What are the responsibilities of arts practitioners to care both for themselves and other in and through their work? How might we sustain these ways of caring in the face of great difficulty?
Speakers: Corrie Tan (host), Shaza Ishak, Xiao Ting Teo, Ahmad Musta’ain
Corrie Tan
Hi, everybody. Welcome to the final conversation of Year in Review, which is titled Ways of Caring. My name is Corrie and I'm your host. Thank you so much for joining us as we wrap up what has been a really rich series of conversations today, and while we're all speaking from the recording boot in Centre 42, I hope our voices and all the song dedications that you've been listening to have accompanied you in your domestic and public spaces, whether you're at home, or physically listening here at 42 Waterloo Street, or maybe on your commute, and in all the other in-between spaces that you move through. So Year in Review 2021 is presented by Centre 42, ArtsEquator and Channel NewsTheatre in collaboration with Art Wave Studio, who is doing the dedications you heard earlier. And there are three really wonderful human beings here with me today, who will be figuring out and thinking together with us about what care means and what care does in our performance-making context, especially in this Year Two of the COVID-19 pandemic. I'd like to invite them to introduce themselves briefly.
Ahmad Musta'ain
Hey, I'm the first carebear today. My name is Ahmad. I'm an educator and a playwright, and I enjoy dipping my feet into the worlds, one and the other, just moving around between both.
Teo Xiaoting
Hello, my name is Xiaoting, and I'm as arts practitioner and therapist in training.
Shaza Ishak
Hi, I'm Shaza. I'm the managing director of Teater Ekamatra.
Corrie Tan
Thank you so much, the three of you, for being with us today. I've been thinking a lot about care, and what care is, and what care means. Care - and I'm using air quotes here - can be quite an unwieldy concept and practice to pin down. I think we all have our own assumptions, our own habits, approaches and ethics of care that we've developed and accumulated over time. I thought we could spend a bit of time to map out what care looks like to each of us here, and to really embrace and think about these different dimensions. Something I learned about recently from the incredible architectural historian and scholar Dr Imran Tajudeen is that the term [meta? beta?] or 'to map', in the Indonesian and Malay can also be derived from the Javanese [betha?] or [pepathan?], which is 'to shape', 'imagination', 'visualisation', 'idea', 'notion', 'concept', and 'mode of action'. I think 'mode of action' is really interesting. So to map something out, to map out care, in this sense, is a mode of action. I think this feels very applicable to care, which is grounded in both politics but also in practice, and really an emphasis that care has to be enacted - it's not just something we think about in the abstract. Maybe in that vein, and to begin, I wanted to ask each of you to share two things - firstly, a bit about how you define care, or your ethos of care in your artistic practice, whether that's as an educator, arts administrator, arts practitioner, and also what that looks like in practice as a mode of action. Maybe we can start with Ahmad?
Ahmad Musta'ain
As an educato in MOE-speak, all teachers have this thing called duty of care. I think when we think about duty of care, it has multiple definitions, but what is interesting is the way that it is taught in schools to teachers - it's problem-based learning. They give you a scenario, and then they tell you, this is the problem, now prescribe a solution. Never really thinking about: "let's sit with the problem, let's think about the problem. What really is the problem, who is affected by the problem?" So when we think about duty of care in education, very often it's about: as a teacher, who are you responsible for? What are the limits of your responsibilities? And it has a lot to do with mapping boundaries. So my first initiation into duty of care, or care, thinking about it very formally, is looking at boundaries. And very often the boundaries as a teacher is very little boundaries, because we always want the best for our students. We go beyond, we always do more than expected, and in doing so, we over-prepare students. We want them to be as prepared as they can, or even beyond, for an examination. And somehow, in that respect, in my practice as a playwright, I tend to think about over-preparing myself. How many cups of coffee do I I need before I can write that one line, how many rounds of editing am I comfortable with before I reveal that script or that scene to someone? And it's an ethos that I think I've come to embody into my practice. So over the years, I've learned in my formal training when I was in university, and in my own practice, that maybe care isn't about boundaries. Maybe care is not about doing more, because sometimes to write, you just need to be still. It's about [unclear] - it is about making sure that you are giving yourself an opportunity to just be, to be satisfied, satiated, healed - to be in your best form so that you can then write. Sometimes it may not require so much - it actually requires you to do less, and to say no, and to really just sit in your own skin. So I think I'll start the ball rolling from there and pass it on to Xiaoting and Shaza. I'm very curious to know what you guys think.
Teo Xiaoting
Wow. When I think about care, in my own capacity as a friend, as a person, and also as a person who makes things, and also training to be a therapist - I'm still wrapping up my practicum at this current point, so I can't call myself a therapist - but I think a lot of it has to do with locating our limits, like what Ahmad said just now but also through locating the limits, where are the areas that we can say yes to because we said no. I think these two things - and in thinking about how to locate limits or moments of expansion, it's also about listening to myself and the people around me. I think care is a lot about, really: what do I need? What does the person need? And how can we create a space where both of our desires and needs are able to be met in a way that doesn't compromise. I think there's always a third way - sometimes you think that it's either your way or my way, but actually, no lah. I think that's quite bullshit. There's always a sense of expansion if we'd just be a bit more creative in the way we look at things. It's not like a pie, there's just one slice - just bake another one or something, you know?
