Center for Performance and Civic Practice presents a five-part series on the first round of its Catalyst Initiative Pilot Projects, supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. In this project, artist Nick Slie, with his collaborators at Mondo Bizarro and ArtsSpot Productions, all based in New Orleans, worked with Gulf Future Coalition, a culturally and racially diverse group representing fishermen, faith leaders, environmentalists, clean-up workers, residents and cultural workers, who live and work on the Gulf Coast, from Texas to Florida. Their work together focused on using the original show Cry You One as a launching pad for a series of dialogue salons in five states to raise awareness of coastal issues and ensure local participation in decision-making regarding the allocation of Federal dollars coming to the Gulf Coast via the Restore Act.
20
Center for Performance + Civic Practice CATALYST INITIATIVE LOUISIANA Artist Nick Slie, with his collaborators at Mondo Bizarro and ArtsSpot Productions, all based in New Orleans, worked with Gulf Future Coalition, a culturally and racially diverse group representing fishermen, faith leaders, environmentalists, clean-up workers, residents and cultural workers, who live and work on the Gulf Coast, from Texas to Florida. Their work together focused on using the original show Cry You One as a launching pad for a series of dialogue salons in five states to raise awareness of coastal issues and ensure local participation in decision-making regarding the allocation of Federal dollars coming to the Gulf Coast via the Restore Act. Their story together over a year of collaboration is one of touring, developing shared definitions of success, merging styles of community organizing, and exploring democratic practice as cultural activity.
Transcript
Center for Performance + Civic Practice
CATALYST INITIATIVE
LOUISIANA
Artist Nick Slie, with his collaborators at Mondo Bizarro and ArtsSpot Productions, all based in New Orleans,
worked with Gulf Future Coalition, a culturally and racially diverse group representing fishermen, faith leaders, environmentalists, clean-up workers, residents and
cultural workers, who live and work on the Gulf Coast, from Texas to Florida. Their work together focused
on using the original show Cry You One as a launching pad for a series of dialogue salons in five states to
raise awareness of coastal issues and ensure local participation in decision-making regarding the allocation
of Federal dollars coming to the Gulf Coast via the Restore Act. Their story together over a year of collaboration is
one of touring, developing shared definitions of success, merging styles of community organizing, and exploring
democratic practice as cultural activity.
Project Impulse: In Spring 2015, fines from the BP trial - some 50 billion dollars - would begin to be distributed as a part of the RESTORE Act, and there is continuing debate as to how these funds will be distributed.
How might an arts organization work with a restoration network to create a joint mission to raise awareness of coastal issues and support the development of citizen advisory structures to provide input on the use of RESTORE act funds?
Mondo Bizarro is a New Orleans based arts organization, using art, music and storytelling to engage more folks in the communal task of addressing the unfolding environmental crisis. Cry You One, their project with ArtSpot Productions, journeys into the heart of Louisiana’s disappearing wetlands. It celebrates the people and cultures of Louisiana while turning a clear eye on the crisis of the vanishing coast. It is a core belief of the project and a tenet of their cultural organizing strategy, that those who are most impacted by South Louisiana’s imminent disappearance should drive the conversation about how to save it.
Meet Nick Slie, the artistic director of Mondo Bizzaro.
As one of the official cultural organizing partners of the Coalition, Cry You One brings the practices of ensemble creation, live and digital storytelling, collaboration, and deep listening that we believe can animate and sustain meaningful democratic engagement.
The Gulf Future Coalition worked with Nick and Mondo Bizarro to humanize the endless informational convenings that gulf residents have been subjected to around the issues of wetlands reclamation.
Together, they created a series of salons.
Salon participants arrive.1
Together, they view a film about
environmental issues and learn more
information from the Gulf Future Coalition.
Cry You One performs, drawing on stories from one-on-one interviews and culturally embedded songs.
2
3
Small group “Story Circles“ are convened.
Participants imagine what changes they would like to see in their own homes and communities.
A collective artistic share-back is facilitated by the team.
4
5
6
Noetic Drawings from Vietnamese fisherfolk.
“Public participation processes should be thought of in new and diverse ways. By utilizing the arts, the salons provide a space for emotional engagement and inspiration.”
Jayeesha DuttaGulf Future Coalition
* *
This practice went “on tour” as the Gulf Gatherings —Travel between states for the full five-week tour allowed for important trust and relationship-building time. Bonds between Gulf Future and Mondo Bizarro strengthened.
MARCH 15Houston, Texas
MARCH 8Biloxi, Mississippi
MARCH 22New Orleans, Louisiana
*
This practice went “on tour” as the Gulf Gatherings —Travel between states for the full five-week tour allowed for important trust and relationship-building time. Bonds between Gulf Future and Mondo Bizarro strengthened.
