On Topic: Gülgün Kayim Episode Seven

 

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Sanjit: Well I’m so fortunate to be joined today by Gulgun Kayim, the Director of Arts, Culture, and Creative Economy with the City of Minneapolis. She's also an affiliate faculty in the theater arts and dance department at the University of Minnesota, thanks so much for being able to join me today.

Gulgun: Very happy to join you, thank you for asking.

Sanjit: So it seems to me before we get started to talk about your own personal trajectory, as well as the work that you're doing and the work that you envision and ideas around cultural leadership. That we really do have to hold a moment of space and address this specific moment in time, where we saw earlier this week the tragedy regarding the death of George Floyd. And I'm wondering if you’ve got specific thoughts about how community goes about recovering and how organizations go about building trust after such a horrific event.

Gulgun: So it’s very hard to answer that question because we're still very much in the moment of the violence that happened to George, who was killed on 38th and Chicago. So certainly that it's very hard to talk about recovery when you'll still dealing with the moment. On a personal level, for me I am still trying to process how to even be in a space at the city where obviously that's where the police force is a department of the city. I work with many city departments, I have not worked with the police directly for the very reason that I have reservations about that department. But it does dominate not just city budgets, but it dominates community connection with the city. So the police are interacting with the community single day and so it's very hard for me right now to even envisage what healing may look like when we’re still in the moment. And to think about healing especially since the history of policing in general in this country and its violence to communities of color as well as the history specifically of this city. I’ve been in this situation way too often in my eight years at the city and every single time I have to question my role, whether it has any impact, whether I can contribute. So you've caught me at the moment of vulnerability. I'm afraid I don't know what the answers are and I won't pretend to know. I do work quite closely with many community members that are right now being impacted by the aftermath of this situation. Both on the businesses on Lake Street, artists who are in the vicinity of 38th in Chicago that I know very well, community organizations, council members. So it's very very hard for me to respond in any kind of cognitive way. I just feel it's very emotional. I'm very emotional, quite raw about you at the moment. I'm sorry I can't be more articulate than that.b

Sanjit: I think as we're living through this moment it’s hard for us to go ahead and plan a path ahead when we see so much of our community feel a similar type of pain that we're feeling. And it seems particularly difficult at this moment, where this is under the broader scepter of living in a pandemic and seeing the incredible degree of economic devastation that this illness has brought about. And I don't know if you can share with me the thoughts that you have about coping strategies that you have, and someone that's really in the front lines of dealing with people feeling the incredible pressure regarding the pandemic. How are you able to cope on a regular basis with this onslaught of bad news and then on top of that, thinking about this current tragedy that we’re in?

Gulgun:  Well I have to say that it’s no, it's no mystery but again on a personal level the way I’ve coped is to being relationship with community. So oh with colleagues working in other cities who are dealing with the same thing, we've increased our calls just to be supportive to each other. And also locally with folks on the front line, who are working in the streets, department heads who are collaborators with my division who are working to support the community in some way and ask us to also support them. So really it is actually something, that’s a conversation I had recently with a colleague in neighborhood and community relations. At times of great stress and emergency like this, really what happens is you fall back on the relationships and the trust you’ve built over time and that is exactly what's happening for me. I'm falling back on those relationships locally and nationally that I've had. And that way I can lean on and trust because at times like this, that is really no opportunity to build trust you know you're old and you know physically you're in a moment of stress, you're either in a fight or flight scenario and the way you deal with it is to process with people you trust. So that's what we've been doing and certainly coming together, gathering. Also trying to problem-solve as everyone else is trying to do that without knowing what the future looks like, but trying to work together to bring minds from different perspectives and different experiences together. So that we can figure out how can we get through this, how can we support each other through this? And in some cases, collaborating with our resources so finding new partnerships, and new ways to collaborate. It's been both hopeful and stressful at the same time. Hopeful because in times of emergency you suddenly realize that you have more allies than you thought you did and you can work together on some of the barriers that may have been there in the past, dissolve because the crisis is so acute. So some of those barriers were actually false in some ways, so it allows you to do things that you may not have been able to do before. And that's been amazing but at the same time some of the systemic barriers that have always existed reveal themselves. And they may have already been there and you may have already been seeing them, but now everyone sees them. And so finding allies who come work with you on those more systemic structural issues are where there has been a lot of hope for me, at least and and found that the work we've been doing has been meaningful.

