcome back to Are You For Sale? a podcast where we look at the ethical entanglement between money and performance making. My name is Miguel Gutierrez or (Janet Jackson audio clip: No my first name ain’t baby, it’s *in a Spanish accent* Miguel, Miguel Gutierrez) (Janet: If you’re nasty! Nasty!) and I will be your tour guide today.
This is Episode 5! (Pentatonix: One Two Three Four Five, Five Five FiveFiveFiveFiveFive) and the name of this episode is International relationships to art and money...is the grass (money) greener? (Sade: Is it?) Up until now we’ve been examining the relationship between funding and dance and performance making in the area that we currently refer to as the United States. And we will continue to explore that over the coming episodes.
However, I thought it would be useful to take a moment and consider how funding works in other countries. And that’s what we’re going to talk about now.
(Jungle: Let’s talk about it!)
Sometimes, when those of us who live in this country get to talking about how to imagine other ways of funding, we get stuck thinking that we have to reinvent the wheel. We can’t see further than the computer screen we’re writing our grants on. We often feel isolated and resentful because the system feels inevitable AND unchangeable. And let’s not put it all on artists here. I’ve filled out more than one survey from a funding organization asking about what they should be doing to serve artists better. What should they change? (By the way, the answer is always, more money to more artists and faster. See, no more surveys?) (Audio Clip: YAYY1YY)
But we’re not the only dance scene in the world… What's happening out ….there? (Linda/James: somewhere out there song)
Speaking very personally, one of the reasons I came to the East Coast in the (ack!) late 90’s was that I thought that working in New York would give me access to an international career. And that happened. I was lucky to work with a choreographer who had just started touring quite a bit and then a few years into making my work, that started to happen as well. That, coupled with teaching, well…. I just checked and I’ve been able to do some form of my work on all but 2 of the 7 continents! Africa! Antarctica! I’m looking at you! Your boy’s ready.
When I started working internationally, I was really struck by basic things like - that the luggage carts in Belgium had brakes, or that in Germany escalators only turned on when you stepped on their platforms. How there were bike paths everywhere in the Netherlands, that the subway trains came so frequently in Moscow you could almost always get a seat. But also that subway systems generally did not run all night in other countries. That was a rude awakening for this party boy.
My attention really went to questions of design, conservation, or efficiency. I only just last year learned that a definition of economics is how a society manages its scarce resources. I know I’m not the first person to notice that traveling and working in other countries highlights all of the ways that there’s tremendous waste in this country.
I also met a lot of dance artists. Like a lot a lot a lot. And I’ll just share a story that has stayed with me. Long time ago, I had a French lover. (Miguel aside: Oooh) I know… I can’t even believe those words just came out of my mouth. But it’s true. Though it’s also true that the “lover” part of our connection was pretty brief, and sooner than I would have liked, we were just friends. (La tragedie!) This story takes place when we were both really young - he was 19, I was 22. I had just started dancing professionally in San Francisco and he had just started dancing in a very fancy company in Brussels. It was a really big deal gig, and very prestigious, but he wasn’t super happy in that job, and so we’d have these conversations about what he should do. I was visiting him, and, in my very U.S. based artist way of thinking, I said, “Well, maybe you could just like quit and work in a restaurant until you find a better job!” And I’ll never forget - he just looked at me like I was ridiculous and said, “Why would I work in a restaurant? I’m a dancer.” (It was more like. I’m a dancehhhhr) And even though it was so early in my career, and I had a pretty awesome dance gig, I still had to have other work. And I knew that if I didn’t have that dance job, I would work in a restaurant, which I did end up doing, even as I worked in companies... Talking to my French (ahem) friend, I realized that he was operating from a very different sense of self-worth and entitlement. Dance was what he had trained in, it was what he was excellent at, and so it was what he should get paid to do. Like. All the time.
I don’t know if it was that specific incident but I became obsessed with tracking and comparing all of the different ways that the dance scene operated in other places. I was envious, fascinated and inspired by what I learned. I noticed it wasn’t as easy as just “Oh things are better in other countries, things are just better in Europe!” like I would hear some of my peers say in New York. I soon realized that, yes, in certain parts of Europe, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, there was an incredible market that supported dance artists. But head just a little further east or south and you’d be in countries where the dance making conditions were pretty similar to what I knew about in the U.S. And so I’ll state the obvious - dance conditions in other countries are tied to cultural attitudes about art AND the economic wealth and priorities of allocation of that country.
On top of that, I’ll note one other thing that has made a huge impression on me. In many countries that I’ve been to, the arts administrators at dance institutions… are not dancers. Go to any dance performance venue in an urban setting in the u.s. and I bet you that the staff is largely composed of dance artists. But in my travels, I encountered a very different reality. People on staff were folks who had studied something that wasn’t dance but then they got an internship at the local dance festival and that turned them onto the field so they ended up working in it. Again it underscores the point I made earlier - in many places, when you’re an artist, that’s what you are, that’s how you see yourself and how others see you. You’re not so and so, the box office manager at such and such venue or the tech assistant at such and such theater. I’m not downplaying the value of those jobs. But I think there’s something very powerful when you don’t have to bifurcate your work identity into different roles. When the thing that you’re most interested in doing aligns with the way that you perceive yourself, are perceived by others and is the primary means by which you earn your living.
