The Sick of the Fringe @ Adelaide Fringe 2020

Since 2015, The Sick of the Fringe’s work has developed from a tight focus on representations of illness and disability at Edinburgh Fringe to a broad and ambitious program of engagement around questions of access and diversity in the creative industries. Now one of the key projects from STAF, a new arts charity launched in February 2020 through support from Wellcome, TSTOF’s projects have grown to include a biannual festival in London, collaborations with other national festivals such as Manchester International Festival, Normal? (Folkestone) and Strike A Light (Gloucester), and, from 2020, through a new partnership with the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society to support artists and audiences. Each part of this portfolio of activity makes an important contribution to furthering our objective of fighting inequality, inaccessibility, elitism and mediocrity by profiling lived experiences and new perspectives. 

 Against this busy backdrop of activity, in the past weeks two members of the TSTOF team travelled to Australia in order to attend the Adelaide Fringe and present on our work at the World Fringe Congress 2020 which was taking place alongside it. The World Fringe Congress is a biannual gathering of Fringe directors, producers, programmers and organisers from across the globe, ranging from the smallest local festivals to the Edinburgh and Adelaide Fringes (two of the largest arts festivals in the world). By gathering together, these organisations are able to share best practice, concerns and successful strategies, and look ahead to the challenges facing the creative industries in the future. TSTOF were there then to share the successes that we’ve had, raise the issues that matter to us and the artists and audiences we work with, and share some of our strategies for improving the sector as a whole. Whilst we don’t have all the answers and solutions to the challenges we face, our project of sector support and engagement is exemplified through conversations like the one we initiated at World Fringe 2020. Talking about these issues in the UK have resulted in powerful examples of positive action, whether around diversity of artists and audiences or adjustments to models and ways of working within festival contexts. And whilst an international conversation requires some adjustment to account for the unique experience and perspectives of those involved, our time there affirmed the necessity of having these conversations across the globe.   

Led by STAF Creative Producer Lauren Church, our presentation at the congress included some time taking stock of the huge amount of work that TSTOF have delivered over the past five years. A short film from our videographer Claire Nolan illustrated some choice highlights of the audiences we have reached and the work with artists that we do. You can watch the film yourself below, as well as access our archive of materials on the TSOTF website (which includes over 200 pieces of writing from several national and international festivals). In the film you can hear artist and activist Travis Alabanza talking about their experience of making I tried to fuck up the system but none of my friends texted back and HighRise Theatre discussing #ukdrillproject, both of which appeared as part of TSTOF’s 2019 Care & Destruction Festival in London. But more than simply profiling the work that was performed, you will hear in the film both Alabanza and HighRise co-artistic director Joseph Barnes Phillips discuss the often-invisible labour that goes into producing performance (and festivals), the work that artists put in and the impact that the working conditions of the industry have on their success. TSOTF are committed to making this labour visible, and thinking deeply about how artists get to produce the work they do.  

[CLAIRE VIDEO]

The danger of burnout acknowledged by Travis above is a concern not only for artists however but volunteers, producers and administrators. As Lyn Gardner discusses here for The Stage, producers and other strategic roles in the arts are equally affected by these issues, with the increasing pressures of overwork, shrinking funding opportunities and growing administrative burdens having a negative effect on the experience of those involved at all levels. Many delegates at the World Fringe Congress shared the strategies they have begun to implement to guard against this burnout, and the ways that performance festivals can embed wellbeing at a more fundamental level than as an add-on or afterthought. Orlando Fringe (the next hosts of the World Fringe Congress in 2022), for example, spoke about their efforts to ensure there are safe spaces and support for artists, staff and volunteers during their festival. From agreements participants sign outlining expected standards of behaviour and conventions of respect for others, to support for audiences whose experience might be affected by their identity or personal connection to artistic content, they have put in work to establish clear parameters around behaviour, workload and to encourage awareness of other’s experiences. Many other Fringes and festivals expressed similar concerns and questions, which only reinforced the international nature of this conversation around wellbeing, one that is happening across the world, from the United States to Australia where the congress took place. 

