Why the Creative Economy Needs Real Representation at the United Nations in 2021
An article by Lisa Russell
On September 9, 2020, my organization, Create2030, had the honor of premiering our new, original song and music video “Imagine” at the virtual UN75 Youth Plenary which was produced and performed by youth artists from Indonesia, Kenya, Tanzania and the US on the theme of “The Future We Want, The UN We Need.”
The online event was well produced with a dynamic youth moderator, engaging youth activists who spoke on pressing world issues such as climate change, the digital divide, multilateralism and other urgent challenges. High-level speakers including the UN Secretary-General, the President of the General Assembly, the UN Youth Envoy among others shared their support for youth participation at the United Nations. Young people attended from all over the world.
As I did a shout out to our incredible youth artists during their performances, I expected other youth artist voices to chime in like they usually do (because artists like to be vocal!)
“Hey, I’m a musician from Brazil.” “I’m a graffiti artist from Thailand.”
There was nothing.
Perhaps young artists attended and chose not to comment. Or more likely, based on my 15+ years of experience working as a filmmaker and curator at the UN, they just weren’t in the “room.”
Next year, thanks to the Government of the Republic of Indonesia and other supporting Member State signatories, the UN has declared 2021 as the “International Year of Creative Economy for Sustainable Development.” For artists like myself, this is historic. Independent artists, creative professionals and cultural workers will be a focus of an entire year.
Given that the creative economy is one of the world’s fastest-growing economies generating more than 29.5 million jobs and $2,250 billion in US revenue each year (SDG Fund), the UN and Member States can galvanize our collective power to accelerate progress of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs.)
Including us is a smart thing to do.
The concern however becomes, how do we ensure we get artists in the room?
In my opinion, we have a long way to go to create a more artist-friendly culture at the United Nations. This is challenging when you’re speaking about two extremely different industries — one based on global diplomacy built on concrete policies and programs and the other on independence, experimentation, and out of the box thinking.
But it’s critical that artists help shape the policies and programmes that affect us.
Consider this: during the 2015 UN Town Hall meetings of the writing of the SDG Outcome Document, there was only one other artist in the room besides myself who identified publicly as a creative professional. Collectively, this Caribbean radio personality and I were advocating for language to acknowledge the role artists and creatives have in shaping sustainable development in the final document. Once endorsed by the UN General Assembly, this document can impact national policies in 193 Member States.
Unfortunately. because of the lack of adequate representation of artists in that room, out of the nearly 16,000 words in the Agenda 2030 Outcome document, “arts” and “artists” are never mentioned, and “creativity” is only mentioned twice. The word “culture” is mentioned five times with the most relevant reference in SDG Target 4.7 “…promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development.”
From my experience, “culture” is often used to describe indigenous practices yet the “creative economy” and “artists” incorporate more contemporary and digital-based industries.
How mind-boggling it is to consider that artists are some of our world’s greatest creative thinkers, yet they are not invited to have a seat at the table to address our world’s biggest challenges.
The simple problem behind the lack of having artists in the room is that practicing artists have zero representation at any level of the United Nations. There is no working group, no Special Advisor or Envoy positions and therefore initiatives are being run by policy and programme experts. Without adequate representation, this can lead to a great deal of tokenism (where artists are only seen as entertainers or performers), possible exploitation (artists are often asked to work for free) and power imbalances (mostly celebrities and privileged artists can attend UN events because there are no UN artist passes, no scholarships and no checkbox on RSVP forms for “creative” when asked which sector we work in.)
While it’s promising that the UN is incorporating more SDGs-related arts-based initiatives, festivals and creative events, professional curators or artists are rarely invited to lead in the development of an event or participate in conversations that involve the display of their work. When policy and programme experts lead, the voices and needs of artists are silenced and policies are created for us without our input.
For example, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, artists were some of the first to show up as well as be hit financially (I lost 7 gigs and leads in a matter of days.) The UN decided to put out a creative brief for COVID-19 to solicit artwork from artists and creatives to help spread messages and debunk myths. The Drum covered the brief in this article, stating “Dawda Jobarteh, global head of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals Strategy Hub, has never run an open brief before. Asking the sum total of mankind’s creative thinkers to develop eye-catching PSA work — work that could potentially save lives — isn’t on his CV.”
For professional curators like myself, this is gut-wrenching. Had we been invited to develop this brief, we may have been more sensitive to the wording and the “ask” outlined in the brief. As a curator, I personally would have negotiated a licensing fee to major broadcasters instead of offering free content from struggling artists to mega-corporations during a pandemic. Instead, the brief uses language that does not respect intellectual property rights. It became an opportunity and set the precedent for the UN/NGO sector to collect tens of thousands of free artwork to populate their social media channels, display on partnering broadcast networks, etc. The problematic language in the creative brief that disregards intellectual property rights includes:
- The UN and all supporters will be asked to credit the creator where work is shown but this cannot be guaranteed.
- The UN and supporters may use or adapt your work as they wish to make it fit for purpose.
- All submissions will become visible on the brief after the announcement, but you are encouraged to share your work on your social channels from Launch.
Promoting contests or asking artists to work for “exposure” is becoming normalized at the UN yet every minute we are creating is time spent not working to support our livelihoods because many of us work in the “gig economy.” Currently, these initiatives that solicit free artwork do not lead to a sustainable career for an artist at the United Nations and therefore it’s systematically creating an unethical culture.
Every idea we share with the UN that they fund and execute without crediting us could open doors for our own funding (that’s why intellectual property rights exist.) Every time a UN employee side-steps a curator who has invested in and cultivated a network of professional artists to work effectively at the UN, they dilute the movement by enticing freelance artists who may think this is their big “break” in the international arena, not knowing there are so very few prospects for sustainable employment.
Even if our UN allies do art “on the side” and therefore justify their involvement in leading arts initiatives, the only ones who can’t adequately and responsibly represent working-class, professional artists are those who live, work, breathe and survive as an independent artist.
The UN needs a formal arts strategy, written by and in consultation with working-class artists and creative professionals to design and implement sustainability initiatives that value our contribution, maximize our professional skillsets in an ethical manner and practice diversity and inclusivity. It is important for artists to have leaders within the UN who look like us, speak our “language”, and most importantly, work like us. Because as with any under-represented community in any institution or system, representation matters.
The United Nations believes and promotes equal representation for everyone. Therefore, just as it agrees men should not be representing women’s voices, and adults should not be representing youth voices, non-artists should not be representing artists’ voices at the UN.
During his remarks at the UN75 Youth Plenary, Secretary-General António Guterres said “power is not easily given, you have to fight for it.” I believe it’s time for artists to fight for our seat at the table. To give us representation through a UN Arts Envoy’s or Special Advisor role, arts delegates program or a special SDG Arts program similar to the UN’s SDG Young Leaders program. All led by artists.
A quote by Toni Cade Bambara which comes to mind is “The Role of the Artist is to Make Revolution Irresistible.”
It’s time for systemic change. It’s time for a creative revolution at the United Nations.