So today we’re going to listen to excerpts from interviews I did with a variety of artists working internationally. Let’s clarify some things. This is not a scientific, data driven analysis. What you’re hearing today is “Miguel talks to friends who work in other countries.” In some cases they are from the countries they work in and in some cases they’re talking about where they moved to in order to do their work. And while each of them has contended with the funding situations where they live and work, obviously they can’t speak for the entire system or the experience of every artist there. (MG aside: Duh)
I approached all of them with a similar list of questions, but of course, each conversation went into its own direction.
ELEANOR BAUER
I'm Eleanor Bauer.
DANA MICHEL
My name is Dana Michel.
ZIHAN LOO
My name is Zihan Loo.
LUKE GEORGE
My name is Luke George.
SIMONE AUGHTERLONY
My name is Simone Aughterlony.
MIGUEL
That got digitized a bit. That's Simone Aughterlony.
DANA MICHEL
Though I feel as though I have like lucked into a way of doing all the things that I fucking actually really care about. In a kind of like snake... Batman fashion. Wow. Is that how I just described what I do?
MIGUEL
Yes, Dana. That is exactly what you just said. And if you know her work, it literally is that she's from Toronto, but based in Montreal.
ZIHAN LOO
I'm an artist, queer artist based in mainly Singapore for now,
MIGUEL
Zihan is also getting a PhD in performance studies at UC Berkeley.
ZIHAN LOO
The two countries that I travel between mainly other states and Singapore, practice is mainly in performance and visual arts.
LUKE GEORGE
I'm an artist based in Naarm, which is also called Melbourne. I've been pretty like on and off based here for about 20 years. But I'm not from here. I'm from Tasmania. My background is in dance and dancing. But now I kind of see myself as a multi artist working in lots of different ways.
MIGUEL
In case you can't tell by the accent Lucas from Australia. And Simone who's part British and part New Zealander is a...
SIMONE AUGHTERLONY
42 year old queer, spirited bunch of contradictions. Yeah, I'm an artist. I've been making performance work for well on 16 years now, pretty much always in collaboration with other artists.
MIGUEL
At the time of this interview, Simeon was living between Zurich and Berlin, we mostly talk about the funding scene in Switzerland.
ELEANOR BAUER
I'm a dancer, I love to make situations. So that ends up being called sometimes I'm a choreographer,
MIGUEL
Eleanor is from the US, but moved to Europe in 2004. She'll talk mostly about her experiences working in Belgium, and also a little bit in Sweden where she's getting her PhD. When she moved to Brussels, Eleanor was struck by a shift.
ELEANOR BAUER
The first thing is just being part of a culture that had public funding for the arts, as well as a public appreciation for the arts. I mean, now whose are and what kind of art like that's a whole other thing, but within the urological tradition of like theater concert-going. The fact that like the gen pop, would go to the theater on a weekend. That's like, that's not a weird thing to do. It's not something you do just because you're in the arts or you study it. It felt like a commonwealth-- like that what I was doing belong to the public, that public funding was behind everything that you could see on a stage from the theater itself being publicly funded, to the companies that arrive on stage being publicly funded. And, yeah, that just the fact that like the taxpayers money was floating the entire arts and culture. That's just a totally different attitude about the value of what you're doing. It means it belongs to society as a given not that you have to like fight for your belonging, tooth and nail.
MIGUEL
So right off the bat, here's a common denominator with all of these interviews, and which distinguishes these artists experiences to those of us working in the US. Everyone is talking about government funding. It's not that private funding doesn't exist in other countries, it's just that you can turn to the government funding first because more often than not, it's enough.
LUKE GEORGE
The majority of funding for arts activity, artists, arts infrastructure in Australia really comes from government.
SIMONE AUGHTERLONY
So it's modeled on the Swiss direct democracy sort of model. You know, you have
LUKE GEORGE
At three levels of government, federal government
SIMONE AUGHTERLONY
Brother, which is the fund, the federal
LUKE GEORGE
State government,
SIMONE AUGHTERLONY
And then you have the client on the city that decides
LUKE GEORGE
And local council.
MIGUEL
So yeah, federal state city. And just to clarify cantons, or region's are what we would call states. And Helvetia is a Latin name for Switzerland.
