Exhibition and Its Discontents Extended Mix!!
Click above pic to enlarge…
As promised, we want to keep this dialogue alive. Here are the talking points I proposed at the beginning of our fantastic meeting as well as some of the main topics from the notes. Feel free to riff off of what’s here, restate your points from the meeting or add comments to threads you remember from the discussion. We welcome any and all constructive voices. Remember the ground rules still apply: honesty is encouraged, gossip ok, slander not ok!
Preamble:
* Funders, Festivals, Distributors, Curators, Critics have all let down – how ever gently or not so gently – their fair share of artists. For an active artist, even one with a moderately successful ‘career,’Â ‘rejection’ is a real part of our experience.
* So how do we as artists interpret this ‘rejection’Â – is it useful? Can it be more that a personal dismissive? More than something we have to suppress in order to keep going?
* Conversely how do we as Funders, Jurors, Festival Directors, or Distributors, manage public responses to our decisions, how do we navigate negativity at that awkward party or potluck – how do we handle the confrontations and the angry letters?
* Are these just occupational hazards our friends in other dangerous jobs forgot to tell us about. Did we really think being funders, artists and arts administrators would be easy??
* What about trust, expertise, professionalism, conflicts of interest, transparency, respect?
* How do we and when do we choose between professional conduct or spontaneous combustion? Between a rightful challenge or a shit fit!
Main topics raised at the forum:
* Should ‘angry Letters’ should be visible and published? What if your angry letter is rejected?
* If you welcome feedback, will you get more carefully considered responses?
* Premiere policies – are they good/bad for artists? Good/bad for exhibitors? What if you are both?
* Could artists benefit from having a ‘festival strategy’?
* Nepotism: how is being tightly connected making some things (rejection) more difficult?
* How do political pressures play a role in the fragility of the cultural community?
* Open call vs. other models? Can we evolve it? Why don’t we trust it?
My ears are already burning! Looking forward to more discussion!
Sincerely,
Deirdre Logue, on behalf of the Images Festival and MANO. deirdrel@vtape.org
Hello Images Festival goers,
To continue the dialogue from our Exhibition and its Discontents Forum, Images Festival and MANO are looking for your comments, insight and feedback. Any comments sent to us may be posted on the Images Festival website under an anonymous author. If you are interested in disclosing yourself as the author, please let us know. If you absolutely do not want your comments published at all, please make this clear in your email. You can email either myself or Deirdre . We look forward to hearing your thoughts!
Regards,
Sunny Fong, Images Festival Board, sunnydark33@gmail.com
4 responses so far ↓
1 Kerry // Apr 12, 2011 at 12:35 pm
Because of this forum, imagineNATIVE’s programming team has created a statement that will be posted to our website. The statement attempts to clarify the selection process for applicants. Beyond being more transparent to artists, we are also trying to convey our encouragement of artists, regardless if their work is chosen. So, being part of the forum actually moved us to act.
It’s always great to be reminded that everyone gets handed their share of poop, and that handling it well, or knowing when to refuse to handle it, is a necessary part of the work we all do.
2 Scott // May 3, 2011 at 1:40 pm
Hi there — thanks for keeping this going Deirdre and Sunny! And thanks for posting notes and challenges and thoughts…THANKS to all who attended by the way, it blew me away that over 65+ people came out for an Open Forum….shows that there’s lots of energy and strong feelings about these issues.
Most telling moment for me what when facilitator Deirdre asked 2 questions back to back:
“Who in the room has been rejected by a funder, exhibitor, etc.” Almost 100% of hands went up.
THEN
“Who in the room has rejected someone whether on a Jury, screening committee, independent programmer, etc.” — over 80% of hands went up!
We’re all rejected. We’re also mostly doing rejecting.
Do we all need to suck it up a bit – yes. Do we all need to reach out for feedback when rejected or when called on our systems? YES!
Images will follow Kerry’s lead above by being more explicit in our Calls for Submissions about our process AND what we look for any why AND to remind folks of the fact that tonnes of strong works don’t make it in the festival each year.
