TO THINK DIFFERENTLY- KEISHA THOMPSON 

Containing verbatim text from GMAH attendees 

 

I’m taking it day by day

I’m trying to think differently

 

Normally I’m buoyed and hopeful

but I have to be honest

I feel like I’m fighting for survival

 

venues are the castle

and I’m at the moat

 

it feels like the ground

has fallen away from under me

I feel like I’m in a bubble

a safety net of an emergency

feel like I’m a bottleneck

like I don’t have a seat at the table

feel invisible

falling through cracks

picking up scraps

 

just keeping myself afloat

feeling a little deflated

 

and now… I’ve lost touch

feel like I need a backup

I was just getting my foot in the door

I feel good amidst the storm

 

which is surprising

 

feel like I’m hanging in

 

I’m taking it day by day

I’m trying to thinking differently

 

But how many funding rejections

can you take with no feedback?

should I focus my efforts short term?

on micro-commissions?

why am I having to prove my worth again?

will my career exist after this?

 

are we really tackling industrial racism?

or will things will go back to how they were before?

I know this is no one’s fault but why doesn’t that

stop these personal feelings of failure?

my fears for the future?

can I trust venues and organisations to adequately support me?

how can work together to be a voice for the community?

how do to integrate myself back into a community?

how do you produce online work?

if we are going to work virtually can you give me some time to get up to speed?

can you stop sending me surveys?

or can you stop asking the wrong questions?

should I accept that this year is a write off?

should I focus on long term goals?

I’m taking it day by day

I’m trying to thinking differently

 

lockdown has provided me with

a most valuable resource – time

for me to live in a cave (aka my flat)

and challenge myself

reform my unconscious biases

these are failings of systems

 

these are failings of organisations

 

not the people who work in organisations

 

the systems have failed artists to begin with

 

I want to see more artists being on salary in buildings

I want to see less questions around how venues can alleviate

health anxieties and just do more to improve and support the

health and well-being of local communities

organizations wanting more black people

I want to emerge as a true anti-racist butterfly

we have a great opportunity

to genuinely change the industry

see it evolve for the better

I am so afraid we will squander it all with our fear

I want to listen to cultural leaders not only for career

 

but to know what else is out there and how they are coping

 

I want to talk about how to create theatre in a different way

 

because I’m ready to wow the world

tell our stories

determined to create bigger and better opportunities

for myself and for fellow artists

I want audiences to feel safe and ready before anything else

 

a new model that is radical and transgressive

 

I want to democratise the industry

 

link up in ways that have been impossible before

 

I want more intimate & personal connections with audience

 

I have been welcomed warmly by this city

 

I am incredibly keen to repay the favour

 

I want to see more resources with fewer strings attached

 

I want to see more space and control given to artists

 

I want us to still be completely liberated to fail utterly