SIMONE AUGHTERLONY
And so those three entities funding entities decided to do a cooperative effort on photog which means our cooperative funding contract. And so I've been on that. So that was the really the initiation of that, of that instrument. And I've been on that for some 14 years, 15 years now,
MIGUEL
That cooperative agreement, that's particular to Switzerland. In Australia, the federal funding body is called the Australian Council for the Arts, which is called an arms length agency, meaning that the Prime Minister can't influence the council's decisions. But by living in Melbourne, there are other things that are at play for Luke.
LUKE GEORGE
My state, Victoria has a similar kind of setup of Creative Victoria.
MIGUEL
In case you didn't catch that he said Creative Victoria, which is the name of the state's arts funding body.
LUKE GEORGE
They're not so much arms length, they're kind of come under the Minister for the Arts. And then the Minister has final sign off on funding and can actually make choices themselves about and changes to funding decisions, which is interesting. But we Victoria is a very pro arts state. It's very at... the arts in Melbourne is like a major part of the identity of the place and the economy of the place. So the budget is quite good.
MIGUEL
But back to Switzerland with Simone, her early support came in the form of a three year renewable contract. And what kind of numbers are we talking about here?
SIMONE AUGHTERLONY
It could have been something like in total with all three something like 170,000.
MIGUEL
That's Swiss francs, which in the timeframe we're talking about, was about the same as US dollars.
SIMONE AUGHTERLONY
So let's say like 100 from the city, 30 from the Canton and 40 from Helvetia.
MIGUEL
170,000 Swiss francs to last three years??
SIMONE AUGHTERLONY
No, that's every year.
MIGUEL
Oh, shit on a stick.
SIMONE AUGHTERLONY
Shit on a stick. [both laugh]
MIGUEL
That was like at the beginning.
SIMONE AUGHTERLONY
Yeah.
MIGUEL
Girl.
SIMONE AUGHTERLONY
Yeah.
MIGUEL
So... so I can understand the picture... [interview clip fades out] I gotta be honest with you. When Simone told me that, I nearly choked. And now thinking about it, I kind of want to cry. That was what she got way back in 2006, after she made her first piece. Listen, I'm thrilled that she got that support. She's a great artist, thoughtful and generous. And I know that firsthand, because I worked with her. But like, I thought back to when I made my first evening length piece in 2002. The piece I made after that, it was a group piece showing at Split Stream at DTW. Remember Split Stream? It was like a group show thing. And I don't remember exactly, but I don't think we cleared $1,000 in terms of a fee.
ELEANOR BAUER
I think my first group piece I got 60,000 euros and then the next one, I got 80. And then the next one, I got 120 I mean, not from.. no from this state, okay, that-- you would have to get co-producers, they would never give you more than half. So you'd have to secure the other half from other theaters, which are also publicly funded through these international networks and stuff. But the global budget of the last piece I made as of as the self organized artists in Brussels, the global budget of that whole creation was like 200,000 euros and so that means half of it like 100 or 80-- 80,000. I think the biggest I don't know 80 to 100,000 euros was the most I ever got.
MIGUEL
Okay, what else is great there keep talking to me, Eleanor.
ELEANOR BAUER
What's healthy about the Belgian economy for the arts is that it they have a lot of different scales of funding, which is cool and unique to other cities and countries. So you have project funding, three year funding, two year funding, five year funding, institutional funding, there's all these different shapes and sizes so that you can sustain work at different scales and different speeds. And that kind of affords a little bit less of a higher... plus unemployment for artists. So if you've got nothing, you still can pay your rent, Belgium rent is cheap. Cost of living is cheap. It's not a lot. It's like, it's really not a lot. But I couldn't believe when I looked back like I lived on nothing, and I felt rich.
MIGUEL
Oh, yeah, cost of living unemployment, social services,
LUKE GEORGE
Universal health care, and free university education.
MIGUEL
Yep, that's Australia. And then what about for the parents out there? Dana is a parent.
DANA MICHEL
We're incredibly fortunate that we have this system called the ???, it's $7 a day, or now maybe it's eight or nine. $7 a day for daycare. That completely changes everything. Of course.
MIGUEL
I want to scream that one aloud.
DANA MICHEL
It needs to be screamed.
MIGUEL
That's amazing.
DANA MICHEL
It's amazing. And I would say you know, like shit, every time I drop this kid off. Not only is like... but there are, you know, the people who work there. And I would just like get on my knees all the time to them and say "Do you guys know that you make it possible for me to do what I'm doing?" It opens at seven and it closes at six can be starting from my guess maybe six months up into and he was done at 5.
MIGUEL
$7 a day? Do the math. Five days a week for a month? That's about $140. How much baby sitting can $140 get you in New York? Yeah, or wherever you live? Not a lot. Just to be clear, though, that's Quebec province specific. They don't have that in the rest of Canada. But hey, I imagine all you dancer parents out there like (in French accent) "Bonjour, Montreal!" And Montreal is like...