Shaza Ishak
Honestly, I think I'm at a crossroads thinking about care. I used to think it was about being responsible for everyone, about making sure that everyone was okay and happy and everything was taken care of. But I recently realised how toxic that can be, how care can be debilitating as well, and how it can be suffocating, because you don't allow - sometimes, at least my brand of care at that point, didn't allow for others to grow. And that was really painful to realise.
Corrie Tan
Thank you so much for sharing that, Shaza. I'm just drawing from all the strands of conversations that have come up - already, we are mapping out all these different directions that we can go, but what I'm gathering here is that there's a constant sense of negotiation, whether within yourself or with other people. Ahmad, Xiaoting, and Shaza, you each talked about that relationship that you established with others when you're laying out what your practice of care is, and we might call it boundaries, or borders. I think it might be interesting to think about how boundaries are not necessarily a wall, or something that is opaque - there's a porousity to certain boundaries. They can be tested, they can allow things through, we can renegotiate the lines that we draw - it's not something that's fixed or set in stone. And that reminds me that to practice care is really something that is also contingent on other people - we can set up specific ways, like Shaza, like "oh, it's about being responsible", you know, being a responsible person, a good person, but it also depends on how people receive those gestures and that kind of action. To think of care is to think of everyone else entangled in these relationships with us. And in that way, I'm very curious - I think Shaza, you've brought us into that conversation a bit about how you started to define for yourself what this caregiving and care-receiving became for you once you had this realisation? What did you start putting in place to adjust yourself?
Shaza Ishak
I had to admit to myself that it wasn't really just about care, it was about control as well - that you were controlling people through your care or your love - it's masked in a different way, but it came from what I thought was a good place. I thought it was care, but I feel like sometimes that's how you wield your power in situations because you've cared, you're putting yourself in the situation, you're taking care of it, you can't be separated from these situations. But actually, that's just how I was controlling situations. I mean, I'm a bit confused as I'm talking about it, because it's something that I'm still figuring out, still untangling myself from it and figuring out my new brand of it. But I think one thing has been about letting go of wanting to control everything through what I thought was care.
Corrie Tan
Yeah, and I think a lot of arts managers or administrators can probably resonate with this - I've heard of wanting to create those good working environments for people, and therefore taking a lot of that labour on to set up those infrastructures without realising how you set the tone for those interactions.
Ahmad Musta'ain
It's very interesting, because I feel that the brand of care here is preventive - I want to ensure that things don't mess up, I want to make sure that things are at its optimal before it goes south, instead of... perhaps care could be: if anything were to happen, we'll handle it, we'll deal with it. And maybe that could grant us a bit more space to falter a little bit, make mistakes, discover and innovate new ways of working. But that can only happen if we give ourselves a chance to be a little bit at risk.
Corrie Tan
Yeah, and I think one thing you brought up earlier, Ahmad was thinking about: "oh, let's problem-solve this, let's find a solution to this problem, and once we find a solution to this problem, it'll be fixed. Hooray! We don't need to care anymore!" But I think that's one misconception right there - we can finish caring about something and go "we found the answer to this". But I think care is very much what everyone here is grappling with, that it's really a long-term durational process, there are no quick fixes to these problems, and that care is maintenance work - not really resolving and fixing things once and for all. I'm interested if maybe we can think about care, not just as our individual roles as ourselves, but how does that look like in terms of arts practice within the specific communities you work in, whether it's an educator in an educational context, or when it comes to caring for an arts company, or as someone who is the practitioner but also with one foot in in thinking about counselling and therapy. In those specific contexts, what are some care practices that you've started to implement maybe this year, Year Two of the pandemic, that maybe were not so nascent for you last year?
Teo Xiaoting
I really resonate with what Shaza and Ahmad mentioned just now about how sometimes when we think about care, we think about problem-fixing, but I think over the past year, I've begun to see more that actually situations are not problems we fix, and it's okay to just sit in the problem instead of rushing to fix it. I think sometimes when we really try to return to a so-called previous point before the problem arose, it doesn't really make sense, because the original place is how the problem became in the first place. So I think over the past year - I think a lot of sitting still. Last year, I was a lot of in firefighting mode, and I ended up being quite exhausted. This person is maybe off the radar and "oh, need to reach out, need to reach out" - and now I'm like "okay, maybe people just need space". And I need space, to just sit there, and then I have to make sure that maybe I'm not the only one - there's a few people around - and how does sitting still, or sitting well, maybe? In a way that is not from a place of anxiety but really just trusting that people will be okay.
Shaza Ishak
I can't seem to get to that point. I feel so uncomfortable leaving things as it is. But I realised right now I'm thinking about two ways of caring - the first way is centering yourself in a situation where you are sorting things out or you are the person that is the carer. But the other way I'm thinking about it is empowering others to care for themselves, for the situation, and sit in that discomfort. I'm still where you're talking about, that place of anxiety and that place of discomfort.