* **
>>>APRIL 5Orange Beach, Alabama
MARCH 29Pensacola,FloridaAPRIL 13-15
Camp Beckwith,Alabama
*
I would hear people say the word “swamp” in a bad way, like swampland was bad. And it truly confused me because everywhere was pretty ugly and I grew up in the swamps and it was paradise to me, birds flowers and fish.
I had to go around cleaning up parks and putting mulch down. At first I resented it because, this wasn’t what I planned for my summer, but I grew to really like the job. We were able to go out into the bay on boats and just experience nature, I felt like what I doing was really having an impact on the environment.
I have this very distinct memory of picking up a can that was in a sand bar and having a little tiny baby catfish wriggling out of the can and we released it back into the water.
People thought that, the old myth — ‘dilution is the solution to pollution’. My father had practiced that method of dumping, my grandfather thought it was okay, and I assumed it was okay. Until the federal government finally came on board with the Coast Guard in saying, “Put this little sticker over your engine room saying it is illegal to dump in the coastal United States.”
We got there, it was a blank canvas, they brought in huge trucks of dirt, we spent a week just spreading dirt. Maybe a week or so, 10 days, planting little baby native plants with about 20 of us doing this, with a space about the size of this room. That was my positive impact, and at the time we left it there were all of these just tiny little plants. I’ve gone back there several times since and when you go there now and its just this beautiful wild, natural wonderland. I literally laid my roots there.
The problem with not having enough federal refuge is, any pipeline can cross it, any powerline can cross it. But if it is federally owned for habitat purposes, they can’t touch it, except through an act of Congress.
I saw people with babies at the shoreline, letting their babies splash around in oily water.
“ Local experiences and voices from culturally and racially diverse individuals including fishermen, faith leaders, environmentalists, residents,
Her father owns the two shrimp boats that he keeps in pristine condition, cleans them every week to maintain them. I asked how often he takes it out, and she said, “He takes it out, but we don’t catch any shrimp.”
The Gulf is a closed system. The Mississippi River is a closed system. And I just remember sitting there at my desk, watching because I would bring my computer in and just watching the bubbling and bubbling and everyday I just remember thinking, “This bathtub is not big enough to take this.”
The water had this unnatural slick calmness to it, but you could see the areas behind us that weren’t oiled it just looked physically different. And the reporter started getting sick. Mission accomplished.
The solution I saw was like “Oh, we’re just gonna dump some more carcinogenic crap in there!” Yeah, totally standard because it’s the cheapest option, and they think that’s clean-up.
There were so many people on the island and they would not let us get anywhere near the beaches or take pictures. Or take pictures! If you got out of your car, you were followed, if you stayed in the public right of way, you were followed.
When I heard about the spill, the first thing that impacted me were the deaths. That people actually died working for a company that didn’t think enough about them and their safety.
I’m burnt out. Where is the next generation? We’re losing them to the day-to-day concerns of maybe 8 generations ahead of theirs. They’re so debt ridden they can’t care.
I know I’m just one person, but I really think that together we can really do something important and be a model for the future of the Gulf.
”
clean-up workers, and cultural workers, brought to the forefront of the conversation about the future of life and work on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico —
“Thank you, Jayeesha, for the wonderful big-picture vision and fresh perspective you have brought into Gulf Gathering. You and the folks at Cry You One have breathed new life into the coalition.”
“Felt inspired and energized. Looking forward to seeing the action plans going forward.”
You can’t just do research about people by doing an interview with them one time or reading about what’s going on with them or going to a public meeting. You have to be in the fabric of those people’s lives in order to truly understand how best to represent the part of their story that you’re interested in.
We had no access into the dialogue they were having.
It reminded me of how you have to try and weave yourself into the fabric and needs of the communities you want to be representing. And how many times do we have to learn that lesson?
If it wouldn’t have been for Catalyst, I don’t know that we would have done the Salons.
We plan to continue doing these Salons in the future. ...Nobody is making plans anymore without checking in with one another, so now we see Cry You One as inextricably linked to Gulf Futures and Jayeesha’s work.
So anything moving forward from here, we’re moving as a unit together. - Nick
It sparked a conversation between Nick and I to be like — what does that mean. Without the impetus to have done that [through the Catalyst Initiative], I don’t think I would necessarily have proposed the answers that Nick gave, so that raised questions for me. It catalyzed a conversation that wouldn’t have happened otherwise. Having the Salons was an opportunity to get folks to understand there are different ways we can be engaging the community.