Sharing our process and being more transparent, offering feedback and informing those who are interested about us can only go far in creating good will (and better vibes all around).
Images has also presented Open Screenings the past two years and had feedback about 2011 in our Community Post Mortem which we will incorporate next year. This opportunity will be communicated to those whose work/s aren’t selected in the future and hopefully the event will attract more makers and watchers.
I also want to get into Premiere Policies, but will leave it at this for now…
Looking forward to your thoughts!
3 Chris // May 3, 2011 at 3:14 pm
I think one of the first things, and arguably one of the most important things I learned when I got into the business was how to deal with rejection. It is tough to learn and just when you think you’ve got it mastered you discover that you don’t.
Artists are very connected with their feelings and some artists have to call on those feelings on a daily basis to put food on the table. Often art is meant to illicit emotion from the people viewing it or experiencing it. Much of the art we create we also have a deep emotional attachment too. All of these factors can sometimes make it very difficult to keep those feelings at bay and to turn the other cheek. Dare I say that someone who has mastered rejection may be slightly more professional? I think that may be so but I think they would more accurately be described as mature.
As an actor, sometimes the rejection I get is slightly different than that of a filmmaker being rejected from a festival. A filmmaker may be able to tell themselves that a festival “just didn’t get their work†and move on but as an actor you sometimes get feedback that is hard not to take personal. “This guy is too fat, skinny, white, short, walks funny, has an irritating voiceâ€. This form of rejection can sometimes be hard to take as it plies on your insecurities and mixes it with your profession. In a way, it’s like having a schoolyard bully be your employer.
Not to sound too campy about it but rejection should be seen as a challenge – as a way to grow and perfect your art. Some rejection is wrong but the bulk of rejections should be seen as constructive.
One other question I would like to address is that of nepotism. How do you handle it rejection when it comes from someone you know very well. The same. Be a professional about it. Take this opportunity to get a candid, thorough opinion on your work. My problem is that sometimes that rejection doesn’t happen because the festival or juror shies away from the confrontation. An opportunity is lost for someone to grow and improve their craft. We need to be honest with people since honesty is one of the pillars of friendship and professionalism. This isn’t to say that you need to be brutally honest – it should be constructive – but you owe it to the person to give them the same treatment you would if they had just walked in off the street.
This is a tough one to deal with since networking and connections are really the backbone of how most people move up in life – artist or otherwise. That personal connection can help tip the scales in your favour when a decision needs to be made. Very few artists don’t have a “this person gave me my first big break†story.
Be honest. Be constructive. Be strong. And always be professional.
4 Vera Frenkel // May 3, 2011 at 6:00 pm
Hi all,
I’m not sure there’s much I can add to what has already been said so well. I appreciated the discussion that I heard at 401 and it seemed to me that there was a great deal of wisdom around transparency – i.e., the benefits of published details of the adjudication process; and around premières – i.e., that proprietary control (rather than genuine celebration) as a form of marketing is unfair to the artist and unhealthy for the discipline; and that anonymous letter-writing just isn’t on – hence my suggestion that pages be set aside in the Images catalogue for angry letters. But I’ve actually changed my mind somewhat about that, and rather than publishing exclusively angry letters, there should be space for letters that carry constructive criticism as well and possibly even the occasional poem of praise – in short a cross-section of responses, from friendly to furious. All letters should be signed, of course, with the writer identifying his or her role in relation to the Festival, i.e., rejected or accepted producer, director, actor, editor, whatever … with the name of the production. It should be made clear that unidentified letters will be tossed out unread. As for nepotism, that’s something to stay away from completely. If your cousin is on the jury, ask that he or she be replaced or recused when your work is considered. If you become aware of someone taking advantage of a family, spousal or romantic relation in order to get a work into the Festival, complain to Uncle Scott. Aside from all that, I feel that in situations where there’s a potential for conflict or injustice, real or perceived, it’s sometimes good to designate someone on staff in advance as an ombudsperson, someone who can assess and mediate a difficult situation and help achieve a reasonable outcome. How about it, Deirdre?
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