Ahmad Musta'ain
In my capacity, I normally start my lessons, whether I'm teaching playwriting to middle-schoolers or in my own capacity - the first question I ask my students will always be: how do you want me to help you? Because eventually, I want you to be your best self. I want you to write like you, not write like me. I could facilitate and prompt you to think of ideas, but how do you want me to help you? So for them, they have to be very metacognitive. "Oh, I'm not very good with deadlines, Mr Ahmad". "Oh, I have a problem with being very ambitious - I want to have 10 scenes and 20 characters." I'm like, "okay, you've got to take a couple of scenes out". My lessons always begin with getting the students to think about: "okay, you are an author, you write this story. How do you want me to help you?" And I think a realisation, which is very similar to sitting very deeply and intimately with discomfort and the problems that you face, is something that I want them to be exposed to, because writing is hard work. Half the time I'm doubting myself, I don't know how the big playwrights do it - I don't know how you do it in your PhD course. I spend hours thinking about three lines.
Corrie Tan
Something that's come up here - Xiaoting, you were comparing this year's sitting, with last year's more reactive kind of anticipation of what we have to do to solve a lot of issues that have been thrown up by the pandemic. And it's quite normal, right - when there's a crisis or an emergency that you be very anticipatory, especially if you are a leader or manager, and are looked to, to problem-solve or have these kinds of responsibilities. This anticipatory reflex is very strong - we know how to pre-empt certain things we can see, our students going down certain paths. And it denies us of the opportunity like Xiaoting and Shaza have been saying to go "okay, let's take a pause, even though it's maybe counterintuitive to the moment we are in now".
Ahmad Musta'ain
But then everything is urgent, right? Everything is necessary. Oh, my God, you have to deal with twenty things, now it's thirty. It's really tough. I totally feel you guys. I'm there with you.
Corrie Tan
Yeah, but I think you brought up a really important thing, too, Ahmad, which is that this kind of teaching students or whoever you interface with or have connections with - what it means to articulate, very specifically, the support and the care that you need. Because I think something I've been struggling with also is realising: wow, often if you're a caregiver, and you care a lot for others, you're not very good at articulating what you need, because you're mostly expected to care for other people's needs, and that becomes, really, a discipline, a practice of "I really need to tell people exactly what it is that I need and want". If not, you're going to get very useless information or support. So I really appreciate, Ahmad, that you're doing this practice with your students, so that that they are very aware of the emotional trajectories that they go through, but also the material and physical requirements that they have.
Ahmad Musta'ain
It's so easy to give them a template or a blanket way of "this is how you're going to cope with writing or facing a roadblock". But we all cope so differently, and I think for them to realise that there are different types of help available - and I may not be the one who helps you; you can ask me something and I will say I don't know, and then I'll figure it out by asking someone else, or someone else will come and save you, or your friend can come save, or you save yourself. I echo what you say, Corrie - sometimes asking for help is care. We need to ask the right help, whom we are going to ask and when we're gonna ask, not before the shit hits the fan.
Teo Xiaoting
But that's really tough, right? Because to answer the question of what we need and what we want, we need to first see where we are struggling, and I think what happened over the past few years is that you cannot really stop to think that you're struggling because it feels like - at least for me, personally, it feels like once I stop to think, I will just end up in a spiral. And then I'm like "oh dear, how do I get out of it?" I'm still currently struggling with it - I say until like "wah, just sit there", but actually, this is something that's still aspirational for me. Wow, I tell you, the anxiety is not fun.
Shaza Ishak
And sometimes there are real opportunity costs as well - there have been moments where I really can't do something, and I don't, and then there's actual fallout from that situation. So it's not as easy as saying "okay, if you need to take time, you take time". But when you're, for example, leading a company - I don't know. Is that allowed? I don't think so. I don't know who's supposed to pick up after me if I don't do it. So that's where asking for help - it's hard for me to articulate it, because I feel like sometimes it takes a lot more out of you to ask for that help as well.
Corrie Tan
It feels like an actually big, collective unlearning that we're doing, because I'm finding from all the conversations that we have here that one individual saying "I want to pause", or "wait, I need help" doesn't really make a dent or rupture in the entire way of usually doing things - everyone is still very reactionary, everything's still very urgent, everything still needs to be done, and it strikes me that care isn't just me as one individual, what we do for another individual, but that the entire infrastructure of us as this collective or this community, as non-homogenous as we are - it's also thinking about what kinds of new infrastructures we have to create for ourselves to allow for more people to pause, because they want different pauses and then, you know, the wave's going to come.
Shaza Ishak
When COVID happened, right, I really wished everyone decided together "you know what, we're going to take a break, we're not going to do shows". But then a lot of people were doing shows, and then I felt like, "oh my God, if I took a pause now, then my company is going to be flailing behind" - as it is, we're already struggling, and if we don't take very active steps to try to match what other people are doing, then you're always going to be behind everyone. So I really wish everyone decided "you know what, guys, let's stop for a while". This was such a good reason for doing that, but, you know.
Corrie Tan
Yeah, but I think that then are multiple layers here, right? It's not just purely the responsibility of the caregiver or the caring person to say "oh, let's let our small group just stop doing this", but it really will take all of us in thinking about how the arts ecology functions, the bad habits that we've accumulated for decades - it will take a concerted effort for each of us to chip away at these very rotten foundations that prompt us to be trapped in this cycle. I was going to ask you, Xiaoting, about this, because I know you're involved in the Care and Intimacy Working Group - which is hosted by the Co-Lab Residency at Centre 42 - to maybe think about the new ways in which we might try to imagine these structures, not just as individuals, but on a more widespread collective basis.