Sanjit:  You know I really appreciate you talking about reaching out and trying to be more intentional about ensuring that you've got that connectivity that you think can help support you. And it does make me think about a recurring topic, it comes up in my conversations with individuals that I really consider to be cultural leaders like yourself which is around that idea of mentorship. And I’m curious to know your thoughts on how the idea of mentorship has evolved for you, were there certain seminal moments in your own personal trajectory that you can remember, you think mentorship made the difference. And how do you think, like I mentioned before, how do you think that that idea or concept or philosophy of mentorship is evolving?

Gulgun: I think mentorship is really important, and not just through having being a mentor to folks. But also knowing the data around mentorship. I mean at the end of the day mentorship is relationship right. It's building relationship over time with someone who you can go to who can help support you through the arc of your career. And so I think it's a very very important conversation, I think it's a very important element in helping people access resources and systems that may be opaque to them. So mentorship as a function is very very important. On a personal level it's been, mentorship hasn't really, I just want to reflect on this, hasn't really been there for me. Because, I don't know why, I mean to be honest I’ve sought mentors and I haven't really found mentors in the way that I would wish them to be. So certainly as I was being educated looking for mentors in education was one of the first places I went to in my training as a theater artist and finding them lacking especially for women and in the context that I was trained. And I wasn't just a woman, I was a woman from an immigrant community who had a weird name and you know, didn’t speak English very well until I grow older. 

But mentorship was very hard to find within my community who didn't support what I was interested in, and then also outside of my community in the majority culture. There wasn't very many mentors for young Turkish girls in London to help you seek out the structures and the access to theater, let alone directing, so I didn't find those. I want to say that there was some folks who I sought, definitely in Academia as I went into graduate school and got more training, but on the whole I didn't find the type of mentor I was looking for. Someone who can help me in my career, someone who can advise me on what to do next. I really didn't find it, I ended up both in my community and I guess you know further on in practicing theater in this country, that I ended up being an anomaly. Or not being the right gender or you know coming from the wrong background or wanting to do the wrong type, the wrong type of work, just didn't find them. So I'm sorry to be negative but that made me even more interested in being a mentor for others. So as I begin to access the system, working really hard to find ways that I could support people in structures that I could influence and provide access points for.

Sanjit: Well you know you I think oftentimes there’s that misnomer, mentors are there to, they’re the elderly sage that gives advice to the neophyte right. That in reality I think it’s oftentimes a value exchange about two different individuals from life experiences and two different perspectives. And so the idea of starting to create mentorship relationships that you didn't have or you wished you had is the same way I think so many of us are in education period. How do you provide the pedagogical experiences that you didn't have and you wished you had?

Gulgun: Yeah I mean I agree with that, I also think the other part of mentorship is someone who understands what you're going through outside of the professional environment. So having access to people who are teaching who know what that experience is. So as someone who came up in a Muslim context and I come from a culture that’s Muslim, the barriers that I had to face or had to overcome in order to even practice theater are different than somebody for whom theater practice is a given and an assumption within that culture. So talking to a mentor that can understand those, unfortunately my situation, most of my teachers are white men. So I had no ability to connect with someone that understood on that level. So if we think about mentorship as a sort of the apprentice and the master, you know a master craftsman or a master artist working with someone who’s beginning their careers. It's not just about the technique or the intellectual pursuit it's about the life challenges that are being faced by the student or by someone who's beginning their practice. Those are as relevant as the technician art structures and systems at least when I was training were just not there. So you have to do double labor in order to understand how to fit into a theater structure that wasn't just hostile to women directors but was hostile to anyone who had a different type of voice that wanted to bring a different type of conversation to the theater community.

Sanjit: And you know I'd love to know more about that trajectory for you of moving from overseas coming from Turkey and how did you start to engage with theater as a practice?

Gulgun: So let me back up a little bit, I’m not actually from Turkey. I'm from an island.

Sanjit: I’m so sorry. 

Gulgun: No, that's okay I'm Turkish, so I’m from an island called Cyprus which has a minority community that is Turkish that was a colony of Britain, of England and that my family were refugees of a war and so we ended up in London because we had to. That was the only way we could survive a civil war post British colonisation. So Britain left the Cyprus in the 1950s but left us with a communal conflict and that is still actually continuing to this day there's a demilitarized zone that separates the two communities Turkish and Greek.

