FLAGGING IN BRISTOL: within flags, poly-crises and macro-aggressions, how do we thrive in community?
*** This Blog Post contains a free downloadable Zine :) ***
Back in January, we invited Lewis Wedlock into the Rising Studio to convene with members of our community who might be struggling to come to terms with the rise of the overtly racist rhetoric that seems to be stuck at the back of everyone’s throat at the moment.
In this Coming Together Session, we held space for racialised creatives to offload some of the burden that comes with being a non-white artist. It’s becoming more and more apparent that if we don’t have laws that ask people to not be discriminatory, it’s still not a given that Black and Brown people will be treated like normal human beings. In the UK, this sentiment can also be extended to general immigrants, refugees and asylum-seekers.
One of Lewis’ favourite phrases is ‘Whataboutery’. This refers to the technique of responding to a difficult situation by bringing up a counter situation or raising a different issue (“Well, what about...?”). It’s the sort of thing that is hard to stop noticing once you start. We spoke about this in the context of being from the global majority, but it’s prevalent across every type of prejudice.
Our community exists at the unique intersection of activism, professional capability and lived experience. It could be argued that any one of those things on its own is quite a weight to carry. When you combine all three, it’s a wonder how anyone from our community, or anyone doing similar work, even gets through the day; let alone shows up to work and then does the work well.
We know that asking people with lived experience to deliver work that is related to their experience is often best practice, but historically this has been done through exploitation, harm, and stealing. The Arts are continuously shaped by the contributions of non-white global residents, as well as those who are disabled, gay, and trans but often it's non-diverse spaces selling the experiences and art of diverse people. WHO are we making this art for?
What people don’t seem to recognise is how the compound of this intersectionality makes the seemingly strongest people the most vulnerable. What we need to ask ourselves is within a capitalist society, how can we compensate for the inevitable activism fatigue, and potential harm, that comes with being a creative or facilitator with lived experience? It’s a question we don’t really have the answer to, but one way that Rising combats this is with Rest Fees.
Personally, I’ve always thought that if you’re Black or Brown, your first line of defence just isn’t there. Not that anyone should ever have to conform themselves out of their personal identity, but it’s not like you can hide the colour of your skin. As the flags go up, it’s important to us that our solidarity is visible, and that we are proactively making space for our community to dump some of this baggage.
The idea of Coming Together sessions isn’t new and was originally pioneered by Roseanna Dias of Studio Susegad back when she was working for the Rising crew. I’m bringing them back so that we can address some of the activism and lived-experience fatigue experienced by our community. This was the first one, and we focused on a very specific demographic (global majority) in light of recent events around Bristol. We were informed by general occurrences around the city, as well as our community’s personal experiences. As usual, in just a couple of hours of discussion, we had enough material to make a small book about the things we spoke about. So that’s exactly what we did.
Flagging in Bristol is a zine made in collaboration with our community and Lewis Wedlock.
You can read and download the full zine below!