Teo Xiaoting
I think when it comes to the collective, I can't - I'm still imagining it. It's not so concrete. But I think what I can speak to is in the interpersonal sphere. There are ways to experiment with your friends - if you don't know what your needs are, then maybe you can try out a few things. For example, if I don't feel like I can eat meals on time, my friend will be like, "oh, okay, do you want me to cook a week's worth of food and put it in the fridge?" Or will that actually just make me feel worse, because I'll eat the same thing every day? And then we'll just try for one week and see what happens. Because I think when it comes to the collective thing, it starts with the interpersonal. I don't think we can just immediately go to a top-down approach, because that's not how it works. But I think shoot a small little - what's that term, you know, the drip water, drip, drip, and then the stone becomes, what's that thing called? The thing where you drip the water consistently and then it can pierce through the rock or something like that.
Ahmad Musta'ain
I actually want to contest what you said. You said it starts with the interpersonal - I feel like it starts with the personal, because how are you going to extend care, how are you going to help a friend who doesn't eat her meals, if you're not eating your meals? If you're not taking care of your own meals - it could be that you lean on your friends to remind each other and to help yourself, but I think it starts with yourself. And I think that's when the concept of care becomes incredibly tricky, because what works for you may not work for other people, and it might be anecdotal. It might be that, because you're so earnest in wanting to help another person, you end up enforcing or imposing - it's counter-intuitive, and that is a fear for me.
Corrie Tan
I want to circle back to what Shaza was talking about, because I think that there is a big struggle, right? We do want to change the very unhealthy and toxic ways in which we try to tank our way through something, or that people rely on certain key figures to bring a project to fruition, and particularly in institutions where there are things way beyond our control, let's say COVID shuts down a performance, and there's a big financial cost to these events. I'm also thinking about the expectations that come with being a manager, a project leader, that you are supposed to have the capacity to to bring this project and everyone with it to fruition. I wanted to maybe pivot the conversation to thinking about capacities also. And we often think of it as "oh, I'm at very limited capacity, this is my limited bandwidth for this moment. Sorry, I know you need help, but I also cannot help you". And I wonder if there are different ways to think about this, that allow us to expand and not always think from, like what Xiaoting said - the pie is so limited; I gave out all my energy, and that's it, I have no energy, the end, I cannot help Shaza anymore. What are ways in which we can increase that way of supporting other people, or asking them how they can be supported as a discipline or practice? I wonder if any of you have any thoughts about what it means to build capacity in yourself and in others?
Shaza Ishak
There's this concept that I learned from Sunita Pandya of Southbank Centre - I think she calls it 'well of empathy'. So imagine that all your care and empathy comes from a well. It's a finite resource and it needs to be topped up. So you give and you give and you give from that well, but you also need to make sure that you're filling it up. I don't know how to fill mine up yet, but I imagine that there are ways of filling it up. For some people, it could be going for walks, for some people it could be doing physical activities. I feel like how I used to fill up my well was by leaving the country, by physically removing myself from these situations that took a lot out of me. But now obviously, we can't do that as much as we used to, and I'm at a loss about how to do that for myself. But the point that I take away from that is that it is finite, but you can build on your resilience, I suppose. I used to think that I just had to do it, and there was no end to it, but it happens together. But I still need to figure out how to do it at the same time.
Corrie Tan
I suppose that's why we call it Ways of Caring - we're all trying to figure out the different ways in which we can expand or stretch these competencies. Although I feel like - I wish you didn't have to build your own resilience. I think that word is something that's been very overused for the past couple of years, and what if we didn't have to be so resilient all the time, because having to build resilience means that somewhere out there, some part of the system has failed.
Shaza Ishak
And you're just plastering over it.
Ahmad Musta'ain
I love that metaphor of the well, because I like to imagine that all of us have different types of wells, you know - some of us have got an engine pumping out the water, some of us have got deeper wells, wider wells, and perhaps it's for us to realise that, as our wells are going empty or drying up, maybe we need to look for other nearby wells.
Shaza Ishak
We drink from someone else's.
Ahmad Musta'ain
That's right. But we don't do that to drain the other person, we do it knowing that one's we are filled, maybe we can do a rain dance, and then the rain comes in, and all of our wells are filled up - but that's me fantastically thinking. But I like to imagine that one way to build capacity is to build community. And that's a perfect segue for us to turn to Xiaoting, who, in our pre-panel discussion, told us something about what therapy means. And I quote, Xiaoting once said, "therapists exist because community has failed". That's right, mic drop, you said what you said,
Teo Xiaoting
I did. I really genuinely think so, because the job of a one-to-one therapy session - I don't think it should exist, actually, because I think all these things are tied together with the community, the people that we love, who love us back, and how we share all those spaces. I'm so aiya because if you really look at what Corrie mentioned about the rot of our foundation, I think there is this sense of being overwhelmed, because where do you start? If it's rotten, where's the rot, and how do you remove the rot?
Ahmad Musta'ain
The rot in the fish starts in the head.
