Mourning the Death of POC Arts Organisations
Many like me, a Gen-Z artist and writer of colour, have been lucky enough to have gone through our teens with an abundance of inspiration in the form of millennial creative role models – honorary older siblings if you will – making movements in the art world. For me in particular, those people were Liv Little, Ronan McKenzie, Tia Campbell and Nadine Davis: Their respective projects inspired me on many levels.
Little is the founder of gal-dem, a radical media publication celebrating the voices of marginalised genders in the POC community. McKenzie first entered my cultural sphere as a photographer and more recently founded the project HOME by Ronan McKenzie, curating thoughtful and intimate exhibits of works by artists of colour. Campbell and Davis were the duo behind BBZ London, an artist and DJ collective spotlighting queer POC talent in the form of exhibitions, parties and other subversive events. These projects set the tone for the youngers, and are known by many for their individual successes. Their work has been instrumental for the visibility of POC creatives, and paved the way for DIY ambition. BBZ London, for example, curated the culturally essential Alternative Degree Show which first introduced me to Rene Matic, now a serious player in the art world with a solo show most recently at South London Gallery.
Over the past few months, each one of these organisations have sadly closed their doors and are moving onto new chapters. Specifically gal-dem and HOME cite the reasons for their closure as being due to financial difficulties which feels especially troubling, given what seemed to me to be unwavering successes in their relevant spaces. gal-dem had become a hugely popular print and online publication, a household name dare I say, whilst HOME was producing art shows with the sponsorship of massive names like Gucci.
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On 7 December 2022, McKenzie published an open letter on HOME’s Instagram declaring the end of their physical space. The photographer and curator had been consistently investing her own money into the project, as well as relying on donations and an array of impressive brand partnerships to maintain the space. In her open letter, she explained: “The unfortunate reality is that overhead costs of running HOME’s physical space and producing exhibitions has been an ongoing battle to sustain and impossible to keep up with at this moment in time.”
Similarly, just 2 months ago gal-dem announced that, after 8 years of publishing, they would be shutting their doors. At the same time as announcing the end of an era, gal-dem published a list of independent publications led by underrepresented identities and emphasised the importance of tangible support from readerships, explaining: “87% of journalists in the UK come from white ethnic groups, working class representation in journalism is ‘at a record low’, and women of colour are facing a ‘culture of exclusion’ in top media jobs, all according to recent reports. At a time when journalism and the arts are clearly in crisis, seeking these platforms out and supporting them has never been more important.” Likewise, the conditions within the arts at large are ones which favour away from ethnic minorities and sees their positioning as, frankly, temporary.
According to Arts Council England’s rigorous annual dataset, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: A Data Report, ethnic minorities consistently hold more contractual positions over permanent whilst those identifying as white and white other hold more permanent positions over contractual ones. To point out the starkness of this data, using the most recently published data report from 2020/21, those who identified as White made up 51% of the National Portfolio Organisation total workforce yet held a proportion of 72% of permanent positions. Contrastingly, Black, Asian and ethnically diverse individuals making up 14% of the total workforce, held only 10% of permanent positions and a larger 18% of contractual positions. This alone perhaps suggests that, on an institutional level, a focus on equity over equality would serve underrepresented communities with a better chance at long lasting careers within the arts.
Whilst supporting independent and DIY projects with tangible and financial aid is certainly a crucial part of a wider set of ideas for the consumer, it is also important to recognise that support can happen both on an individual and institutional level.
“In essence, there is an undervaluing of POC workers and creatives working within ‘legitimate’ arts institutions, which is just one of many reasons that has led to the forming of so many groundbreaking DIY arts organisations and projects.”
In 2020 The White Pube, a subversive art criticism platform, published the essay ideas for a new art world in which Zarina Muhammad identifies a range of ideas towards reforming some of the adverse systems that exist within big art institutions. Muhammad explores ideas like prioritising the funding of grassroots and community arts organisations – particularly those doing work considered to be politically urgent – as well as addressing pay disparities between directorial positions and minimum wage positions. I was particularly warmed by the idea of institutions staying in their lane and “recognising their own limits” as Muhammad puts it. She lightly envisions “an organisational dating agency where grassroots orgs are given big NPO gallery buddies, or imagine awarding collectively shared funding to a consortium of multiple organisations of various sizes that they have to use together rather than distribute amongst themselves as individual bodies.”
This idea certainly feels relevant to the fates of current independent organisations in the arts, particularly those led by marginalised identities who, as we’ve established, are from the offset limited in terms of the permanence of their employment outside of DIY projects.
In gal-dem’s goodbye piece within which they announced their closing, they explained a consistent challenge faced by the team as one characterised by prioritising funding and profit versus the core values of the founding bodies: “There was always a delicate balance to strike in marrying our values, rooted in our beginnings as a volunteer-led organisation, with profitability that was needed to sustain and reinvest in the business, all while delivering ground-breaking creative work that served our community with an organisational structure that works.” This is perhaps where The White Pube’s “organisational dating agency” could come into play – although I don’t say this flippantly, as this type of solution would require much thought, time and energy to execute effectively.
In essence, there is an undervaluing of POC workers and creatives working within ‘legitimate’ arts institutions, which is just one of many reasons that has led to the forming of so many groundbreaking DIY arts organisations and projects. This in turn impacts the stability of independent projects and, as The White Pube has shown us, there are many solutions to consider. From the decentralisation of funding, to prioritising grassroots and community based organisations, the current state of the art world is calling for change.
Words: Gwyneth Tambe-Green