DANA MICHEL
In doing as much traveling and seeing other contexts as I've had, you know, I land in Montreal, and I fucking kiss the ground. Like, I'm really, very acutely aware that I would not be able to pull off what I'm pulling off here in a different place. But it's like I know for sure. And I'm always wondering like "Jesus like yeah, how the fuck do people pull this shit off in New York?"
MIGUEL
I'm so sorry. That's just the sound of me looking for my passport and packing. Because I mean, who doesn't want lumps of money for your project and cheap childcare and free university and universal health care and cheap rent and decent unemployment and gratitude?
ELEANOR BAUER
Like after one year of doing this hustle and grind having like, 18 jobs or whatever? I was like, "No way I can't." Also looking at the field in New York, looking up to people like Sarah Michelson, or Terry O'Connor, or you... and hearing nothing but how hard it was, you know, I was like... that's the top like, this glass ceiling is like we're already it's like we're standing on it but it's like what that shit this is like the seventh and a half floor in like, being John Malkovich. You know, he's like, you just like stand up and you hit your head on it, like, fuck this. Chronically emerging for whole life forever being like that, that just the psychology of just like exhaustion and lack. I was like, I don't even know if I had the language. I didn't know really how it worked in Europe, but I could smell that I could maybe do something for a living there. That was like a... I could, I could grasp that there might be better job prospects or a more sustainable future in practice of art there.
MIGUEL
Can you imagine what having your basic needs meant? And the possibility of getting real financial support as an artistt mean? In terms of the time and space for making your work? Like, what could your work become if you had that? What the fuck are we doing here? (Indigo Girls Blood and Fire audio clip plays) Sorry, everyone. I just turned the lights off in my room except for this one sad gay candle that's about to go out. I'm making space so that those of us who are based in the area currently referred to as the United States can like draw a bath or call each other up and cry or just like order, Seamless... Okay, let's pull ourselves together. Let's start to unpack this a little more. We'll keep looking at some of the benefits that we're encountering. But we're also going to start to see some cracks in the pedestal that we may be putting some of these places on and just some of the ways that the issues elsewhere echo issues here. So let's go back to Simone. What are some of the expectations that were put on her with the three tiered governmental funding, and heads up Stadt is just German for city.
SIMONE AUGHTERLONY
The Stadt and their, their remit or their desire was actually that you are in the city, working in the community doing mediation, and all the things that come with that mentoring, teaching, and also producing the work in the city, the Canton wanted you to be in the sort of circling regions around and Progress, you wanted you to be traveling the world.
MIGUEL
Okay, so basically, everybody wants you busy, just not in the same place. On top of that the federal support came with touring quotas.
SIMONE AUGHTERLONY
It was quite tough. It was like 12 different, no 10 different cities outside of Switzerland every year, and something like 20 shows, which is, you know, it's not always easy to fulfill,
MIGUEL
Not to mention the number of pieces you were supposed to make within those three year periods.
SIMONE AUGHTERLONY
Two in three years. But I actually, I think I would never have fulfilled the touring quota if I'd only made two pieces in three years. So I always did three. So I guess in that way, it did affect the way I make work. I don't know if I would have made less. But the reality is I didn't necessarily have to work for other people or work other jobs to make a living. So three works in three years. I mean, even if their extensive, it's it's an okay, rhythm. I think
MIGUEL
She sounds pretty chill about it. But it sounds like it would get maybe a little intense over time to maintain that level of production.
SIMONE AUGHTERLONY
Yeah, but also get more confused, more confusing. And sort of depressing in those moments of the meetings, because of its net was never really about content, you know, and what artistically I'd been doing. But the other side of that coin is that I had the freedom to move that money around, however I wanted. They, of course, they were, there were final reports at the end of the year, and they saw the budgets and they saw what you know, but yeah, I could choose how much I pay people. I can choose what I spend, you know, I could make my own deals with programmers.
MIGUEL
There's never a moment when they're like, you said you were going to make a piece that was like this, but it turned out to be a piece of like that, and why did so there's no, there's no sort of like, accountability?
SIMONE AUGHTERLONY
No, which is interesting that there wasn't so much accountability on that aspect. Because, of course, my three year plans did change. You know, you start working on a project and, and the whatever the things that you missed, or didn't address, in one become the relevant things that you need to address in the next. But no, I didn't have so much accountability there, which was great. And then there's this with this structural funding, they could take risks, in the sense of a good luck. Okay, I'll spend way much more than I should on this project. I'll go over whatever budget that is prescribed, and find ways to pick it up on the next thing, you know, and even as a wrestler even go in debt, you know, because you know that there's something coming in?
MIGUEL
Did you hear that funders the freedom to go into debt. In the US, we usually reserve that freedom for Silicon Valley or Wall Street types, artists, not so much. Luke points out that the abundance available in his state of Victoria isn't necessarily seen across Australia,
LUKE GEORGE
Other state bodies are really different. And our New South Wales is in dire straits these days, like terrible, like a tiny, tiny, tiny budget. And that's Sydney, you know, a big city. And we've seen a lot of artists move to Melbourne in the last in recent years, because it seems to be a healthier arts economy here. But that also creates a greater pool of artists to support.