And I’ve seen really direct shifts with some coalition members that are now consciously and intentionally bringing arts into agendas and conference-type workshops. Everyone was just super skilled... because it was ensemble folks who are just as comfortable facilitating as they are presenting work, it was really easy code-switching. And I think the only time Cathy might have said ‘spectogram,’ in the Gulf Gathering we did a spectogram activity, and I think that was the only time people said, ‘What did she say?’
But afterwards, multiple coalition members have called me and asked — what was that thing that we did — and they want to use it. Which I thought was fantastic. You didn’t understand what it was, but you want to use it.
- Jayeesha
OUTCOMES <<
The Cry You One project was able to expand the reach of the project and its activist intent by adding the arts-based dialogue salons and testing these small-scale engagements. “We found the scale of a partnership [to be one that] seemed like we can absolutely be effective.... This allowed us to think about different ways for the project to scale similarly into the future,” said artist Nick Slie.
Some partnerships came to the Catalyst intervention as a moment in a longer trajectory of work. These tended to be partners already skilled in organizing, such as the New Orleans and Kentucky projects. Nick Slie reflected, “I’ve thought a lot of about what Urban Bush Women says, ‘go slow to move fast.’ Because Cry You One partners hold a long term vision for their environmental work, the Salons did not feel like a time pressured project, but instead “like an evolution.”
....
Catalyst put resources toward the creative work at a timely juncture for organizing the Salons that the Gulf Coast Coalition wanted to implement. If not for Catalyst, it was unlikely that any other sources of funds could have been found, according to Nick Slie. “We were trying to make a decision in the spring time, should we do this partnership or not, and that little spark is what really catalyzed us moving over to doing work with Jayeesha. ...We went to Jayeesha Dutta and said can your organization match $2,500? And the next thing you know we’re in a partnership.”
New Orleans community partner Jayeesha Dutta of the Gulf Future Coalition observed: “Most organizers are very linear and most artists are very nonlinear, but it’s not set in stone. I think that in collaborating that can pose a challenge if it’s not thought about upfront. And having some idea of the structure and direction to take in the collaboration, so that neither party feels frustrated [is important].” Cry You One artist and organizer partners both acknowledge the urgency that often drives organizers’ work. That can make the introduction of arts and cultural strategies feel beyond what is feasible against other priorities. Gulf Futures Coalition members went along with Jayeesha’s vision for integrating cultural strategies but it was a process of trying to figure it all out as they went along. It must be noted, however, that, by the end of the culminating gathering, Gulf Future Coalition affiliates who initially may have been skeptical were excited by what the artists brought to the event and dialogue and they wanted to do more of it. In 2015 as another Gulf Gathering happened, Nick Slie observed, “The synergies of approaches are getting stronger. Gulf Futures organizers are taking more ownership of cultural organizing possibilities.”
....
Nick Slie reported that there were many techniques — story circle process, convening around food, and different dialogue techniques--with which partner Jayeesha was familiar. Still, wearing her Gulf Coast Futures hat, she could offer honest critique of creative work in service of fostering honest community dialogues. Nick described, “Jayeesha was the community organizing dramaturg for the rehearsals. She had the type of knowledge to just call something in the room, like, ‘No that character wouldn’t say that in this context because that’s not even applicable to what we’re talking about.’ She was willing to jump in and be a performer and dialogue leader.”
Simple exposure to the artists’ creative strategies had impact on community partners as well. Jayeesha Dutta of the Gulf Futures Coalition reflected that the Salons were an opportunity to get people who operate in an advocacy/policy driven structure “to understand there are different ways we can be engaging the community. I’ve seen really direct shifts with some coalition members that are now consciously and intentionally bringing arts into agendas and conference-type workshops.” For example, Bethany Kraft with the Gulf Coast Economic Restoration Council, after hearing how the artists engaged people at the Gulf Gathering, sought information on how to do story-based information collection to support narrative approaches to community information gathering. Nick Slie observed that, as the Coastal Louisiana Protection Authority and other big organizations increasingly see the need to involve people in decision-making processes, they are looking for new strategies. “I do think we softened a lot of the science sorts of policy people to say, “Hey we’re actually going to have to take a different approach to this, because we can’t just hit the public with facts and information.”
- Catalyst Initiative Report (Animating Democracy, 2015)Animating Democracy is a program of Americans for the Arts
The Catalyst Initiative is an action research initiative — a model for supporting, advancing, and learning from innovative artist and community partner collaborations in order to reveal new possibilities for artistic contributions to community problem-solving and growth.
The Catalyst Initiative is supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