TSOTF’s work to date has been devoted to interrogating the deeper underpinnings of the systems that contribute to this burnout, overwork and disadvantage. Whilst acknowledging these problems is of course vital, providing concrete examples of ways festivals might begin to address aspects of this enormous challenge is one of the most important ways that we contribute to the sector. One example raised during our presentation were our recent projects around the question of alcohol and sobriety in Edinburgh and the arts more broadly, initiated by our commissioned writing from artists FK Alexander and Harry Clayton-Wright. This conversation is one that emerged from our attention to discussions across social media during the 2018 Edinburgh Fringe, where our team tracked and logged a number of artists discussing the lack of sober spaces and the emphasis on drinking and intoxication during the month-long festival. When we came in 2019 to program our Edinburgh activity, we returned to those concerns as an underappreciated dimension of wellbeing at the festival. Through the development of the writing we asked what it would mean to consider addiction as an access need, in the same way a festival might consider physical access to venues or community engagement.

Like much of our work we considered it a provocation rather than a solution – the suggestion was not that alcohol be banned from any festival but rather that the needs of those who do not want to always be around it be considered. For both FK and Harry it was a chance to share their perspective and open up the topic for debate, and it is a conversation that has now reached festivals from across the globe through our time at the World Fringe Congress. We have seen and been told in response to this work that several venues and festivals have implemented sober spaces or days within their program, as well as reassessing the need for alcohol at every industry event. And whilst these small changes help those who choose or need not to be around alcohol, they also have the potential to encourage self-care for everyone. There is a still a way to go, with many festivals and fringes relying on bars to supplement their ticket income or partially dependent on alcohol sponsors, but engaging with this issue now might even anticipate the changes generational shifts in attitudes towards drinking might have in the future on an industry-wide model that relies on the bar to make money to support the art. TSOTF are invested in the horizon scanning that this work represents, anticipating and raising issues as early as they can be identified, to encourage more and better participation from all. 

As first-time visitors to Australia, one of the more immediately striking aspects of our time here has been the public conversations around and experiences outlined by Aboriginal communities in relation to the arts. At both Adelaide Fringe and the Australian Performing Arts Market conference in Melbourne (the second stop on our visit) acknowledgements of the original inhabitants of the land and the need to address and honour their history has been foregrounded. The awareness of the experience of others has always been a huge part of what we do as TSOTF. This is work that has included engaging with Indigenous artists from Australia and across the world, from Busty Beatz/Black Honey Company’s multimedia installation We are the Latest Models of our Ancestry which formed part of our inaugural festival in 2017 to our commissioned writing from Indigenous Contemporary Scene’s Sage Nokomis Wright in 2019. As was discussed throughout our time in Australia, conversations around the issues facing Indigenous communities are not only relevant in Australian or Canadian contexts but across the world. They intersect with TSOTF’s work with artists and audiences underrepresented in the creative industries due to their race, gender, age, sexuality, class or disability, asking how knowledges historically undervalued can be put at the forefront of conversations about the future. As fires rip across Australia and seas rise worldwide, perhaps now, as Jason Tamiru noted at one of the APAM events, we are in a moment where the importance of this engagement with the land and its histories is finally being recognised. 

TSOTF’s time in Australia has been an opportunity for us to both take stock and reflect and build new partnerships, and our presentation to the World Fringe Congress has already begun to generate new avenues for wider and more ambitious activities. Our writing program will continue to expand, profiling different perspectives and bringing unique expertise to bear on the creative industries and the artwork they present. Stay tuned to our website and social media for more information and announcements about our forthcoming programs, and feel free to connect with us to share your thoughts on our work. We look forward to continuing to grow and to helping to create an arts sector in which everyone feels safe, seen and supported. 

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