MIGUEL
Yeah, so you all know the problem of supply and demand, right? Like this money isn't gonna last forever. And if everyone moves to where the money is, there's the possibility of saturating a market. And again, while there is federal support, it's not automatically granted.
LUKE GEORGE
If you go in there, go give me 50 grand if, you know, it might go against you. And so you want to you want to sort of, it's terrible to talk like this, because, you know, a project should... you should be asking for what you need for the port what the project needs, but it's a highly, highly competitive environment. The budget is really tight, and the amount of projects that they actually support, you know, each round is about six dance projects or something like that. You know, it's really tiny. And so generally, if someone's say, in creation for new work, or they're about to premiere a new work, you know, it could sit anywhere between 15 to 30,000, or something like that. 20 to 25 maybe. But it's generally everyone's genuinely going for all grants all the time. And your budgets are a combination of, hopefully incomes from all of these grants like a patchwork, and it's encouraged by, by the prep bodies.
MIGUEL
Yeah sounds pretty familiar. Patching various sources of support together. That's something that we have to do here. Luke also talked about the expectations that come with government funding, and how funding dictates various realities...
LUKE GEORGE
The kind of costs around putting on work in Australia, are quite high. And that's to do with the standard of labor costs, which is great. But there's a lot of like, this is the way you have to do it. And it's kind of hard to get around it. And to do it, do things a bit. DIY, you know, there's a lot of infrastructural costs and venue costs that are very, very high. If you receive any kind of government support, you have to pay people in these ways. And you have to pay their their work, cover insurance. So if they have an accident, they're covered, you have to pay their superannuation as well while they working, which is a retirement scheme.
MIGUEL
In contrast to competitiveness in Singapore is not really the issue,
ZIHAN LOO
There are a lot more grant opportunities available in Singapore than there are people applying for it. So the chances of actually getting the grant if you hit all the criteria, from the National Arts Council, it's very high.
MIGUEL
However, beyond funding, there are other stipulations that the government makes.
ZIHAN LOO
The flip side of the coin is also licensing. So every single arts event there has a public facing side to it would need public entertainment license to be staged. So this creates this very interesting.. an ecology, I guess, or control of what works gets produced and seen and staged. And what works are censored. The nature of seeking out license itself, because it holds individuals accountable. Your name has to be-- your legal name has to be on the license itself. So it creates the situation where the circumstances polices itself, where if you don't follow certain rules or rubrics as part of your performance or you produce a gesture of obscenity it will be the friend whose name is on the licensing form, or grant that will get into trouble and will get fined. Yeah, but it's basically not the fine itself. The substantialness of the fine-- it's the fact that you're humiliated, you're brought into court, you're asked to appear in front of the judge, your name gets reproduced in the national mainstream papers, like obscene air performed by artists, and so on and so forth. So it's that whole ritual of bureaucracy that is exhausting. And it's not the actual fight.
MIGUEL
After our interview, Zi sent me the exact language for the National Arts Council of Singapore's funding guidelines, which state the following (Nationalistic song plays): "While we celebrate diversity of expression and open balanced dialogue in the arts, as a statutory body, dispersing public funds in line with government policies, National Arts Council has to prioritize funding to proposals which do not advocate or lobby for lifestyles seen as objectionable by the general public. " (Miguel Aside: Do you object to my lifestyle?) "...denigrate or debase a person, group or class of individuals on the basis of race or religion, or serve to create conflict or misunderstanding in our multicultural and multi religious society, undermine the authority or legitimacy of the government and public institutions or threaten the nation's security or stability." Hmm, if you listen to last week's episode, you'll notice that these guidelines sound real familiar. But let's back up a bit with a brief aside. In 1994. Singaporean artists Joseph Eng did a performance art piece called Brother Kane, in response to the police entrapment of gay men. At one point in the performance he stands with his back to the audience, pulls his underwear down and clips his pubic hair, which he then presents to the audience. He was charged with obscenity, to which he pleaded guilty and was charged 1000 Singaporean dollars, but more pointedly, his performance led to a 10 year restriction on public funding and licensing of performance art in Singapore from 1994 to 2004. And if you recall from our last episode, early to mid 90s, were also a charged time for government funding here.
ZIHAN LOO
During the whole NEA thing, the Singaporean government was actually pointing to that example and saying that, you know, this is what happens when you don't have control over the arts. And using those articles, syndicating articles, around the 90s to justify for state censorship within Singapore. So I'm even talking about like 93 was when the Joseph incident happened. That was also when the NEA culture was happening in American syndicated news. And they reproduce certain articles by conservative media about shop art in Singapore, and use that to frame the discussion about why they were censoring Joseph and this particular gesture and performance art and theater and to justify their decisions and choices.