Sanjit: Sure.

Gulgun: So my context was first of all, having been born in Cyprus and then at the age of 5 with my family fleeing to live in London in the diaspora. So there was a large a Turkey cypriot and Greek cypriot community that had fled the violence and there was some waves of violence that continued all the way to 1974 when the partition, an illegal partition, was happened between Turkey who invaded the island to separate the two communities and arguably and again I don’t support that action I think that what Turkey did was not just partition but take advantage of the situation. But that said, I go back to your question, so yes I grew up in London in an immigrant community and so that's very much part of, as I said, my trajectory but also in the Muslim culture that where theater and the idea of a young woman especially, doing theater and it was just not okay. And not only was it not okay, but there were no examples I could find around me of young Turkish women, or Muslim women who are performing on stage performing on film. 

My parents used to think of theater as they think of television, when they heard when I was younger that I wanted to be an artist they interpreted the word in Turkish as artist, which is somebody who goes on stage and I remember very clearly being chastised by my mother that I would never to think of that. Because she thought of that as not an okay thing for her for her daughter to do. Because young Muslim girls don’t do that. So that was the context when I mention that there wasn’t support in my community. It was to the extent where my parents stopped talking to me when I did performances in London On The Fringe stage. So that you know the barriers as I'm saying, I'm not just about learning your trade and getting into the business but it's also about someone from a culture where this isn't sanctioned working in this business. So those are the sort of layers that I'm referring to.

Sanjit: That makes a lot of sense. And how, are your parents still alive?

Gulgun: My mother is still alive, my father died and is no longer with us. 

Sanjit: And has your mother, what does she think about your trajectory now where you are, what you’re doing?

Gulgun: Well she doesn't quite understand it so she's okay with the idea that I have a full-time job and she understands the concept of working in a government institution. So she's very much for the idea of being sort of in a government position. I think for her she has no idea what I do and why do it. So there has been less resistance since I became the director of arts and culture for the city of Minneapolis but also since my work took me into more administrative roles and less theater roles. I don't share with my mother the work I do in my homeland. So I still practice in Cyprus working on peace issues and I don't share that because she doesn't support the politics, my politics on that and so it's very much done outside of my family. There’s very few members of my family I can tell the work that I'm doing in Cyprus as an artist or who would understand because the tensions on the island are still very very much on the surface. So historically what she had done was just stop talking to me and then once I told her I wanted to study theater really she just was not interested. Luckily in the UK when I was going to school, education was free. So I didn't need my parents money to study and as long as I could do it as long as I had good grades I could go ahead and do it on my own steam. But that was for her, she was not supportive. But my father was a much more open person and that I just want to say the context for them to understand what I was interested in was very, they just didn't have any context for it. The only context was television and they have disapproved in general so it took quite a bit of defiance on my part to do theater and to be a theater artist. I had my mother once come to see me on stage and she said that was the first and the last time she’d want to ever do that.

Sanjit: Wow.

Gulgun: Oh yeah, I happened to be playing a part of being a pregnant woman, so she was very unhappy about that.

Sanjit: Not quite the modeling she’d hoped for in a daughter.

Gulgun: Yeah, well and you also have to understand I was supposed to have an arranged marriage. My mother did have an arranged marriage and the plans were that I was going to have an arranged marriage too. So the whole situation was very tense.

Sanjit: You know I wonder, that hearing you talk about this sounds so similar to you know my parents, both immigrants to this country. So kind of growing up in the old country if you will, also part of a diasporic existence my mom, Indian, before she went to Johannesburg, South Africa. You know but it's kind of similar, this idea of connections with the homeland but also disconnection to the homeland. But I wonder and I don’t know if you’ve felt this, that that ability of having to explain, having to rationalize, having to go through the struggles of trying to say, this is a creative pathway, it's not a business and commerce pathway, it's not medicine, it's not something that’s maybe more palatable. Through that process, do you think it's giving you some kind of keen insight or an edge in terms of your ability to try to understand where desperate voices are coming from?

