Detailed Discussion

Key Issues

While the law offers protection to individuals experiencing bullying, harassment and discrimination, structural issues and barriers in the arts continue to create challenging circumstances for First Nations, underrepresented CaLD people, and people from migrant and refugee backgrounds. This includes but is not limited to racism, tokenism, cultural safety and exploitation. 

For racialised artists, this can look like being asked to ‘perform’ your identity in your art, being visibly tokenised but not properly remunerated for your labour, having your culture and language disrespected, or being asked for access to your contacts or community without a proper process of paid consultation. 

For racialised arts workers, this can look like being asked to do unpaid consulting work, expected to be an ‘expert’ on race matters, being hired in identified roles that have unrealistic expectations, and feeling isolated within organisations with a lack of support or mentorship from peers with similar lived experiences. 

Representation and Tokenism

Tokenism refers to the practice of making a ‘token’ gesture through actions that give an outward appearance of equity, without meaningful investment in long-term and ongoing structural change. This can look like deliberately commissioning an artist during National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee (NAIDOC) week, but failing to include First Nations artists during the rest of the exhibition program. 

While strong representation of racialised artists and artworks is essential, inclusion on its own is not enough if cultural safety is not prioritised. People from marginalised cultural, religious and/or linguistic background often face threats or physical violence, as well as micro-aggressions. Tokenism can create unsafe working conditions and workplace culture. 

Cultural Appropriation

Cultural appropriation refers to the act of using cultural customs, traditions, language, or art from a culture that is not your own, typically without permission. This can include using, replicating, reproducing and interpreting material and concepts from another culture in your own work. 

Cultural appropriation distorts the representation of a culture and diverts the benefits of that representation (such as payment and credit) away from the cultural owners. Underpinning cultural appropriation is the assumption that cultural practices and traditions 'don't belong to anyone', which can be compared to the colonial sense of entitlement to appropriate land.

Stereotyping

A stereotype is generally an oversimplification of a culture, race or ethnicity. Often the intention is to depict a ‘type’ rather than an individual. Caricature is a form of stereotyping. 

Stereotypes work to reduce the complexity of people by depicting them through a constricted, external lens. In the worst cases, racist portrayals can lead to inaccuracies, discrimination, harassment and abuse, but any stereotype creates misinformation. 

Under Australian legislation there are a number of laws that protect individuals from discrimination on the basis of their race, ethnicity, gender, marital status, sexual orientation, disability or physical difference, and more. These include the Racial Discrimination Act (1975), Sex Discrimination Act (1984), Disability Discrimination Act (1992), Age Discrimination Act (2004) and the Australian Human Rights Commission Act (1986).

In addition to the Australian Human Rights Commission, there are state-based anti-discrimination bodies that can assist individuals who have experienced unfair treatment. See Recommended Resources below, for links.

For a summary, see the Australian Human Rights Commission’s A Quick Guide to Australian Discrimination Laws. 

Recommended Organisational Policies and Practices

Racial equity requires structural and systemic change that places equity at the very core of an organisation’s values and strategic priorities. It requires action across all areas of operations, including governance, programming and commissioning, recruitment and staff development, audience development and marketing, organisational culture and creative collaboration.

For more information, see Diversity Arts Australia's Creative Equity Toolkit.

Key recommendations include:

• ensure strong representation of First Nations, underrepresented CaLD people, and people from migrant and refugee backgrounds across all levels of art organisations: in boards, management, staff, and exhibition and programs

• invest and create opportunities for diverse leadership, and put in place succession planning through career pathways, mentorship and job opportunities

• implement equitable application and selection processes, see Equitable Application Processes

• ensure that one person alone does not wear the burden of tackling racial bias and issues in the organisation. Instead, have a committee or caucus of people that can represent and advocate for cultural safety needs, and be a safe space to voice concerns

• ensure organisations and staff understand the cultural and political context of artists’ work through processes of research, consultation, and open communication

• build collaborations, rather than rely on consultation. The power imbalance embedded in consultation means that consultants’ advice can be ignored and that most of the benefits and payment for cultural knowledge do not flow to the consultant. Collaboration means the decision-making power is shared. For examples, see Diversity Arts Australia’s Imagine Australia Project, including the Greek community collaboration on the National Museum of Australia's Ancient Greeks Exhibition, see also Community Engagement

• if collaboration is not an option, ensure that consultants are paid for their labour, knowledge and any contributions they do make, see Payment Standards