Teo Xiaoting
I'm also thinking about what Shaza said just now, about how if everyone collectively said, "okay, let's take a break", then maybe things would be not as overwhelming, but singularly people can't just take a break, because everyone will so-called overtake you. I'm wondering what would happen if certain people, who are in leadership positions, just came together and said, "you know what? No need lah". Then everyone says together "don't need".
Ahmad Musta'ain
But I found so much relief in the arts, and the VODs, all of those Zoom sessions - I found so much relief in this pandemic attending them, and also not attending some of them - because you also have a burnout because you've watched so much on the screen. I understand, sort of, why they had to continue the rat race of producing and creating, adapting - and maybe adapting is part of care, that if the well is drying up, then maybe we need to build another well, maybe we need to think of different ways of collecting water. But the conversation, I feel, should then move into: for those who are not in the capacity of being in the rat race, why should they be penalised for it, because not everyone has the same capabilities, not all companies have same capabilities of making art in the time of the pandemic. So if they decide to take a step back, why should they be be penalised, or feel like they are lagging behind? And I think that is a societal or community driven problem.
Corrie Tan
I think there's a possibility - I'm also thinking very much about how people sustain themselves financially around their livelihoods. You've seen many, many people leave the arts, because this industry has been so decimated by the pandemic. I really do want to acknowledge that it has real, tangible economic impacts on many people in this industry, and that taking a step back may not be possible when you need to sustain yourself. I think there are many things that - despite the kind of difficulties that we're sitting with here in this group - people are trying out different ways of being mutually supportive. We don't have universal basic income in Singapore, but I think a lot of mutual aid has arisen in the past year - sometimes with difficulty, because people are still figuring out what mutual aid means - and really rethinking systems of dispersing money. I also wanted to point out that Shaza was involved in the Good Practices in Singapore Theatre working group, creating a paper to really think about what are the things that we take for granted, and really need to be reworked? I wonder if we could maybe think a little bit about the impact that this pandemic has had on the industry, and the ways in which we've been trying to negotiate our ways around that, that can support the community at large. I don't know if you want to share a bit about the Good Practices paper, Shaza?
Shaza Ishak
Actually, as you were talking about that, and talking about care as well, one of the things that I've been very conscious about is creating or finding opportunities for hiring people who have lost income or jobs because of the arts, and there have been easier answers. For example, we did this show called Mat Champion recently - it was a web series, and I wouldn't say that it was one of the most successfully executed pieces of work that we've ever done, because we wanted to work with people who were in theatre who have never done web series before, who've never been directors of photography, or things like that. And for a lot of us, it was such a huge learning curve, but I just felt that I needed to make sure that we were working with people who had been impacted by COVID in the scene that we're in. But it's not always an easy choice, because you could have, for example, chosen someone who already knew it. But then I do feel that responsibility. I just wanted to share that, I just thought about care in that way. Talking about the paper, I was just thinking about unlearning as well - I know nothing about parenting, but sometimes I feel like some of the principles are applicable to both, in that being a leader is sometimes like being a parent. As a parent, you have to acknowledge and work through your trauma, your toxic upbringing, in order to break patterns, to avoid the vicious cycle you could sometimes end up reinforcing in your kids. I feel like in the arts as well, especially for slightly older ones like us - for many of us, when we started in the arts, we were incredibly overworked, we were underpaid or not paid at all. And in many spaces, there were a lot of types of abuse. I feel like as an industry we need to break out of that toxic belief that it is a rite of passage to pour your blood, sweat and tears into work. I catch myself sometimes saying things like "you know, when I was your age, I wasn't paid" - I mean, I don't say it, but I think it, I'm like, "oh my God, I did this, I wasn't paid, I was working from this time to this time and I don't know why you're complaining". But I wasn't happy doing that, you know - why do I want other people to go through that? But I feel like it's such a complex that we have to break through. It's not been easy, and I know I've had to tell myself again and again: "I don't want anyone to go through that".
Corrie Tan
It reminds me of, in You Yenn's This Is What Inequality Looks Like - she talks about differentiated deservedness, that, somehow if you work hard, you deserve more. And I think a lot of things I've been thinking about related to practices of care is this idea that in our very capitalist machine that we live in, people who don't conform to a certain way of working are disposable, and if you don't work this hard, or don't wear it like a badge of honour, then who are you? We can dispense with you. And what does it mean to think of our entire community, whether or not you're producing actively, whether or not you're taking a step back, that none of these people are disposable and are all included in the various communities we work in and through, and to really, absolutely, as you said, rethink this idea that we must crucify ourselves in order to be seen to be producing something that is good or valorised.
Shaza Ishak
It's like an innate sadomasochist part of us, like, we've been through that, we were hurt, we bled and everything - I want to see your blood as well.
Corrie Tan
Did Xiaoting or Ahmad want to respond to that?
Teo Xiaoting
I think a lot of - you know, the whole rite of passage thing is because, I mean, currently, where we are at now, we are still alive. So I think that there's a part of us that's like, "oh, if it worked for us in the past, and we pulled through it, then of course everyone else should". But then again, the same thing - why replicate pain? For what? And I'm also thinking in the ways that we are working now - now we are all so conscious; we're having a panel about it - in the ways that we do things; there can be more spaces. I think right now we are reaching the end of - we're all submitting things and everything. Are there possibilities to dial back instead of pushing forth? Do we really need to achieve all the things that we set out when we first started or are there ways to just - no one will die if we put out one less thing, you know? I'm also thinking, in all the projects that will start next year or the following years - what if we really just integrate breathing spaces from the start instead of later on?