Gulgun: Oh absolutely I mean I yes I mean within the context of this country I totally see communities, especially immigrant communities, I totally relate to their struggles. I have had a very deep conversations with members of the Somali Community where I just feel like they’re telling my story. They’re talking about things that I went through and I think like you mentioned like you point out, it's not my situation may feel very unique to me but it's not unique at all. it's a type of environment that anyone who's an immigrant, especially coming from a very different culture, is faced, you know coming to a majority community that you know just doesn't understand the context in which you're trying to get an education. Let alone get training and work in an industry. So yes for the parents as well as for the for those who are wanting to be artists. It's really, it's really a traumatic conversation. So that's yeah I totally get that I understand it, I try to not be too you know, I don't know what the right word is but I get it. I sympathize, I empathize with it, I understand the emotional feelings behind it. I understand the reason why young artists, an immigrant artist may wish to work in creative forms that their parents have no context for. And I also understand how the gulf of, the cultural gulf that's built up between the two.

So one of the conditions of going into a profession like theater where my parents have no context to understand it, is that they’re not a part of my life. You know as I become a professional in that they can't share with me, if the successes or the failures. They can’t support me by sending, you know giving advice or anything else really. So it becomes very much a lonely experience, you become separate from your family. I think if I was to become a lawyer or a doctor or something else they would have a better context to understand it because it exists in the culture that I'm from. I'm not saying that theater doesn't exist in Turkish context but it's definitely recent, uh historically it's a more recent practice puppetry was really the way in which traditional Turkish culture expressed itself in a theatrical form. And then dance was another way, but that was not sanctioned for women to do in public spaces, so the Muslim women were not supposed to dance in front of men. So being on stage itself is itself a problematic practice. So I just want to point that out, I totally understand it, I get it, I tried to I'm empathetic to it. I understand that there are different contexts and different communities but the overall experience I think is similar.

Sanjit: Yeah I mean I think it seems like that, we’re talking about in many ways, dialogues regarding communication and how empathy plays a really significant role in that type of communication. And in some ways I’m kind of reflecting on that by saying that thinking that oh since the Covid pandemic has really been you know, kind of something that's been beset upon us really since mid-march. I've been really impressed by the work that you and your team has been doing on regular communications with the broader community about cultural resources that are available. But also to try to keep the broader cultural ecosystem engaged and by that what I appreciate about a lot of the work that you're doing it's not necessarily about the articulation of these of larger institutions like the Walker or MIA. It's really about the kind of earnest invested culture that's coming in an almost interstitial fashion from the community around us. And again I guess I wanted to know how’s that communication going from your end, how difficult is it to stay positive to go ahead and lean into a community that's in pain? But also to provide them with a guide star or the point of reference as they start to move forward.

Gulgun: Well again it's as I mentioned earlier it is difficult to remain positive because I happen to be in this position where I can see forward and I can see behind me at the same time. Meaning I'm talking to elected officials trying to get resources out to a community that needs access to those resources and it’s sometimes translating for them. That means I'm looking forward and making recommendations and policies and recommending policy shifts and changes, I'm waiting for decisions to be made. At the same time I'm experiencing on a very direct level through my friends and my community, stress, experiencing loss of income, loss of, every single level, loss of livelihood. And at the same time I’m sitting at tables talking to other folks who are involved in the local and national system that are working to mobilize resources. 

So advocacy at the federal level has been a lot of the work that I've been doing and collaboration with other cities, other large cities because we believe that by coming together we can make our voices heard better to get resources out to community. So communication has been very very important but I also find that there's a tendency for the same voices to be heard that because of relationships as I mentioned there’s a natural inclination for folks to lean on their existing relationships. So I’ve been trying, I've been very mindful about not just doing that. That's where security lies for everyone who is people I know and I trust I'm going to work with but also know that what you're doing is reinforcing a structure that hasn't been serving people by doing that. So making new relationships over time and talking to those people as well including them in the conversation and opening yourself up to the vulnerability of not knowing and communicating is where I’ve tried to be. I'm not sure I've been very successful at it but that's been where I’ve tried to be.

So you were referring to communications coming out of my office, I also am aware of, become aware of, resources that are flowing in lots of different directions and trying to pivot towards resources that can be accessible to the creative community whether they know it or not. And that's been where I think I can provide some things that others can’t, so dealing with facts right now. There are some funds available during Covid through the federal government, through the national endowment for the arts. Right now there are some funds available through the state arts board, but we also know because of business shutdowns there’s a significant amount of income loss to government itself as through property taxes, as well as through sales taxes. And because our system of funding the arts in this state is very reliant on sales tax, it will mean that those resources will also be constricted not now but coming out of the pandemic. So my pivot has been to look at non-arts resources, how can we get those resources into the hands of arts organizations and individuals and businesses so that they can continue to survive. And there’s interesting enough, a lot of potential and opportunity there and I happen to sit in a position where you know these resources are only available to government and their bigger resources. So that's been what I've been trying to do is point to those work with my partners inside the city, to say we need to be at the table for planning of those resources. Those are, those are still in action right now we haven't come up with concretes, it's mostly making recommendations and advocating for policy positions.

