With love from the Loneliness Vacuum

I recently participated in the first of the OFFTA Coffee Machines, a series of professional conversations for professional performing arts audiences. Fifteen local and international arts organizations contributed letters in response to the prompt:

“Building on the common thread of the festival’s programming, this year we are trying to identify the means by which we can weave “hospitable environments” in these difficult times. We therefore suggest that you write a short letter that answers the question: "Which hospitality?"

The question is consciously large, because we want to hear what it generates for you. What ways of doing things should we review or rethink following this pandemic? Is it possible to rethink the host/hosted relationship which unites the audience to a venue?”

We were allowed to approach this in any way we wished. I took something away from all the letters; the conversation was inspiring and generative. Here’s my offering.

Dear OFFTA,

First off, I don’t know how articulate I am going to be. There has been a lot going on.  I’ve struggled throughout this time with being able to anchor my many thoughts and feelings into clear, succinct ideas or phrases. Words are so slippery.

The other day I was having quite a deep conversation with a colleague of mine, and we were describing how we were feeling inside of this complicated moment, from our individual perspectives as artists / women / people of colour / leaders. I treasure these conversations with this colleague, because I feel like we can have unencumbered dialogue; with her I can try to articulate the inarticulate-able. I can stumble and it can all be a bit messy in a way that gets things out. We have spent a lot of time coming to understand each other’s contexts, including histories and beliefs and more recent experiences, and I’ve learned a lot through talking with her. One of the collective articulations we shared was around this space that she named the loneliness vacuum. She described it as the few moments that follow speaking something you know is going to be awkward; where you are testing a belief and the energy that brings, and the ideas that come from doing so. In that small amount of time, there’s a silence that emerges from the discomfort of what you just said. That’s the loneliness vacuum. I wanted to mention this because I feel like I am in this space a lot these days. And although it might seem a bit sad, it’s really a bit of a relief, because while lonely and vacuumy, it’s a place of real potential — a place of readiness, if you will.

But I digress. This is not what this letter is supposed to be about. It’s more about the context from which I’m writing, which I feel compelled to share because it’s related to the prompt you asked us to respond to. And in a way, it’s kind of what you have invited us to do here today; to offer some new thoughts from a very personal pov. To say what we believe or think, and to step into a new space. So, which hospitality? Speaking to this question when we met last week, you offered that if last year you were exploring the what at OFFTA, this year is more about the why. I’ll do my best.

I have been a bit disheartened by what this time has revealed generally about the value society places on artists and the arts. As people working in our sector I think we can agree that artists are hugely important throughout these moments — moments of transition, change, global crisis. So when considering an idea of hospitality and how we can create hospitable scenarios for our ecosystems inside of these really big forces, I think what’s most important is to keep artists at the centre. There seems to be a domino-effect of pressures right now that inevitably lands on the artists. The pressures initiated by structures and institutions are released into the ecosystem and as artists are wont to do in such scarcity models, they bend over backwards to respond, whether that means ‘pivoting’, or adapting (both a great deal of additional work, as we’ve learned), or chasing one of these pressures by inventing a whole new thing that they probably didn't need to be working on at this precarious time. What if artists were the catalysts which the structures responded to, as opposed to the other way around?

As we start to hear words like recovery and restart come into play (although we never really stopped, did we?), I would like to see ways that as hospitalitors — the ones creating the hospitality — we are thinking in new / radical / futurist ways about how existing structures can better consider and support artists as we move forward; ways that understand a new relationship has emerged between the artists and the structures that doesn’t assume where the power lies. I would like to see artists play core roles inside of the structures and the movement towards new, healthier relationships that essentially ask the artists the same questions we are asking ourselves, and supporting them to respond in ways that are part of what they do and who they are as artists. Because they are the why. Without them, there’s not much. And while the structures may seem broken right now, the artists are not. Some are quiet, some are waiting, some are healing, some are thinking, some never really stopped.

Of course, all this depends on your context, too. I feel that very acutely these days. While we are part of a global event that is tying us all together, our local / regional contexts feel pretty unique at the same time. I can only speak from my own, inside this very personal response. I hope this makes some kind of sense with the mix of letters you have received. Thanks for the chance to write it.  

With much love from the loneliness vacuum,

xo Maiko