MIGUEL
Zihan ended up restaging Eng's performance in 2012 in Singapore.
ZIHAN LOO
When I reenacted that piece in 2012, it was definitely about what was the state permitting at this point in time? Where would they allow me to restage this piece, and what amendments they might call for on their part in order for this piece to be staged. So it's also called a singer kind of performance from the state to react to this piece, which they've actively tried to suppress or ignore over the years. And by restaging it, we are forcing them to make a stand on whether this gesture was permitted, or is still considered something that needs to be censored in 2012, 17 years after the original performance. So that gives you an idea of the kind of navigation that I'm interested in, which is constantly, I guess, navigating this boundary between a bureaucratic form of artistic production and also the the fissures and the boundaries and the possibilities that are-- that are bubbling under the surface that perhaps forces a kind of reaction and performance from the state.
MIGUEL
Coercing the state into a performance. That's quite the feat. What he's naming, of course, is a very particular sociopolitical context of state repression, which implants its homophobia into these barely coded ways in their grant guidelines. So the state creates all kinds of parameters and expectations around identity don't stop at sexuality. It's a different negotiation. But Dana talks about how race factors into how she is perceived in the field and how she is coerced into performing identity.
DANA MICHEL
I was determined to be just an art maker, I'd never, I'd never directly questioned or thought about these things in the work or in grant writing. It's not like I was like, as a black artist, I'm going to... No I was like, really quite. I'm like, I'm just making the work. The work is about fucking you know, the leaf. And this is how I'm going to approach the leaf. And I would like to present this work about the leaf to anyone who wants to look at it. Goodbye. And thank you very much. Oh, yes, there's a box on the grant application that says, "How do you identify?" Yes, I'm black person. So check that off. And I'm aware of how that lands inside of art funding bodies. And it feels like cool, maybe I'm going to get the money because I'm a black woman that like ups my points. And it also feels fucking problematic. And fucking weird. Weird that it would help. And weird that I have to say it at all. Of course. Yeah. I have to write about my work in a way that I don't agree with for funding bodies, for brochures. I have, we all have to do this right? But exactly, it is definitely complicated by the fact that I'm a black woman and I'm very aware and it has been made very clear to me what the expectation is.
MIGUEL
More locally or internationally
DANA MICHEL
Both. And also there's, when I say this, there's also like, you don't know for sure. It's like a question wrapped up in a mystery, wrapped up in a question, wrapped up in problematics, wrapped up in I really like that producer, so I actually we get along well, our conversations are great. I trust you. But then also I don't trust you. Why, Why am I here? How did I get this money? Why am I getting this money? Why am I presented? Is it about the work is about my blackness, is it about my... I never know. You can't ever fucking know. You will never ever know. You kind of know. But you kind of will never know. But I mean, sometimes it's made very clear to me, you know, I've, I've been in situations where I want to write about my work in one way, which is not talking about my, my, my blackness and the fact that I was born with a vulva. And I've been explicitly told no, no, you must talk about this. We want to we want the word black to appear. We need it. Because we're being funded. And we're being funded partially to support black artists. So we need to see the word. I know that I'm, I'm dealing with it in my work. And so I often... yeah, what I can say quite clearly is because I know that I'm wrestling with it in my work, I think I can feel it brings me a lot of peace. Whether people see that or not. It brings me peace, knowing that I'm fucking wrestling the shit out of this question, or these questions in my work. So I will accept to be super reductive on paper, because I know that I don't have to be in the actual work.
MIGUEL
Zihan talks about how racial classifications play out in Singaporean society.
ZIHAN LOO
Yeah, I'm probably not the best person to talk about this because I'm basically part of the problem. I'm the majority in Singapore, Chinese privileged majority. The racialization that happens in Singapore has been really fucked up by the British, in terms of its desire for a certain kind of veneer of harmony. And basically, we have race written as a category on our identification cards. And there's constantly this desire for equal representation visually, so hitting a kind of racial quota in all areas. So if you see a poster, which is about national education, you will see a Chinese, Malay, Indian, and somebody who is self like pan Asian kind of characteristics, which is like Eurasian or other. So , and supposedly, purportedly there has served us in the past, you know, is this like, or look at us, we are all racially diverse and racially harmonious in a way. But as with any situation, we understand that when this visual kind of veneer or representation actually hides or obscures a lot of inequalities that are happening on the ground. And I will say that the same
MIGUEL
Who's at... who's at the bottom of the list there?
ZIHAN LOO
It's colorism, basically. So it's the same situation as in the states where the fairer your skin, the more privileges you have. And this is a colonial kind of baggage that happens. It's the British that started calling indigenous Singaporeans they know it's like lazy, or barbaric, in a way or their whole intent was to instill a sense of stability. And that's basically why and how the law that criminalizes homosexuality in 1938, you know, that was why the British Institute... it is this fear of being morally affected by the locals who are having like deviant sexual practices, practices in inverted commas, you know, and is the way of like protecting the British officers from being tempted, or being like led askew or led astray. It's, it's a really complicated legacy of how racialization has happened in Singapore. And the thing that I always like to mention with my U.S. colleagues is that is a very different form of racialization that I've been brought up with.
