07 April 2010

What risks do we actually take when we claim to ‘collaborate’ with disengaged communities?

Change Media is now working with several groups to create real economic opportunities, so they can set up their own media micro-businesses. Our aim is to remove ourselves from each step once the community can do it alone.

Recently, however, we’ve had some interesting encounters as a growing number of documentary makers engage with marginalized communities… and I began to rethink our strategy and the use of one-liners such as:

When you witness your story making a difference, you see you can change the world.

Sure, I love to hear these feel good success stories. It is a privilege to work with communities as they develop the skills to make their own media,… but at present many marginalized communities still only experience the power of media when an external, privileged documentary team parachutes in, to document local issues or re-tell their stories, from a “media expert’s” view point. I believe this disparity of creative control and ownership is a crucial element of the colonial language, which keeps marginalized people dis-empowered and illiterate, (no matter how good the story makes us feel in the short run).
As long as these visiting artists don’t train, share and leave sustainable capacities behind, this process prolongs existing dependencies, which means marginalized communities must rely on outsiders to be heard within the ‘mainstream’.

Over the last few years we have been developing a code of conduct for privileged artists working with marginalized communities. Last week it was exciting to share experiences and develop a global project, with Mervin from the iStreet Lab, Jamaica. Working with artists and academics in Australia, Jamaica, Canada, England and the USA, we are preparing an ambitious project to put into practice a global manifesto – to kick-start a discussion about practical ethics and measurable sustainability for authentic media cross-cultural collaborations and provide a benchmark for transparency in CCD work. I believe this is essential as we witness a push from the Creative Industries to engage with communities.

If you want to contribute to the development of the new manifesto, post a comment below or contact me via email here.

Find a link to our current manifest here.

Cheers,

Jen