Sanjit: There's so many things that I want to try to unpack and so I'm trying to go with, kind of what's first on my mind. But you talked about vulnerability and you talked about that in relationship to a communication ethos and I'm glad you brought that up because I think oftentimes we don't really see vulnerability as a strong leadership quality. Oftentimes we see vulnerability as a sign of weakness, more and more I've been thinking that vulnerability is one of the most important qualities to have. Especially when you're communicating with communities that feel that they've been disenfranchised or that they've suffered some type of significant inequity. And so I guess I'm wondering, have you been shaping thoughts about vulnerability as a leadership quality and if so what insights are you willing to share?

Gulgun: Oh sure, I think it's a really important leadership quality. I think that we have this myth of this strong leader and I don't know where that comes from, that somehow the leader should have all the answers. And I think the reality is how can we have all the answers and the reality is, we don't have the answers. And then a person in a position let’s say who has access to a lot of resources or you know needs to understand that they don't have all the answers. So the first step of vulnerability is knowing that you are, you cannot do that and stating that is the first step towards understanding that you need to be collaborative in problem, in solving problems. 

So we often project in these positions a sense of, we know how to do this and we're going to do this, but that is actually not a very strong position to be in. Because how can you know every circumstance that's going to happen around you? I think acknowledging that you don't know is the first step towards being more adaptive and more responsive to the conditions that you find yourself in. Because we all want to construct plans and processes and projects that are predictable, right? That lead us to an outcome that we’ve said here’s the outcome we want and here’s the plan and this is how we're going to get there. And we know that that makes reality, which is real life and in reality all kinds of things can happen around you.

So if you're unable to be vulnerable and be open and be responding to the conditions around you, I don't think you're able to deal with the reality of what people are experiencing. And I've learned that the hard way, I've learned that by doing projects where I acted in the way I'm supposed to act, which is know what the outcome is and show people the plan forward and expect everyone to behave. And learned to my cost that, oh my God, that was a stupid idea. And when I have stopped and listened and understood what people are telling me in the community around the conditions, their actual conditions whereas my perceived understanding of their conditions was incorrect and listened and taken in and worked with community. That's been where we become stronger together with what we've learned and we've been responsive so that's been the way I choose to quote unquote, lead, is to understand that I’m limited. That we don't know the answers but together we can we can come up with solutions. And the conditions around us will constantly be changing, so constantly checking in with the community around what is going on is the way forward. 

And in my mind so those are my sort of hard learned lessons I guess is the best way to to state it. And to your point that government likes to appear with the answers because unfortunately the government system is structured in a way where, and I think the culture in government is very much supports this concept, that we know the answers. And what a lot of the work that I've been doing working within government is to help them understand that you don't have the answers and it's okay not to know the answers and it's okay to say you don't know the answers and to work with community to build what the answers to your situation are, together. That collaborative process is the way we will move forward together as opposed to government moving forward this way and community moving forward in another way.

Sanjit: You know I wonder if part of this is about embracing the asymmetrical nature of the world that doesn't always show up on a profit-and-loss statement or or a neat Venn diagram or strategic plan.

Gulgun: Oh absolutely and of course it comes from my theater background too. So I devised, improvised work and improvisation relies on listening very intently, being present in the moment with your partner. And as a director I am, my role is to help guide those improvises on stage. So I'm helping to guide a piece that comes together is really the training I have and I've learned that the more I rely on my training that comes from theater, the better I can actually do the job that I'm tasked to do. There isn't much in government that I’ve taken that can help me do the job I need to do, to be honest. It's interesting that that artistic practice has given me the tools I need.

Sanjit: It’s that critical problem solving.

