Collaboration in the Arts - The Top Five Reasons

This weeks guest blog post comes courtesy of Paul Kooperman, accomplished writer and CEO of Tasmania's Festival of Voices. 

Arts activity is on the rise: more artists, more practitioners, more festivals, more organisations, venues and infrastructures and, as a result, more funding and resources are required to sustain the enormous amount of activity around the country. Everything from music festivals to multicultural festivals to ARI’s (Artist Run Initiatives) or CRI’s (Community Regional Initiatives) to Pop Up shops, performances and spaces in places where you least expect it (and may not want it).

More than ever before, the need for artists and arts organisations to work collaboratively and tangibly share resources makes sense financially, politically and potentially even artistically, to avoid (or at least reduce) repetition, duplication and competition. Arts ‘hubs’, providing the opportunity for companies to work closely together, have been popping up all over the country for years, such as the Meat Market in North Melbourne, Carriage Works and the Seymour Centre in Sydney, the Wheeler Centre as part of the State Library of Victoria and Salamanca Arts Centre in Hobart – all places which house a number of likeminded organisations where you’d think there’d be terrific synergies for companies to share administrative infrastructure, intellectual property, marketing efforts, information, collective knowledge and even staff, but how much sharing actually goes on?

Of course, genuine sharing (and this doesn’t refer to space, storage or a photocopier) means sacrifice, compromise and change which all add up to being in the ‘too hard basket’ for many organisations. There are examples of arts organisations who share successfully and we should look to these examples as role models moving forward. 

So why don’t we share when the benefits are obvious? Research studies have shown there are five top reasons:

One: People are afraid of losing something, whether it’s a job, position, status, power, security, funding, attitude, space, brand or reputation; perhaps it’s nothing but fear is powerful and we all have it.

Two: People are reluctant to relinquish control, creatively, managerially and financially. Some practitioners must do things their way regardless of the consequences, even at the expense of a more collaborative, shared path forward.

Three: People believe collaboration equates to more meetings, more documentation, more contracts, unbudgeted expenditure and an increased work load. Ouch!

Four: People feel inadequate if sharing means their collaborator has more skill and ability than they have. Perhaps the risk is getting the short end of the stick or being manipulated or tricked. Or perhaps, again, fear is dominating a decision which could provide more benefit than burden.

Five: People sometimes lack the awareness of the need to share and collaborate. Why share with someone when everything’s going fine and according to plan? Why rock the boat? Especially when there’s nothing to gain other than giving stuff away?  

But, of course, collaboration can bear fruit we never dreamed possible, reveal possibilities we couldn't previously imagine, kick start new relationships, ideas and projects which change our organisations (and professional destinies) forever. So if you’re not scared, and want to consider letting the empire mentality go, in exchange for a collaborative, consolidated future for the benefit of Australia’s arts and cultural sector, perhaps there’s a road less travelled you may want to consider.  

About Paul Kooperman

After being awarded the Established-Writer-in-Residence at the Katharine Susannah Pritchard Centre in 1997, Paul has worked as a writer in the script departments of several television shows including Home and Away, is a published author, had a feature film produced in 2006, called Wil, and has since received several film commissions and awards. He moved into arts management in 2009 taking over as Director of the Australian Poetry Centre and was CEO of Australian Poetry Limited 2010-2012. He is currently CEO of the Festival of Voices based in Hobart Tasmania. Paul has a keen interest in the national arts scene whilst still finding time to write creatively, commissioned to co-write the signature show of the Queensland Music Festival, DragQueensLand, in 2011. He co-wrote The C-Side for the Festival of Voices in 2013 which is playing in London and Adelaide in 2014. He is co-writing Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf for the 2014 Festival of Voices. In his spare time, Paul is Director of a new community arts festival StripFest and has twin two-year-old boys: Woody and Lewis.