The November Issue

dear member of the IDOCDE community,

The application season is at large, at least here in Sweden it is. The last couple of months have seen one deadline follow the next. The artists around me are largely spending time writing; writing about the future they might not get to support financially, writing to gain opportunity, writing to ask for permission. Writing knowing that with this writing they will be putting their artistic and economic fate in somebody else’s hands.

How do you write, when you’re writing to respond to calls, to apply for funding, to audition, to document your research? What is your priority in your writing? Is writing an exciting process? Can you afford to write for yourself, to write so that the writing informs your work and your process at least as much as it will inform the reader about what it is that you’re working on? Can you afford not to write, I guess is what I'm asking, in the way you expect or assume you will want to be read––even if your assumptions are backed up by years of experience? Can you write not to affirm an assumed stereotype of what “a trustworthy professional adult artist” writes like? Can you write clearly and compellingly, without making your writing necessarily easy to read?

I think I am thinking about two parameters. The first has to do with the assumptions I am making when writing. I started observing the assumptions I am making after I realised that most frequently the following is true: when I get stuck, I get stuck chasing an assumption; alternatively: when I get stuck, I get stuck being chased by an assumption. The assumption, to give an example, can state that the detail I am trying to catch with my language can only be caught in a specific (read: predetermined) way. Any other way makes communication not only unattainable, it is––in itself––unimaginable. Which often, by the time I’m stuck, doesn’t mean that I tried imagining differently and failed. Most often, I’m ashamed in realising, I didn’t even try. I am simply already frustrated. I am simply already stuck.

The second parameter I am thinking about has to do with the question, what do we do the moment the majority of us writes into the stereotype of what “a trustworthy professional adult artist” writes like? What is the consequence of having done that as a community over the years? Could it have been that we trained the funding bodies to expect a certain kind of writing from artists and not the other way around? At least partially? I can imagine that writing into the stereotype once felt like a groundbreaking strategy, like succeeding to “work the system?” But what if too many of us used this strategy for too long? What if… we’re stuck in our own predicament?

And can we draw inspiration from that speculative history and overwhelm the funding bodies instead with the most advanced, clearest yet out-of-this-world articulations we’re capable of?

Here’s to dreaming!

An editorial suggestion:

When it’s time to reflect on the writing you’ve produced this year, document and share your reflections on IDOCDE.net. Connect your idocs with the following folder (link), share your process with this community. (Remember, you can share your idocs with teachers only. This limits access to your document to members of the community only.) Let us learn from the observations you made, from the writing you’ve produced, from the experience you’ve had.

A couple of things to consider when composing your documents:

Where do you live? What is the funding landscape like in the city/country you live in? How has the landscape been affected by the pandemic?
If you’re sharing a specific writing example:

What institution or place have you sent this writing to? Describe your previous experience with this institution? What is the institution’s reputation in your experience? How did you feel approaching this institution, intimidated? Or comfortable? Or indifferent? Or ...? How do you talk about this institution when talking to your peers? How do your peers talk about this institution when they’re talking to you?
What was your experience writing this like? Would you describe your experience of writing as reductive or expansive, did you feel like you were reporting or speculating? Was the experience you’ve had a positive experience or a negative experience and why? Did you feel inspired, excited, and interested by your process?
When you look back at your writing, what genre would you say you wrote in? Does your writing have poetic qualities? Does it behave like fiction does? Does it have journalistic or non-fiction qualities? Can you recognise a generic “project application” tone in your style? What, in your writing, gives a sense of quality? Is it your syntax, your phrasing, your vocabulary, your use of punctuation?

What general observations have you made in your writing over the years, looking at the dynamic between your studio practice and your writing practice?
What general observations have you made in your writing over the years, looking at your relationship with funders, employers, research supervisors?
Would it be possible to share an example of the form you are asked to fill out with your writing? If not, could you describe the form? Is in an online or a digital form? Are you required to contribute a printed version? Are the digital and the printed deadlines the same? Are you allowed to attach documents? What is reporting like? How different is the report form relative to the application form?
Has writing applications become easier or more difficult over the years? What changed? Institutionally? Privately?

The more examples we collect, the more valuable and informative the collection might become––to artists, researchers, dance pedagogues, and students alike.

That said and in conclusion,

I am writing this conscious that I would love to create a resource for the students of the BA in Dance Performance at the SKH, the Stockholm University of the Arts previously known as DOCH, the University of Dance and Circus I teach on occasion, who––much as your students probably do––come from all over the place. Who, even if they do get to see some of the local forms, might not get the chance to see international application forms until they’re required to fill one out.

Imagine providing your students and you peers with a folder filled with examples of application forms, writings, complemented with personal reflections and documented experience of handling the forms over different lengths of time? Imagine having access to a folder like that when you're stuck writing?

Think about it. Write about it. Make the club. Join the club. Help all of our students out by sharing your examples. Help your peers and friends and researchers out there, and maybe even the authorities by sharing your experiences. By noting your observations. By creating study mateiral. By creating a reference. By creating a resource.

Thank you for your attention, your time and effort,
Thank you for approaching IDOCDE.net as a resource that it is,
and
good luck!

May the force be with you.
pavleheidler for IDOCDE
November 2020

ps if you have any questions regarding the proposal above, please do not hesitate to write to pavle.heidler@idocde.net.