The Colour Cycle

Australia's recent census data shows that half of the population were born overseas or have a parent born overseas. But do we see this reflected on stage, on screen and in our arts sector? Launching in January 2018, The Colour Cycle Podcast by Diversity Arts Australia aims to disrupt cultural whitewashing. Each week Lena Nahlous talks to an Australian cultural leader, artist, screenwriter or author about what it feels like to not see yourself reflected in the cultural landscape and how can we increase diversity - so our arts and screens look like Australia. 

What does it feel like to grow up without seeing yourself reflected on TV? Screenwriter Benjamin Law describes this exclusion as 'quietly dehumanising' and a form of 'structural racism'. He joins Lena Nahlous on the Colour Cycle to talk about his comedy series that is changing the face of our TV screens. Benjamin Law talks about casting the predominantly Asian-Australian characters, why quotas work and about creating new opportunities and new reflections for writers of colour in Australia.

We talk a lot about the challenges for artists of colour to break into the arts sector and the pervasive stereotypes they face based on cultural backgrounds. But what if, on top of all that, you’re also trying to manage the added difficulties of language barriers, work and trauma as a recently arrived refugee to Australia? In this episode, we meet an extraordinary woman, Carolina Triana who has created huge opportunities for artists from refugee backgrounds by establishing the New Beginnings Festival. The festival has created a rare opportunity for exiled artists to showcase their work in front of an audience they may never, otherwise, have had the chance to reach.

As our next guest tells The Colour Cycle, the great Australian author David Malouf is never referred to as the Great-Lebanese-Gay-Australian author. So do non-Anglo artists always have to represent the cultural identity of their parents or their birthplace? Why aren't they simply referred to as Australian artists? How does the colour of your skin or the language you speak at home inform your creative work? Does it have to?  In this episode, Author and TV and radio host Sunil Badami talks to Lena Nahlous about identity politics, and asks, what is the Australian voice and who does it belong to.

We know that people are moving around the world and fleeing persecution, fleeing environmental disaster at a rate that has never before happened in history. In this episode we talk to an artist who was unable to practice his craft in his home country for fear of persecution. We talk to Damon Amb about his journey as a refugee and how he is now working to rebuild his life and re-establish his artistic practice in a new country.

Many people have made assumptions about our next two guests. Zainab Syed is a performance poet from Pakistan, she wears a headscarf so people assume she’s a refugee or hardship and that her work should reflect this. But her story is one of privilege. We’ll talk to her about “Changing the Narrative” - how do you change the stereotypes or assumptions made about artists of colour. We also meet Kevin Bathman whose work about the inter-marriages of Indian and Chinese couples in south-east Asia doesn’t fit easily into most boxes.

In our first bonus episode we are playing a live recording of the speech from Australia's Race Discrimination Commissioner Dr Tim Soutphommosane, the Beyond Tick Boxes Symposium. It was so good we just had to share it with you. He challenges Australians to think about cultural diversity as more than just going out for souvlaki, dim suns or pho. Dr Soutphommosane also poses the question whether creative expression is a human right? 

Over this podcast series we've heard lot's of strategies for increasing cultural diversity in the Arts and on our Screens - so are we there yet? Well we're on our way but still have a long way to go according to a panel discussion which Diversity Arts Australia hosted at the Performing Arts Connections Australia conference (Australia's peak performing arts body for theatre, dance and performing arts). The panel included some Colour Cycle alumni; Sunil Badami, Benjamin Law, Zainab Syed, Maria Tran and Jackie Bailey. 

We often talk about the need for quotas to compel arts organisations to include more diversity in their programming. When Create NSW’s Screen division introduced a 50 50 quota for gender - they significantly increased the participation of female directors, writers and producers within a very short period of time. So could quotas work to create a more culturally diverse arts sector? This was a hot topic at the Beyond Tick Boxes symposium in 2017 with an animated panel discussion that we recorded live and nicknamed "Where are the teeth?".

This ancient continent has been populated by diverse groups of people and artists from over 500 language groups and nations. We recognise that diversity didn’t start with Australia’s European colonisations and the migrants who came after. But too often Australia’s indigenous artists are relegated into one box to tick. In this episode, we talk to two important indigenous artists, Lily Shearer and Colin Kinchella about what we can learn from the diversity of Australia’s first peoples.

Coming soon Season 2 of The Colour Cycle - a special Fair Play season recorded live at Diversity Arts' two-day symposium at the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne. We want to make sure that the conversations that we have inside closed rooms are shared far and wide. It’s a season packed with important ideas, strategies and insights from leading thinkers in the arts. People like First Nations trail blaizers Genevieve Grieves and Tony Briggs, international guests like Deborah Williams from the UK’s Creative Diversity Network, Disability leader and artist Caroline Bowditch, and Aseel Tayah, Paula Abood and many more. If you’re committed to equity in the creative sectors, then you don’t want to miss this.