Corrie Tan
I think a lot of the ways in which - maybe you would have a check-in at the beginning of a project to see where everyone is at, have a check-in in the middle of a project to reassess the directions you've been taking. Maybe you over-promised some deliverables? I know this is not always possible in every project, but, you know, ways of taking stock and assessing. And then when you close a project, doing a post-mortem to be like, "oh, my God, we really failed at this, what really could have been done better?" And building a lot of these structures into the way we carry out the process. I think it's not just the interpersonal - I mean, what I'm going to share is also part of that, but I'm thinking about even the contracts that we offer to people. How can even the contracts that we put up be a way of clear communicating what is the scope of your work? Is doing all these additional things mean you're doing too much? What are your communication preferences, like, please don't talk to me at night or on weekends? What are these small things that actually we should make explicit in the contracts we make with each other, as friends, as collaborators? What are the things that we could practice rendering more explicitly and precisely. And it takes time - I think when you first start articulating these things, you don't even know where to begin. But I wonder what are ways in which we could replicate more of these practices in a wider way? I think there's been a lot of activity going on in the chat, I can't even follow it at this point, but I would like to welcome anyone who also has questions that they would want us to think through with you; now would be a good time to to share that. I just want to trace a few conversations that have been happening in the chat. I think earlier on Yanling brought up the idea of having multiple communities, that you don't just have to draw from one community's well to support yourself - that it's okay to have these multiple interdependencies. And a lot of people were resonating with what Shaza was sharing, as arts managers and producers themselves, that it's really hard to extricate yourself from this cycle and to stop - I think there was a lot of resonance with that. So I'd like to invite other people who have anything else they'd like to ask to also share that, and maybe while we're waiting for questions to come in, what are things that you've actually implemented for yourself, or in the groups that you work with, that you were really - you found that small grain of satisfaction in that, "okay, I've adjusted myself in this way; it wasn't easy, but I've managed to do something that feels like I'm on the right path." Would any of you want to share?
Shaza Ishak
I don't know if this makes sense to anyone, but I take a Grab home, and I cry in the Grab, so that when I'm home, I don't bring it with me.
Corrie Tan
Wow.
Shaza Ishak
It helps, it's good - you just let it out. I just don't want to bring that emotion into the house all the time, the energy. I want to feel like, "okay, I felt it" - and it's not always bad. It's not always negative - sometimes it's just a release. Tears are not always sad tears. And then I'm home, and I can continue with my other life.
Corrie Tan
I'm glad that you said that yes, it can be a release. I'm also really sorry that it is the space that you have to create for yourself for that release to happen. But I also understand - I hear what you're saying about, yeah, I want to be able to protect that part of my domestic life, to have that be a space where I can unwind and breathe. But it also makes me think about the spaces that we all have for decompression or for relief.
Shaza Ishak
It genuinely doesn't come from a super-sad place. Sometimes, you know, there are days where it's really tough, but, you know, some people exercise, I cry. It's amazing.
Ahmad Musta'ain
Well, I think for me, when you write, you always think about "why this story now", and then it became "why bother writing, because theatres are not opening anyway". But then something quite magical happened - because theatres are not opening anyway, that gives me so much space to be as imaginative as I want, and just write exactly whatever I want. And the writing has crossed into different spaces. It's not just writing plays - it could be an Instagram update, it could be a rant, it could be a journal. So I think because the theatres are closed for a while, it has given me more space to look into writing in different contexts, and to look into why I'm writing these stories - is this relevant to me now? And if this is a time to rest, and to take a pause, and to think and rethink and unlearn, what am I willing to let go, and what would I still be interested in my writing? So that's from a writer's perspective.
Teo Xiaoting
On my end, I've started giving myself permission to change my mind. I think in the past, I used - when I say yes to something, I will finish it no matter what. I will work myself to the bone to finish it. But in the past year, when I've just started - halfway through, I'll do what I can, and actually, this is my limit, and then I'll communicate as clearly and early as possible to my collaborators, and actually it's fine. People are adaptable enough. How can I best - okay, this is where I need to stop, and how do I make it such that my so-called exit doesn't interrupt the process too much? Instead of being very stubborn and having to be hibernating for one month or something like that. And I think this permission to change my mind thing is also part of - I mean, the Citrus Practices that I've been doing? I think initially we were like, "okay, this is what we're going to do", and really looking at each item and being like, "actually, do we really need this?" If no one has the capacity to do it, do we really, really need this? And to be okay with just taking it off the list. It's a muscle that I'm still training - the world will not end because I changed my mind.
Corrie Tan
For people who don't know, Citrus Practices is kind of an offshoot of the Care and Intimacy Working Group at Centre 42. Citrus Practices stands for care, intimacy, trauma-informed understanding and safer practices in the arts, which is a small group that's been funded by the Self-Employed Person Grant to think about ways in which we can think about how we can enact care practices in the arts. The core team is currently building a digital resource for the arts called the Library of Care. Watch out for it in the first quarter of next year, or maybe a little bit later on. So that's something that the group is working on. Okay, I think we have a question. When someone else you care for isn't able to clearly articulate what kind of help they need or want, is distance and giving them space perhaps the best form of care in that moment?
