Storytelling PR

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Facing Racism in Fringe PR & Media

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In July 2020 Storytelling PR Director, Miriam Attwood sent a rambling email to Black, Asian, Migrant, Indigenous and Ethnically Diverse artists and colleagues in the industry (that Storytelling have worked with) saying Storytelling was keen to use the rare time we now had in lieu of the August Festival season to hold a formal awareness raising moment about Racism in Fringe PR and Comms. As an industry leader it felt possible to get people within the industry to really face and work towards making long term change – but of course – inappropriate for Miriam A to hold that space. 

In doing this work we sought invaluable advice, accepting constant suggestions, amendments and corrections along the way. Three points specifically we would like to underline about this work are; one change can only happen when the industry welcomes Ethnically Diverse Talent to take up positions of power, and fosters that talent with real awareness and two as a white team we cannot take up room in this space, but we feel we can support with providing a platform, carrying out admin, and asking for funding. three we are a small cog in a huge space of change and we would like to thank the leaders in this space who have taught us so much. 

Manifesting from this were two forums where Tigho Feldman held the space as facilitator. Tigho is currently Head of Operations for Rambert London, and through her impressive career held senior roles within the Festival Fringe Society.

Leading on both format and content were Arusa Qureshi (Edinburgh based, Freelance Culture and Music writer) and Clarcia Parinussa (dancer, choreographer, race equalities work as ID.Y and D/ecology)

With Arusa, Claricia and Tigho’s leadership we came to a conclusion a closed forum with a group of creatives would begin the event, providing a safe space for comment and honest reflection, (Storytelling PR did not attend). Then a second industry facing forum with conclusions shared and an ask of a commitment to change with an open sign up sheet.  There was a third forum – a breakout space – for industry – namely PRs, media and marketers – to meet and reflect. We would like to fully recognise this was very much a ‘change, amend, update’ process, and we are greatly appreciative for all the honest feedback we received. 

The contributing creatives* include: 

Annie George – Artist and Writer 
Shivani Saini – Director Atelier Culturati 
Christian Graham – Writer and actor
Apphia Campbell – Writer and Actor 
Katherina Radeva – Co-Director Two Destination Language
Sage Nokomis-Wright (Producer)
Mandla Rae (Performance Artist) 
Natalie Chan (Producer) 
Arusa Qureshi (Culture and Music journalist)
Claricia Parinussa (Dancer, Choreographer and race inequalities facilitator and industry leader)

Artists and writers in the first forum were welcome to attend the second. Many of those contributors have also fed back to us specifically with suggestions and ideas that were taken on board, and shared. We are looking at how we continue to build and share on these responses and to safely make these public. 

*we have invited artists to keep their name anonymous as in the closed forum facilitated by Tigho Feldman. 

Footage of the second session will soon be available for media and PRs to engage with. We would ask anyone joining this space to commit to making at least one change in their working practice to make spaces safer for Ethnically Diverse Artists and Industry. 

Breakdown of funding:

Festival Fringe Society £240
Storytelling PR LTD £715
Industry attendees were asked to contribute £10
Artists and facilitator payments £850 
Donations in lieu of fees to Ethically Diverse led companies £150 

NEXT STEPS: Storytelling will seek to apply for funding to continue this work and then hand over the space to Ethnically Diverse Talent to own and hold the space and continue the work with the resources Storytelling can offer. 

Storytelling PR Ltd will be looking to hire a new PR in 2021 to diversify our permanent team and will be advertising with the Taylor Bennet Foundation https://www.taylorbennettfoundation.org/ and Black-led British publications and job sites. 

We will continue to publish comments from contributors and commitments from industry in this space.

Date for your diary: Tuesday 1 September

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We’re holding a forum during the festival – Facing Racism in Fringe PR and Comms – which will comprise of three parts. The first two of which are being led by a facilitator with storytelling providing the platform and admin support.  The direction of the discussions is being led by Black, Indigenous, Ethically Diverse voices – artists and writers who have been able to opt in / out and make amends and changes to the forums. It is with their insight we have reached this point.

Special thanks to Head of Operations at Rambert, Tigho Feldman, Edinburgh Based Culture Writer, Arusa Qureshi and Dancer/Choreographer/Collaborator Claricia Parinussa for their wisdom and leadership. All contributors will be paid with support from the Festival Fringe Society and Storytelling PR LTD alongside your tickets. A break down of payments and contributions to charity in lieu of fees will be posted on our website.

Prompt: Yale academic and sociologist Monica Bell that ‘avoidance of racism affects people’s life decisions’ so if gaining coverage is going to mean encountering racism, it’s a HUGE barrier – we don’t want Black, Indigenous, Migrant and Ethnically Diverse makers to encounter this – so to start speaking truth to power – let’s talk through the size of these barriers and manifest and then we can go on to challenge the industry – even if person by person – to be better. 

A series of forums which hope to create new patterns of behaviour, support for our artists and a deeper understanding of the biases at play – we will provide a reading list to support you doing this work. 
We want to create both accountability and a sense of group support to work for change.

Forum 1
1. An artists only forum to discuss situations, problems, circumstances beyond their control, that have arisen and involved racism be that structural or explicit. (could be as simple as ‘no I can’t do interviews on my days off I’m exhausted from managing this environment’ through to ‘I don’t want to be interviewed by white men because of experience of / fear of racist encounters’) This will be a closed forum. This will be led by a facilitator and Storytelling will not be attending. 

Industry invite: September 1 Tuesday 3pm zoom 
2. We will summarise the above (with the participants permission) to lead a second, outward facing forum for the industry (PR, Comms teams, Journalists) – the role of making change (for our industry) does not lie with artists – but their contribution is the only way we can honestly face the huge problems we have to look to change. We say this with huge awareness that diversifying and changing structures within the industry has to happen. This will be lead by Tigho Feldman as facilitator and contributors and contributions from the closed forum. 

September 1 Tuesday 4.30pm zoom 
3. A ‘white fragility forum’, without any of our artists to deal with questions, shame, defensiveness that has come up from being told how it is – this will be with everyone from session two – our industry. We appreciate as those who have been conditioned within structures that are held up by White Supremacy and anti-black, migrant, indigenous viewpoints – this is a journey for us all that has to start somewhere, and working with Black, Indigenous, Migrant talent doesn’t change how it is – so how do we start to make change through our work? How do we try, fail and fail better as an industry. A safe space for PRs and Media to share their experiences and find support systems. This will be lead by Mim A & Mim B from Storytelling PR.
Ends 5.30pm – break out group welcome until 6pm. 

We will charge £10 for attending so we can pay all our contributors. If you’d like to pay more we’d welcome that: paypal.me/storytellingpr

We will publish a (broad strokes) breakdown of funding / payments to artists / activist donations on Storytellingpr.com.

Storytelling will not make a profit or take a fee for our time. 

Please register your interest here! 
Miriam X