MIGUEL
On the personal front, Luke has also had to negotiate identity.
LUKE GEORGE
But I still find bringing my queerness into space in my art work, like in when I talk about my work, and I do my work, and I talk about myself, I keep it a little bit separate. And I, I reserve it, I'm scared to bring it into that space. And I don't feel like it's always welcome. Or that people know what to do with it.
MIGUEL
Luke talks about how there's a whole sector of artists who are not even being supported by the funding or presenting system in Australia.
LUKE GEORGE
There are lots and lots and lots of dance artists who are not... who don't sit within the funding framework, the college education framework that, that predominately programmed in theatres framework and they are working for free, they are doing they are sometimes paying to work, you know, to do their work and to show their work. And generally these these are more diverse unit that... they're non white artists like that that's quite common.
ZIHAN LOO
People of Chinese background, because of systemic inequalities usually are the one having better education coming from families that are financially perhaps a little bit more well to do. So therefore, they can afford to take on these professions or pursue an education in the arts. So these systemic inequalities privileges a certain constituency and discriminates against other communities. And I would say particularly within the visual arts scene in Singapore has been the minority community that has been at the forefront of pushing against and resisting against state funding, looking actively and sourcing for private funding, alternative venues, places to stage a kind of resistance against this dominating state power, because they have had to for their entire lives.
MIGUEL
Yeah, so what am I trying to say here? Besides the fact that the British Empire SUCKED! Colonialism's legacy and reach is long standing and geographically enormous. Racism, homophobia, colorism, manipulations and negotiations around race and sexuality? These don't just magically disappear when you leave the US? And yes, there is access to state support, but it falls along fault lines of inequality that we know very well here. And then there's other universal hobgoblin. Ageism.
ELEANOR BAUER
The mid career doughnut hole is everywhere. It's everywhere. And I think that there's a global condition in the arts that no matter if you are being vetted by like managers, or public funds or private funds, or if you're completely self producing on your own, there is an obsession with youth and newness.
MIGUEL
Yeah, okay, so that's the sound of me unpacking my bag, maybe it's not so bad here, after all. So this relationship to the state is loaded. And though he's speaking from a specific political and artistic viewpoint, I think that what Zihan says here has resonance across borders. And in all of the ways that we have to seek support,
ZIHAN LOO
It requires a kind of bureaucratic performance of the artists, it requires for only a certain type of artists who is able to put their idea down concretely in text and words, in a way that is the language that can be legible by the government. So it's not even like quality writing. It's writing that is simple enough, but also speaking the language of the state. And that's where I think the most insidious kind of control actually happens. Because even before the project is executed, we are taught to pronounce it or at the performance in a way that reflects the state's expectations of what it desires from its artists.
MIGUEL
And as my conversation with Eleanor was ending, we got to talking about Sweden and just as I was falling prey to the notion that there could be ethical cleanliness and getting government funding versus having to participate in a private funding model. Eleanor set me straight.
ELEANOR BAUER
I mean, that's that... in late capitalism, states are companies that's how they behave. Sweden is dirty money. Are you kidding me? Swedish exceptionalism is the most disgusting, like, just you. The whole reason Sweden has kept its hands out of the wars is that it was supplying the fucking weapons for everybody. Sweden's disgustingly dirty money. This is not clean money. There's no ethical self righteousness about the money I get from anybody. Like there's no clean money in the world. I love CA Conrad, because CA Conrad says that their job is to clean money. And that is how and why CA Conrad will accept money from Altria, or whoever the fuck, Rockefeller because they're like, well, I'm a broke ass poet, and the karmic spiritual, like offering that my words can do upon this dirty money is to clean it. Thank you for paying my rent this month. They can kick and scream, like be in the middle of this crap and be absolutely 100% not even apologetic or like, totally uncompromised, and they're, they're full anti capitalist, I mean, passions. And, and justify, I mean, we can justify anything that's-- that that's the skill of the human mind and its rationalization, but I don't really think today... There's, there's hardly such a thing as a state like is the public private, it's a it's like a... it's not even. That's the sad... that's the sadness of this entire conversation is where, what's a commonwealth? I mean, there's... there are ethos, there are values, but economics like as such, I'm sorry, I know you would make a distinction between economics and finance. And yes, there's like, there's economics that's like looking at how we can keep the economies supporting and sustaining the livelihoods of humans and other species and then there's, you know, just like what's your portfolio and how many yachts do you have, like those are two separate things, financial economics. And yet, the logic that this whole global economic system has subjected the world to is that every state behaves like a company on a competitive marketplace. So that's the GDP. That's your exports and imports. So whatever you can, and the arts are just like the most like, I'm sorry, but we are just, we're just like funny, tiny little cute pawns in this whole picture. We're like flowers for diplomats or whatever. Like, we're just here, like decorating this whole ridiculous affair of just like world domination and fuckery and exploitation and like competition. So I don't know what to say. But I don't think there's any clean money.