Shaza Ishak
I mean, I don't know what the answer is. But I feel like I used to really prod and prod and prod because I really need to get the answer. I need to know so that I can do something about it - that thing about control again, care as a form of control. And I think that could really be the answer - giving them space, giving them time to figure out how they want to articulate it, or whether they even want to articulate it to us, whether we are the right person to care for them. And that's something that I'm really very conscious of right now, because I think I used to be super into "okay, let's sit down, you need to tell me what's wrong with you. I need to figure it out". You're so used to firefighting that you think you need to pre-firefight. But maybe sometimes people just need that time and space, and I need to respect that more.
Ahmad Musta'ain
I would acknowledge and go: "okay, so you don't know what's wrong with you, but you feel really upset, isn't it? I'm going to sit with you, and you feel upset, and if you're hungry while feeling upset, I'll eat with you, I'll spend time with you, and once you know a bit more, or once you want to bounce ideas about what makes you upset, I'm here to hear you out. I'm not leaving you". I think a lot of people feel as if when they have disruptive or very big emotions, they're like, "oh, no, I'm going to explode, I'm uncontrollable, stay away", when actually I'm like, "no, you're not going to drive me away, I'm going to be here for you". That's what it means - I'm going to sit with you through the difficult emotions. That's what I would do, maybe because I'm a teacher and my kids throw tantrums in class, and I throw tantrums, and I think that would be a little bit more [unclear]. That's what I would do.
Teo Xiaoting
I think what I've been doing is really to come up with a - first I think about: okay, actually what can I offer? Because if they don't know what they need, or they can't articulate it, and I'm the person that's in proximity, right? I'll come up with a MCQ - A) I can reimburse your Grab ride so that you don't need to take public transport because you don't want to. Or I can, I don't know, open a KTV room, so you can sing virtually. Things like that. And I'll list it out, I'll make it easy for them to reply - reply A for this, B for this, and then I'll just give it to them. I also like to let them know that they don't have to respond, and if I'm not what they need, then sure, but it's a standing offer, and then just to leave that door open. And this is kind of a tangent to that, but I wonder, maybe, around that moment, maybe if we listen a bit more closely, we can maybe give better support without them having to teach us how to support them. You don't buy an umbrella when it's raining, you buy when it's sunny, or something like that?
Corrie Tan
Yeah. And I think you pointed out something, which is not to centre yourself in the person that you're trying to help, not assuming that "wow, I know the fix for this problem", or that you would even be the person that they need in this moment. I really loved and appreciated you sharing that. We've a very interesting question that's come up in the chat, which is "I wonder what's the role of NAC within this ecosystem of care that we're all talking about now?"
Corrie Tan
I wish someone could tell me.
Teo Xiaoting
I mean, the first word that came to mind is money, but then that's also the problem, you know, because them as the main public funder is also part of why the thing is so run like a business, in the sense that you need to justify, justify, justify.
Shaza Ishak
Yeah, but I mean, to be fair to the situation, I'm also thinking about the people that we are most in touch with at NAC, which are mostly the managers, right? I mean, I can't imagine what they are going through as well, the changes that's happening, the SMM things that are happening that they have to articulate to everyone, that amount of extra work that's happening right now as well. At the end of the day, I think on the other side, there are also humans like us, and I try to remember that sometimes. And that helps - my occasional frustration with the situation is helped by remembering that these are real people going through the same pandemic.
Corrie Tan
Absolutely. I think when we think of care and we think of empathy, often we only apply these words to our in-groups, when we're like, "oh, I care" - but actually, I only care for this group of people, you know. If you're perceived as in opposition to or external to this group, then you're not considered worthy of the same kind of care and support. But I really appreciate what Shaza shared, because there are many negotiations that take place, even in what's perceived as the other or group that's external to us. And one thing I've been trying to remind myself of also is this really lovely - there are many definitions of care, of course, but one that Joan Tronto, the political scientist, together with her collaborator Bernice Fisher came up with, is that they say "we suggest that caring be viewed as a species activity that includes everything that we do to maintain, continue and repair our world, so that we can live in it as well as possible. That world includes our bodies, ourselves, and our environment, all of which we seek to interweave in a complex and life sustaining web". And if we really think that it includes all people, that also includes the people who often maybe bear the brunt of our frustrations, because they are entangled with us in this web. What we do also affects them, and vice versa, of course - I don't want to absolve their responsibilities either - but I really appreciate that you brought that up, to think about how we are all implicated in both directions. Someone brought up in the chat that certain organisational cultures can be very hard to break in certain environments. I don't know if either of you had anything else to add in response to the question.
Teo Xiaoting
I'm also thinking about distinguishing between the institution and the people who work within the institution, who are very real people. I think that can be quite hard to distinguish, because if they are enacting all the paperwork, all the processes that are not great, then how do you separate the person who's sending you the email and the content of the email, right?
Shaza Ishak
Sometimes it's about not shooting the messenger.
