Rights and Ethics: Leadership Responsibilities of Artists

Let's Create: Do We Know How To?

In this episode Naomi talks to Ned Glasier, former CEO and Artistic Director of Company Three about the rights and ethics of making co-created work.

In this discussion about the rights and ethics of co-created work Ned talks about how important that it is given that we are dealing with people’s lives. Plus there is a complicated power dynamic with some people being paid and others not being paid in a lot of co-created work.

Ned believes that the idea of holding an equitable space is at the heart of this work and is an incredibly hard thing to do in the context of a world which is inequitable. For him this is about enabling people to bring their full selves into the room. In every room that he runs, this is talked about. At Company Three there is a weekly meeting where staff can think and talk about how well the company is doing to enable people to bring their full selves into the room. It is a regular item at board meetings and there is a way of reporting anonymously if people feel uncomfortable. For him, the processes that have evolved are rooted in failure and the learning that has come about from that. He talks about living with bullet holes because he has failed and hurt people in the work and having to live with that. The harm never fades. But he believes that he is better at the work as a result of the mistakes that he has made.

When the rights and ethics are taken care of, Ned believes that people feel powerful. He talks about 3 principles; relatedness, competence and autonomy. He gives the example of a 15 year old saying, no, I don’t want to do that and how important it is that the conditions are right to enable this to happen. The rights and ethics are at the bedrock of the work.

Ned talks about the importance of relatedness in working with people’s stories when co-creating theatre. He talks about how important it is that people are fully informed about why they are sharing a story, so that people feel comfortable and confident to do so. It’s important that people know that they can stop. Particularly when stories always involve other people and the sharing of the story will have an impact on others. Part of the ethics of making work is about how care works before, during and after the experience of making the art. For Ned, this forgrounds the importance of long term relationships so that people can process and support people in understanding the long term impact of the work. This includes the possibility of making the play less good because someone changes their mind because they no longer want to say this in front of a group of people that I don’t know and that I do know.

The ethics of this also include looking for what gives people joy rather than what gives them despair. He suggests that you do not attempt to dig too deep when working, for example, with a new group of people over 12 weeks. He doesn’t think it is okay to prioritise the desire for a high risk or edgy show over the experience of the people making it.

Ned talks about the importance of the people who are participating understanding what their rights are and to what extent they can change their minds during the process. He describes the importance of working with people over the long term so that people really understand what the process is about. This includes reminding people constantly that they do not have to go too deep. It includes having regular review points for people to reflect on how the experience of making the show was for them. It’s about the rigour of thinking about the rights for everyone involved in the work.

Ned thinks it’s important to think about the risks involved in the rights and ethics of making this work with the same level of seriousness about thinking about the physical safety risks of the work. He reflects that it is more common for people to get hurt emotionally or psychologically than physically in the work. And yet we don’t include the risks around rights and ethics in the risk assessment for the work.

He talks about the danger of the phrase ‘It’s all their own work’. He describes how this is untrue as it doesn’t acknowledge the input of the professional artist. But in terms of rights and ethics, the professional artist will define the stories that come out of that room. We cannot pretend that the work does not also reflect us when co-creating work. It is allowed to be yours and theirs, that is the beauty of co-creation.

Naomi Alexander is the CEO and Artistic Director of Brighton People's Theatre. Her AHRC funded research Let's Create: Do we know how to? identified 20 qualities, skills and responsibilities that are important for artists leading co-creative practice. The report and illustrations are available here.

X: @naomi_ontheatre

Insta: @naomi.ontheatre

LinkedIn: @naomiontheatre

Ned Glasier is the former CEO and Artistic Director of Company Three. He now works freelance. To find out more about his work visit his website here: http://nedglasier.com/

X: @ned_glasier

Insta: @nedglasier