Gulgun: It’s critical problem solving but it's also adaptiveness, it's also meaning you know don't just set it. So as a director, obviously you're trying to create a product at the end of the day, right? Within a certain time frame and a structure. But you know that you can lay out the best plan and an actor will not show up or a crisis will happen or maybe another opportunity will present itself. And you move towards that because that's the best solution in reality, as opposed to the one you invented in your head. I don't know of many directors that come to a rehearsal room, saying, telling their actors, you're going to move ten steps in this direction and five steps in this direction. And this is what the piece will be because I invented it in my phone, on my computer before I showed up. That's not what they do at all, they’re working with the people in front of them and they're dealing with who these people are and what they have to offer, and they’re creating something together as a community. So that is the training I've lent on, to say this is the people I have, these are the tools I have, these are the materials I have, this is a community I'm in, how can we work together to come up with a solution to this problem. Knowing that there's going to be unexpected opportunities as well as problems that arise during the path, you know during the process.

Sanjit: It makes me also start to think more broadly about this moment of time we are in now with covid-19 and living through a pandemic. I'm wondering if there are specific things that you want to see change more dramatically. And I’d say that I'm talking to you as a citizen not necessarily representing the city per say. Speaking of acting and roles that you have to sometimes go into. But are there things that you would like to see that will be vastly and dramatically different within a cultural landscape when we're on the other side of the pandemic?

Gulgun: Well I think I would really like to see the way we resource the arts different. So I'm saying that both as a citizen and as somebody in my position. I find the way arts and culture, actually that hasn't been much conversation in the media or in you know in other structures about the pain and loss within the arts community that is currently being felt. Or necessarily much emphasis put on why that loss is important for us to pay attention to. There’s been a lot of discussion about restaurants again, artists also get jobs in restaurants. There’s been a lot of conversation about small businesses. Yes, the arts are also small businesses. But there hasn't been a focus on what are we losing when we lose our opportunity and our people in this pandemic. So not just people who are dying, but also people who are losing their livelihoods, who are having, being forced to go into other industries in order to make a living. What are we losing? And that is a big concern to me and I think what, especially in this country, the structure that has supported this kind of disconnect between everyday life. 

So the arts are funded on this separate pathway, which is mostly around a pathway that assumes that we are entertainers and that we are decorators, as opposed to being part of how work gets done. Because of that we are now in a situation of deficits. So as I mentioned earlier without sales tax, there is not going to be the government funded resources that come through the state arts board available. That money is going to be reduced, we’ve also seeing a pattern of nonprofits not re, art nonprofits, not receiving resources from foundations. Because the perception is that there are more important issues at hand, like people's, your homes and rental, rent issues and food issues. But I want to argue that wait, the people that are in the arts are also dealing with the same situation of rent and food. That arts need to be considered as part of our basic needs as human beings. And that is unfortunately what I'm seeing is that it's, the conversation isn't happening. And it's certainly not happening at the level of alertness that I have to it and I can’t get folks to pay attention to it, which is even more distressing. 

So what I'd like to see changed is for us to find us a way to make sure the arts are part of our everyday life. We've been doing that in a way in the city, through the work that I've been doing. But I'd like to see that in every place and I think that's been an aspiration we've had in the community but more so now it needs to be a fundamental shift whereby artists are paid as much as other folks are paid, other professionals are paid. But also involved in projects that are meaningful and part of our everyday community needs, not just decorating or entertaining but in other ways and we can talk more about that but that's where I'm at and the funding resources mustn’t just be through arts and culture grants.

Sanjit: It seems like you're also kind of arguing for a completely re-established model as to how we value cultural labor itself.

Gulgun: Yes absolutely, absolutely.

Sanjit: And so do you see that as the potential faint silver lining in terms of what we have the opportunity to possibly rebuild or make anew on the other side of this crisis?

Gulgun: I hope so, I hope it's a silver line, it’s hard to tell right now because we're again in the middle of something that is still rolling out, we’re still experiencing the waves of the pandemic, the waves of infection. We’re still you know it's very hard to see the other end when you're in the middle of the forest but it could be, it very well could be. I think for me it's unclear yet what– there are two options it could go. One is that we revert back to business as usual after this, and we are still in the arts and culture gets relegated to an entertainment and decorating task in community. And I'm not trying to belittle that because I, you know, there are, it's fine for folks to want to bring beauty into people's lives and want to you know get your mind off things. That is really important I think, actually that's something that has been helping people get through the pandemic.