Corrie Tan
Yeah, and I think this relates to what we said earlier about being reactive - we receive a piece of bad news, or a certain thing happens, maybe a Safe Management Measure is imposed upon us, and then the instinct is to be like, "oh my God, I have to redo this whole thing" - but what it means to really take a second to think about that reactivity. I'm aware we are moving slowly towards the end of our conversation. I do think so many other conversations can be had from this one conversation, and I do hope that even as we just begin to map out certain things for ourselves - I think if you hear all of us speaking today, there are a lot of things we're like, "I don't know the answer", "I'm still figuring this out", "I don't know what this is", "I'm learning this thing"... that's still very much in the forefront of our minds. I do think that the past two years, we've been building this vocabulary about ways of caring and different ways of putting that into practice. Maybe moving slowly into a closure for this conversation, I wanted to ask each of the people here two things, which is that: I wonder if you could come up with - either either of these things, right? A wish - so what is something you wish or hope for the people and/or community you work with; I wish this thing for you. Or you can come up with a provocation, which is "what if we were to, dot dot dot". So you can choose either one, thinking of a wish, or a provocation. And you'll hear some silence as our panelists, some close their eyes.
Shaza Ishak
I mean, my "what if", I think I articulated it earlier - my "what if" was: what if all of us decided together on this chat, and then whoever who's listening decides, you know what, let's take a break. That's also a wish.
Corrie Tan
Yeah, you wrapped up both in one, thank you for that. Xiaoting, Ahmad?
Ahmad Musta'ain
Well, I wish that in the time that we have during this pandemic, all of us could be a bit more introspective, and in being introspective, we become a little bit more innovative, more imaginative, on how we want to proceed forward. Because I feel like a lot of the time, we are constantly trying to circumvent or fight or work with safety management measures, you know, but - hey, it's going to end! And then what? Let's turn our attention, and give it a little bit more, the thinking about what's going to happen next. I wish that we could spend more time on that, even though it's a very, very hard thing to do, it's very aspirational.
Corrie Tan
Thank you so much.
Teo Xiaoting
I think I'm wishing that, instead of trying to go forth, as per usual, what if we just create a whole new way altogether, instead of trying to return to a previous imaginary point?
Corrie Tan
Thank you so much.
Ahmad Musta'ain
Corrie, what about you?
Corrie Tan
I think my wish is that we can see care on multiple levels - that yes, we've sat a lot with the personal and the individual, and also one-to-one relationships, but that care can also be an infrastructure. I really wish or hope that we can all realise that we are interdependent on each other, and that our personal decisions affect and ripple out across everyone around us, and that we do have the power to stand in solidarity with people and come from a place that is not like, "oh, I'm limited capacity. that's it, I come from a place of scarcity", but actually we can be really abundant when there are people with us to move through these spaces. I wish that abundance in the collective and solidarity work that we do. I think it really strikes me, from what we've talked about today, that: what might it look like to think of new structures - not necessarily structures, but, you know, what would, I don't know, COVID insurance for all theatre companies look like, you didn't have to get your funding clawed back if a show didn't happen? Or what might it look like if every contract that we received or made as arts practitioners included clauses around how we want to be supported during difficult times, or what kind of communication preferences we have? So those are my own dreams and desires, and that we think about things in terms of long-term changes and not short-term fixes. I guess as we close, anyone else have any final words?
Ahmad Musta'ain
I worry, because for many students in school, they have a theatre-viewing programme in school. But because the theatres have been closed, there is this generation of students who would have never stepped into the theatre, watched a theatre performance, and they move up, and then they move to Poly or JC or whatever, and then what happens, then? What's their relationship with art and art-making or theatre? I worry about these kids. I don't have any answers. I don't know what to do; I don't how to care for them. But I guess we will find a way somehow in the future, because Shaza, you just went "OMG, girl, we've got to sit down and hatch a plan".
Corrie Tan
Yeah. And I hope there'll be more conversations seeded from this, about - yeah, there are going to be new challenges that emerge with every generation of people who are moving through this. What kinds of precedents do we want to set for other groups that are emerging into this space? I guess to close this, someone really important in terms of feminism in the care movement died this week - her name is bell hooks, and I wanted to share her words because she was a powerful, transformative, incredible black feminist and pioneer who left us, but she's also left us so much wisdom and hope for us, in terms of how we think about care work, especially in marginal and minority communities, especially in the face of racial violence, especially in the face of capitalist extractiveness that often makes us feel very lonely, very isolated, very disposable. And so in honour of her, as we both mourn and celebrate her, I thought I would read out two of her quotes related to ways of caring for ourselves and also for each other. The first quote is: "rarely, if ever, are any of us healed in isolation. Healing is an act of communion". And next is: "the practice of love is the most powerful antidote to the politics of domination". So I just wanted to leave those two sentences with everyone listening in today. Thank you so much for joining us as we really figured all of this out together. It was messy. It was difficult, but I think it's part of the way I hope many more conversations will go around both individual work and also collective work. Thank you so much, everyone, for joining us today - send in more song dedications as we close out the day, and have a really good evening, everybody, and thank you, Shaza, Xiao Ting, Ahmad, and everyone behind the scenes.
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