MIGUEL
So what’s the takeaway here? On the most basic level, structures of governmental funding in other countries exist, are sometimes a collaboration between local and federal entities, and offer multi-leveled support; the grant amounts are, in some places, way more robust, and at their best, don’t come with any content restrictions; and when cost of living is cheap, or social services are also cheap or even free, there’s a level of stress that you don’t have to confront or carry.
But on the flip side, not getting government funding can mean that your project doesn’t happen at all or that you’re in the same scarcity boat that a lot of artists are in everywhere. Indigenous artists and artists of color face challenges of inequality, access, or have to perform identity in ways that feel insincere. And, sometimes government funding comes with a fair number of strings attached or, at its worst, repressive guidelines about what’s even allowed.
As we heard from Eleanor, there’s no clean money in the world. I’ll also add that right around the time that Simone and I spoke, the Swiss funding structure she described had been pretty drastically cut. And if you follow Australian politics like I do, you’ll find that there are recurring crises when it comes to the arts budget. As I record this, the election for prime minister is happening in Canada. I’m not sure what’s going to happen there so we will see, and honestly, it’s hard to keep track of the rise and fall of populist leaders and governments around the world. Seems like they were on the rise, now they say that’s changing. Obviously coronavirus has affected the arts economy the world over.
Like I said earlier, today’s episode doesn’t tell the whole story of what it’s like to be an artist in other countries. And if I had focused on, as I hope to in the second season of the podcast, on a whole other list of countries or regions, South America, the middle east, eastern europe, Africa.. we’d be hearing yet even more differences in conditions for artists. My hope today has been to pique your interest, share some of what I’ve learned and obsessed about, and also to encourage you to ask questions so that you don’t make sweeping generalizations about what it’s like to be an artist in other countries. Not that I don’t want you to go wherever the fuck you want to make your work! Please! Go! Get the cheap rent, get the big bux if you want ‘em. Get that free healthcare and spare yourself from a lifetime of GoFundMe’s… Please....
Speaking very personally, I’ll just say that I struggled for years with the question of whether or not to move to another country (France) in the hopes of getting better support and having access to a network of contemporary performance venues that were more plentiful than what we got here. And you know what, it could still happen! (Judy Tenuta: It could happen) But where I landed on this question was just that, for better or worse, New York is home. It’s where my people are. I don’t know about the rest of this country, but New York? Yeah. I love the mix of people, the way the light hits and, honestly, how loud folks are and the sense of humor. It’s big for me. Who else is gonna appreciate my dad jokes?? But I’m not super excited about growing old in the u.s. and my boyfriend is keen on us getting the hell outta here (um… we gotta go!) so Roma, Aotearoa, Tamaki Makaurau, Buenos Aires, Naarm, save us a bed, queen size, of course, you might be smelling us yet...
In our next episode, we’ll be coming ‘round the mountain again to talk about how artists are making it work in the area currently known as the u.s. And let me offer you my final reminder that for that episode we are soliciting audio messages at our special voicemail hotline 347-559-5099 where you can leave a message telling us how you are making it work here or you can write us with that info at areyouforsalepodcast@gmail.com and I will be my version of you!
Are You For Sale? is supported by the National Performance Network’s Storytelling fund, Brown University Arts Initiative, Dance NYC’s Dance Advancement Fund and Creating New Futures and we are so grateful for the support and hey, somebody recently donated in support of this podcast so big thanks to that person!
This episode was recorded and produced on Lenape land in the area currently called Brooklyn.
Our managing producer is Michelle Fletcher (God bless that woman), our production assistants are Jake Cedar, Camryn Stafford and Kirsten Pardo. Thank you thank you thank you to Eleanor Bauer, Dana Michel, Luke George, Zihan Loo, and Simone Aughterlony for your words, wisdom and work! Seek those artists out because they’re amazing.
And thank you to my boyfriend, Marley Trigg Stewart, for his amazing cameo. He wants me to let you know that he is available to be lead in your next feature film.
MARLEY
Yes!
MIGUEL
I record the interviews and I produce and edit the whole damn thing, (it’s so hard) and I made the theme song plus any music you heard that wasn’t made by someone else.
The title of this podcast comes from a line in Morgan Parker’s poem Welcome to the Jungle.
You can learn more about who you heard from today and read a transcript of the episode at our website areyouforsalepodcast.com.
Please subscribe to this podcast on whatever platform you got to us from, and follow us on Instagram @Areyouforsalepodcast
Until next time, stay weird, make art, stay blessed, not stressed. Adios everyone!