• create an Equity Action Plan and put guidelines in place to support staff. See Recommended Resources for a list of examples for consideration

Cultural Safety for Artists

In instances of artists working with organisations and/or curators, there are a number of key recommendations for how to protect the cultural safety of artists:

• properly remunerate artists for their work, as well as their time and expertise if they offer additional consultation beyond artmaking

• allow for long lead times and resources to support artists; don’t ask for participation at the last minute

• recognise that racialised artists can and should be exhibited across the entire program, not just works that are about cultural identity or are overtly political

• ensure that curatorial frameworks for exhibitions are robust and researched, and artists are not included for ‘box-ticking’ reasons

• maintain open channels of communication between artists and organisations/curators. Invest time into these conversations, and provide artists with a space to be in charge of how their work is presented to audiences. Be open to critical feedback between artists and curators

• consult with artists on the distribution of marketing and gallery materials, (i.e. anything with their name on it) to ensure the artist feels their work is not exploited or misrepresented

• be open and responsive to artists’ needs, every artist’s needs will be different

Cultural Safety in the Workplace

Cultural safety is essential to creating a safe workplace environment for racialised artists and arts workers, and is an important practice in advocating for racial equality and equity. Cultural safety means an environment that recognises and respects the cultural identities of people, and creates a place that is socially, emotionally, and physically safe for people to be who they are. 

Good practice in cultural safety includes:

• creating environments where cultural differences are nurtured

• ensuring that workplace politics and protocols address staff cultural competency through to management and board levels, and have training and guidelines in place for addressing issues

• having diverse teams in workplaces who are making decisions

• ensuring decision-making about cultural communities is made with members of the affected community, which is often summed up by the maxim ‘nothing about us without us’

• listening to community voices, and following processes of communication and consultation

Targets and Diverse Staffing  

Hiring targets are an effective way to increase diversity in hiring practices for organisations which recognises that equity requires active change to organisational hierarchies.  

• the success of targets relies on organisations investing in creating identified-role opportunities, as well as hiring diversely across all levels of the organisation, not just entry-level or cultural liaison roles, but management and board positions

• succession planning should also be key to hiring targets, to ensure staff growth, staff satisfaction, and retention

• having a robust policy framework around targets to protect both the organisation and the staff, and be clear with expectations and deliverables within the identified roles 

• staff employed under hiring targets should be supported like any other staff member, and not asked to undertake additional (often unpaid) labour outside of their immediate job description

• consider putting a pay transparency policy in place

Artists have responsibilities around representation, specifically in the areas of cultural appropriation and stereotyping. 

These areas involve an inbuilt power dynamic that can create harm in the communities affected including contributing to inaccurate information, discrimination, harassment and abuse. 

Representing and interpreting cultural material that doesn’t belong to an artist also diverts benefits (such as payment and credit) away from the cultural owners and towards the artist. Aside from the ethical implications, this can impact on the artist’s reputation and professional standing in the sector. Artists may also be breaching intellectual property laws depending on the nature of the cultural material represented.

Questions to ask include:

• Why do you feel drawn to depicting this culture?

• Are you the best person to undertake this project?

• How can you collaborate with artists from the relevant cultural group?

• Have the cultural owners given consent for this project?

• What is the level of creative control held by the cultural owners?

• Do the cultural owners have the power to say no to this project?

• Are you sharing the benefits of the project with the relevant cultural group (including financial benefits, recognition, attribution and ongoing opportunities)?

• Are there dangers of perpetuating racial stereotypes, which cause harm in the lives of real people?

• What is the impact of power in this cultural interchange? 

• Could this depiction of culture be inauthentic or promote a distorted understanding of the cultural knowledge depicted?

• What potential impact does this project have on the integrity of the cultural knowledge, and its communication to future generations?

• How are the cultural owners benefiting from this project?

• How are you benefiting from this project?

Setting up an evaluation and monitoring system is a critical way to track your progress on racial equity and be accountable to your equity goals. Data collection should be ongoing and evaluations should be conducted regularly to show progress over time. Data collected should be meaningful (diversity of staff, diversity of board) and measurable (i.e. numbers of people, budget allocations). 

A good place to start is with a benchmark audit of the organisation and organisational structure. An audit may include recording data including but not limited to: board member selection, staff hiring and retention rates, current and previous programs, audience engagement, diversity of job applicants and diversity of funding recipients. Many organisations engage a consultant to assist them in creating an organisational audit and an Equity Action Plan. See Recommended Resources for further guidance.