But at the same time the breadth of what arts can bring to a community in terms of problem solving, in terms of community resilience, in terms of addressing trauma and all those other things that arts and culture can do, is not paid attention to enough in this culture at least. And is not, and it's also not prov– there aren’t enough structures and systems supporting that to happen at least in this culture. And so it's not part of our everyday needs, that's what I'm trying to get at. So a radical sort of perspective shift is what we need and then a funding shift, a way that we can find resources for it. Again I'm referring back to the work we’re doing in the city, which is one by one department after another we're educating people in those departments what arts and culture can do for them. And once folks learn that through practice, once they learn what that can look like, sort of a light bulb goes off and then all the sudden they say, I don't know how I could have done it without the collaboration of an artist or a designer. Because they now know what that opportunity looks like but it's like if that's the way we're at right now is we have to educate and we have to work in collaboration with people to show them because we've had such a successful disconnect. We’ve been running parallel I’d say sectors for such a long time.

Sanjit: It makes me start to reflect on your thoughts maybe, on what cultural leadership may mean to you. Especially as you talk about it through the spheres of your own personal trajectory, in terms of how you grew up, how you studied, but also thinking about it, thinking about it now. And I just wanted to hear from you, when you hear the idea of the concept of cultural leadership, what comes to mind?

Gulgun: Well it's such a complicated question and I'm trying my best not to give it too long an answer and to think about it. I think from a personal level, cultural leadership is a practice and an adaptive practice, it’s a practice of intentional listening and acting. I think it's also one in which bringing arts and culture to the table at a more systemic level to help address the issues that we're contending with in this community. And of course, the part of the issues that we're dealing with is the dehumanization of many of our systems of community members. So back to the original conversation we were having, what could arts and culture do in a situation with police violence. That's actually a really important question that we should be, we should deal with, I'm afraid to deal with it but we should be dealing with. Because it's what I saw in that interaction where George Floyd was killed, was a individual who dehumanized the person on the ground. That that person was ignored, their pleas were ignored, they were a thing, not a human being and that was the result. 

And so cultural leadership needs to be as much about understanding what culture means and where it comes from and re-inserting it back into these systems that have, done very successfully, dehumanized people. Both the people working in it and the community members. And also you know if you're in a position, or you have the privilege of working in a container where you can make a difference. Working towards that difference, being clear right about it and saying this is where I need to be, rather than doing the easy thing. I hope I haven't rambled on too much about it but that's just my first thoughts on it.

Sanjit: No, I think that's really great and I think it, what I'm struck by is that cultural work is hard and I think that that's something that we all feel like we can know and agree. But being able to articulate what leadership means through culture, it seems to me that involves an abrasive, a failure. It involves a greater degree of empathy than you may see in other leadership fields, at least that's some of the pieces I'm gleaning from what you're saying.

Gulgun: I would also argue it's about behavior. So one of the issues that we deal with in our work in the city is emphasizing to folks that policy is behavior and behavior is policy. And that rules, yes policy are also rules but those rules govern how we behave. And so cultural change is needed, not just rules change. And changing culture is very very hard because that's not just a system that's a whole person's life, you know. Where they come from, who they are, all that kind of stuff. But that's what’s needed in institutions such as the city, that those need to shift. 

And also within the arts and culture community, that we have a culture and a certain expectancy of where arts and culture belongs and where it doesn't belong, what it can do and what it can’t do. Our expectations of how we honor living within the arts, you know within the creative practice and that needs to change too. Because you know, culture is the environment in which we will swim. We kind of don't see it sometimes, but becoming aware of it is very very important to then say, how does it need to change. So behavior is a really important part of culture, not just the behavior at the collective level as well as at the personal level. And somebody who's in a position where they can contribute to that change is where leadership comes in, right? 

So in the city, showing where, showing up when there is a dehumanization of a staff person, let alone a community. Showing up when there's a process that is transnational and not taking into account the needs of a community or understanding the trauma the community has already gone through. And walking into a situation and saying here’s how we're going to do it and we're going to pretend the past hasn't happened. All of that stuff is where leaders need to address issues that have been historically not addressed. So behavior is really really important at every level. Both at the individual as well as at the elected level, or it's the front line city worker, all the way to a council member and the mayor.

Sanjit: And do you find it, do you find yourself sometimes feeling torn between your role as an official in your role as an official capacity representing the City of Minneapolis versus some things that, sometimes you would like to react to or you would like to say or you would like to respond to in a specific way?

