Tuesday 4 August 2015

Diversity is Key



by Edel O'Shea 

We should never impose limits on creativity, provided its purpose is not intended to cause harm or provocation. More specifically we should not hesitate or ponder the source of the creativity regardless of which platform is used to generate it.

Why then is there hesitation regarding the author, poet, musician or actor among many other creators? Creativity, in all its forms, is intuitive, colourful and speaks to us all one way or another but in order to engage fully with its potential we must ensure diversity among its creators.

In the UK, for example, a study by the University of Warwick reported that participation and audience members in the creative industries were predominantly from white middle-class well educated backgrounds. This stark reality points to a major deficit of diverse talent in the arts leading to hollows in our potential creative breeding ground.  

Meanwhile in Ireland we’ve made some efforts to nurture the creative seed multi-culturally, however the Art’s Council of Ireland issued a report suggesting restrictions that hinder culturally diverse artistic expression. Some board restrictions cited include; lack of funding to support a diverse arts sector on a local and national level, the absence of minority participation to sit on the Art’s Council and represent those communities and the short term relationship minority ethnic communities have with arts organisations meaning there is no long term permanent partnership between organisation and community to ensure higher participation and engagement.

Across the pond in Hollywood USA we see a similar trend of poor representation of our culturally diverse media society as what’s portrayed on TV and film and the actors chosen to play certain roles does not mirror the current vibrant ethnographic living in its own back yard. It is also suggested that current successful American TV shows, such as The Walking Dead, display diversity simply because it’s currently trendy to do so, leading to a significantly commercially viable source for Hollywood’s producers. This purely commercial angle displays a profit before artistic benefit approach, which can only widen the gap between diversity and dominant mainstream commerciality.

Expression is paramount for the exchange of new knowledge and ideas but what’s missing is the enveloped concept that, trendy or not, ethnicity or gender should ideally be invisible, to both participant and creator, if we are to mesh just expression and the explorations of creativity evenly across all lands.

In Africa, for example, its emerging writers are continuously written and spoken about by media and critics as if they are only viewed as a representation for their continent, solely as a citizen, rather than individuals of vital expression were borders don’t exist. This makes me wonder how we’ve missed the point of artistic creation, meaning there is no point as such, just a need for a simplistic outlet for all to participate, observe and create to increase our cultural awareness, process new concepts and thus continue to evolve. It’s important to acknowledge the distinction between the trendy buzz talk on new African writing and what exactly it is; simply that, new writing like any other and it deserves the right to be read and critiqued impartially without constant mention of where the author resides.     

If cultural diversity is misrepresented or unaligned in reality then it becomes observable that upon creating a piece of TV, film, theatre or prose that the very creativity used to reflect our world is then corrupted by the inequality and racism that defines us in everyday terms. 

Not only is the poverty gap widening but similarly it appears the abundance of our creative capital is unfairly distributed with poor opportunity to engage and create relating to both gender and race. 

If we are to reject or question the existence and practice of interculturalism within the creative arts we are implying a notion that serves only to restrict our world’s collective concepts and beliefs and deny us the fruitfulness of vast and varied creative collaboration that we all thrive on.

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1 Neelands, J., Belfoire, E., Firth, C., Hart, N., Perrin, L., Brock, S., Holdaway, D., Woddis, J. & Knell, J. (2015). Enriching Britain: culture, creativity and growth. Retrieved from    


 

2 Jewesbury, D., Singh, J. & Tuck, S. (2009). Cultural diversity and the arts research project: towards the development of an arts council policy and action plan. Retrieved from http://www.artscouncil.ie/uploadedFiles/Main_Site/Content/Artforms_and_Practices/Arts_Participation_pages/CULTURAL_DIVERSITY_AND_THE_ARTS_RESEARCH_REPORT.pdf

3 Julious, B. (2015, March 25). Hollywood ‘race casting’: what the industry is getting  wrong about diversity. The Guardian. Retrieved from: http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2015/mar/25/deadlines-race-casting-article-tvs-diversity-wrong

4 Julious, B. (2015, March 25). Hollywood ‘race casting’: what the industry is getting  wrong about diversity. The Guardian. Retrieved from: http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2015/mar/25/deadlines-race-casting-article-tvs-diversity-wrong

5 Selasi, T. Taiye Selasi: stop pigeonholing African writers. The Guardian. Retrieved from: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/04/taiye-selasi-stop-pigeonholing-african-writers

6 Oxfam (2015). Richest 1% will own more than all the rest by 2016. Retrieved from: https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2015-01-19/richest-1-will-own-more-all-rest-2016

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