First People’s First, how do cultural organisations, institutions and arts practitioners put this principle into practice in ways that move beyond tokenism? This is one of the critical issues unpacked in depth by Genevieve Grieves. Genevieve is a Worimi woman from southeast Australia based in Naarm, sometimes known as Melbourne. She’s an award-winning artist, curator and the Manager, Transformation Strategies in the First Peoples Department at Museums Victoria. This is her keynote address from the Fair Play Symposium, two days of talks and performances put on by Diversity Arts Australia at The Wheeler Centre in Melbourne.

Has representation become a buzzword? Another requirement for organisations and institutions to comply with? For many organisations, the representation box is often ticked when “People of Colour”, “First Nations” people and “People With Disability” are ‘invited into’ the conversation for a particular moment.But how can we create real systemic change and work towards a sector where artists and creatives who are not from the mainstream are both represented and self-determined?

Performer and theatre maker Deborah Williams doesn’t always fit the institutional definitions of diversity. There were categories for Disabled Artists, which were mostly White or categories for Black Artists, that were not for Disabled people. But there were no spaces to be both a Black and a Disabled Artist. When Deborah decided to take a job at the Arts Council England, it became clear to her that the sector didn’t understand diversity meant. So she set about making change, introducing groundbreaking programs that have gained international recognition. Deborah approaches diversity as an agenda - rather than an issue or problem.

What is the status quo in terms of access and inclusion in Australia’s creative sector for people from First Nations backgrounds, People with Disability and culturally and linguistically diverse or migrant communities? How are we tracking as a creative sector? And how do you dismantle existing systems and structures of power? These are just some of the issues tackled by this panel which includes Tony Briggs, actor, writer and producer of Cleverman, The Sapphires, Veronica Pardo, CEO of Multicultural Arts Victoria. Bali Padda, Industry Development Executive at Screen Australia, Leah Jing McIntosh, editor-in-chief of Liminal, Kath Duncan, producer and co-founder of Quippings deaf and disabled queer dance troupe and Michael Williams, the Director of the Wheeler Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas.

After years of talking about diversity in the arts sector it's starting to feel like a monologue that only reaches an audience of our own communities, say Dr Paula Abood and Aseel Taya a Palestinian creative director and installation artist. Aseel says when applying for arts funding, the process is not tolerant of people from migrant backgrounds and even less accommodating for those pitching art that is deemed not “relevant” for Australian audiences. Dr Paula Abood is a writer, creative producer and educator, and a leading figure in the space for 30 years. She's calling for the entire funding regime to be restructured because currently the major organisations take the bulk of the money while the small-to-medium sector, where diversity flourishes, is left with the crumbs.

In the creative sector, the most visible marker of power can be seen by who occupies positions of leadership, who is on the boards, who judges the awards and runs the company? Who hires? Who dispenses funds? Who signs off on the program or decides what work gets made? Speakers on arts leadership as part of the “Take it from the Top” panel at the Fair Play Symposium in Melbourne - hosted by Diversity Arts Australia.Panelists include: Jodie Sizer, Co-CEO of Price Waterhouse Coopers Indigenous Consulting; Jeremy Smith, Director of Community, Emerging & Experimental Arts at the Australia Council for the Arts; Koraly Dimitriadis Cypriot-Australian poet, writer, actor and performer; Jane Crawley, Director, Arts Investment, Creative Victoria; Michael Williams, former Director of the Wheeler Centre; Katrina Segdewick, CEO of the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) and Professor James Arvanitakis, former Chair of Diversity Arts Australia and pro Vice Chancellor of Western Sydney University.

Diversity and inclusion employment practices are often focused on recruitment, but not on retention. Promoting cultural competency in the creative sector is a step towards creating safe spaces that foster and encourage equity. In his keynote at the Fair Play symposium, Rob Hyatt from the Koorie Heritage Trust talks about the importance of identity in workplaces, and specifically addresses the arts sector in his keynote about cultural safety and inclusion.Rob Hyatt is an Aboriginal man with ties to the Lake Tyers community and the Wotjobaluk in Western Victoria. He is the education manager of the Koorie Heritage Trust and works to foster an understanding of contemporary Aboriginal communities through an awareness of the past.Rob explains the importance of identity and connection to Aboriginality through heart and mind. And one of the activities he uses in this training, which he also does as part of this talk is to ask the people to write where they are from on a piece of paper .. but I won’t give this away. You’ll have to listen to hear what happens when people return their piece of paper to him.

In 2014 Caroline Bowditch premiered a dance theatre performance called "Falling in Love with Frida" with both disabled and non-disabled performers, and sign language interpretation embedded at its centre, the award-winning and critically acclaimed piece was shown 93 times to sold-out audiences across the UK and internationally. In this keynote address, Executive Director of Arts Access Victoria Caroline Bowditch performs a monologue from this piece and then talks about her obsession with Frida Kahlo. She also talks about why it’s important to reclaim Frida Kahlo as a disabled artist, and why her work doesn’t focus on accepted mainstream conventions.

Genuine diverse leadership has the potential for the audiences who are engaging with culture to see themselves, their narratives and histories, reflected in what they see and experience. This panel discussion includes arts leaders from the UK and Australia who participated in the inaugural year of the INTERSECT program. INTERSECT is a joint British Council and Diversity Arts Australia knowledge exchange that aims to strengthen international collaboration and connections between diverse and indigenous arts leaders in both countries.