Gulgun: Every single day, yes. That's a big yes. We talk very much in the city and those of us who are working towards racial equity in the city very much that we would step into these shoes that we didn't wear before. We walk into a job at the city and all the history comes with the shoes and being taken into account for that history. I don't think many people who take a job at the city are aware of that until they're in front of a community who's angry at you because of something that happened that you may not have been part of but now you are because you're in that position, it’s very very difficult. It's very difficult to hold both of those things to be true, both that you're a community member reacting to something as well as now in the institution that has caused the violence, it's very difficult. That said, there are rules that we within the city, where we can and cannot say things. I mean I don't think folks are aware that the communication sent out an email that says you may not say this, this, and this because it's now become a legal situation for example.

And so workplace culture and workplace rules take over and I would argue that would be the same in your position, in any other institution that anyone works in. That your workplace rules overcome your ability to speak for yourself, let alone for the, for the organization. I certainly, I’m not authorized to speak about certain things and there are some things I can speak for. But as a private citizen I have, I certainly have my own private feelings and thoughts and questions that every time, challenge me to show up at my job everyday. So I don't know anyone who in City who doesn't go through those feelings and thoughts and we talked a lot among city workers, about how challenging that is.

One other thing to mention though is that there's also this reality, this actual reality that we are or should be acknowledging, that the community is the city and the city is the community. What I mean by that is the folks who work inside the city go back to their homes out in the community. So that is actually a truth that we should all be acknowledging, and some of my colleagues show up take off their City uniforms or whatever they're doing and they walk onto the front lines of protest. So that's a reality that we don't often, do not often acknowledge. And what I ask, the questions that I ask my staff and certainly other staff, is what happens when you walk through those doors, what happens to you in an institution, can you– where is your free speech and what isn't your free speech, you know where can you speak? And that's where I think we all struggle is trying to know where the boundaries lie and where we can speak and where we can't.

Sanjit: I'm reminded a little bit of text from Michel Foucault, who gave a series of lectures in Berkeley. Which were then bundled and published by Semiotext called Fearless Speech where he talks about this idea of not free speech but how one speaks truth to power. And what are some of the confines and parameters of speaking truth to power. And it seems like whether we're talking about a culture that adopts the wearing of face masks now or what cultural imperatives to support financially and which ones to not support financially. Or how we're dealing with this brutal killing of a defenseless person of color. It seems to me dialogues regarding having platforms for fearless speech whether you're in government or outside of government are more important now than ever.

Gulgun: Absolutely and however I want to also point, as I said earlier the institution is really good at defending itself. So there are rules and procedures in place for when emergencies like this happen and those rules are very quick to come down and very quick to concentrate power. And so the folks you see speaking right now are the ones authorized to speak but then there are many people who aren't authorized to say things officially about situations such as the one we're experiencing. And yeah and I– but that's again not just a symptom of this city government that's a symptom of any institution, any business, any corporation that anyone works in. Where are the parameters of speech and then whether the institution is willing to listen to dissent, whether the institution is willing to uphold that as true as much as the official line or the official talking point. I think that's a question we all need to ask ourselves, we, as I said, we all have our personal perspectives on what we're going through. It's how we accommodate on popular perspectives and dissent on whether they are centered in our work as much as what the popular perspective is. And that is an issue of equity, of racial equity especially as well in any workplace that you know I would argue especially in this state which has you know I believe it's in about 63 or 68% white European origins, population of European origin. And that is you know what about the voices of difference, what about the voices of dissent, those folks who have had a different experience of living in this culture than the most popular. How are you centering their perspectives and allowing them to speak?

Sanjit: I couldn’t think of a better point to end this conversation for now. I’ve just appreciated hearing your broad ranging thoughts, and reflect on the incredible work that you're doing now and the perspective that you're bringing. So thank you very much for this time.

Gulgun: Thank you very much, I really appreciate you giving me this opportunity for a conversation with you.

Sanjit: Well I've been speaking with Gulgun Kayim, the director of arts culture and the creative economy of the City of Minneapolis, who is also an affiliate faculty with the theater and dance department at the University of Minnesota. And someone that I'm so fortunate to consider to be a friend and colleague,  I'm looking forward to the next time we're able to sit down with each other and talk more.