On connection, intergenerational collaboration, and radical hope for urgent times
Below is the full text of my intervention delivered at Culture Action Europe’s ‘Beyond the Obvious: United by Future Places’ Conference in Malmö, Sweden on 30 May 2024, during the panel titled “The Politics of Culture”, moderated by Lars Ebert, Secretary General of Culture Action Europe.
I was asked to speak about the urgencies of the younger generation: politicising culture or “culturising” politics. I want to start by saying that I cannot represent the entire young generation.
Speaking to a room of cultural workers and representatives, I’ve instead aimed to reflect on the urgencies felt by young people in the cultural field, drawing from insights gained through Culture Action Europe’s ‘Pop the Vote! Culture on the Ballot’ project, which has allowed me to exchange dialogue about political engagement with 44 other young artists and cultural workers from across Europe over the past three months.
In the climate we are living in, the three elements that I am about to mention can likely be related to not only by young people but also by older generations, and those three elements are: cynicism, disillusionment, and hopelessness.
When we think of the past week, the past 24 hours, I am almost certain that we have all felt some degree of either or all of them; whilst reading the news or whilst dealing with the values and the work that we are engaged with in the cultural field.
Many of us are losing faith in democracy, in economic systems, and in the very idea that politicians genuinely represent our hopes for the future.
Of course, some young people remain passive, perhaps because they’ve grown accustomed to the existing world order without having had to actively shape it. They may not realise the necessity of either a) safeguarding it if threatened or b) actively working to change it if it no longer serves our needs.
But some others — especially young cultural workers and artists — are deeply concerned and actively trying to make a difference. And what that looks like for us is that:
one minute we are protesting against war and authoritarianism;
the next, we are fighting corruption in government institutions;
the next minute, we are defending freedom of expression and the media;
the next we are urging governments to seriously address the climate crisis and the issue of climate justice;
the next we are trying to challenge the power of the capitalist lobby;
while doing all this, we are trying to figure out whether what we’re receiving is misinformation or the result of what the algorithm wants to feed us with;
and we are also trying to bring attention to underrepresented communities like refugees, because we also believe in practising solidarity.
In between all of that, we are trying to figure out how we are going to keep up with the soaring prices of rent. So we take on internships, traineeships, and if we’re lucky — jobs — in a sector where people are meant to lead with a sense of purpose (the cultural sector) — and we are often instead faced with the reality of people being completely burnt out, cynical, and tired of trying.
And while we are told that we are the generation that needs to fix the issues I just mentioned, to top it all off, apart from figuring out how to pay rent, we are also trying to figure out how to pay therapists, who we need to go see because of all these external forces present in our world which I just mentioned. And that therapist is expensive, because many in our world still believe that the mental health crisis is not really a crisis for our generation, meaning access to support is still a big issue and something we lack.
So what I think about the urgency of the younger generation is that many of us understand the urgency, we want to do something about it, we are doing something about it but … I have two key concerns:
a) how long can we realistically sustain our actions before we are also burnt out, cynical, and tired of trying?; and
b) there seems to me a double standard when older generations pass the baton and responsibility to us without considering changes to present decision-making processes and values that continue to lead us in the opposite direction — and this applies to politicians, to policymakers, but also to leaders of cultural organisations.
The situation is grim, but there are possibilities.
I’m afraid I started this off on a very grim note, and on what some might even describe as a typical rant of the younger generation who think their life is too hard.
But I am not here to rant, and despite the grim outlook, I am ready to pull my sleeves up. I simply don’t want to do it alone, and I would therefore like to offer instead some possibilities for a future in which young and old generations can work better together.
I am inspired by my friend and colleague, the Italian artist Manuela Colacicco, who responded to Matteo Salvini’s plans to limit the visibility of artists in the media, through an Instagram post in which - apart from many other poignant messages - she said: “we who create ask questions, we admit multiple answers, because reality is complex”.
So I want to talk now about these three possibilities: connection, empowerment through intergenerational collaboration, and hope — or event better — radical hope.
Possibility 1 — Connection
I’ve already mentioned mental health. There is a strong sense of isolation in our communities. The “epidemic of loneliness” is strongly affecting both young people and communities at large across Europe.
When you’re feeling lonely, firstly the crises seem even bigger, and secondly, you are going to find it harder to believe that you can stand up, act, and bring about some form of change.
There is also the issue of individualism, which is further fuelled by algorithms in digital environments, which put us more and more into boxes.
So we need a lot more connection, and if you look around, you will find that young people are taking an active cultural role in this — which sometimes is as simple and straightforward as creating ‘phone free zones’ or not allowing phones in cafes or places which were meant for us to come together and connect.
Such cultural movements should not be underestimated as a huge first step towards starting to bring about some sort of change in our world.
Possibility 2 — Empowerment through intergenerational collaboration
The second thing I want to talk about is the need for empowerment through intergenerational collaboration (specifically in the cultural sectors) and I stress this one as a key point that requires serious consideration and mature dialogue.
I strongly believe that we need to adopt more genuine methods of learning from each other, and more spaces where we can combine the experience of older generations with the urgency and hopes of younger ones.
In that process, we must avoid treating young people as mere sources of fresh ideas to tap into, and then stopping there.
Tokenism is dangerous and a trap that you can easily fall into. By tokenism, I mean — but not only — praising young people without action, seeking their opinions without intending to act, and giving them nominal roles without real opportunities for sustained and equal exchange as well as fair compensation.
Many young people often wonder why older generations have accepted to normalise the structures, power dynamics, and the systems that are making them adopt the approaches that they are.
I can personally understand that this might be the result of:
a) you being genuinely tired of fighting those systems, and
b) your sense of resilience and patience despite the realities you are faced with on a daily basis.
But in the urgent situation that we find our world in, this becomes more and more difficult to justify.
And so, very often, young people in the cultural sectors often face a choice: either join experienced organisations and conform — or just start your own thing from scratch.
But this dichotomy is very unsustainable and it would likely be much more effective if we are willing to come together, listen to each other, leverage each generation’s strengths, and find common grounds to achieve more effective outcomes that, in general, will also drain us all a bit less and allow us to focus our energies more sustainably.
Here I want to commend initiatives like Culture Action Europe’s ‘Pop the Vote’ project. Of course, this project exists within current structural limitations, but it represents a strong step in an effective direction.
We need to build on this momentum together and to ensure that young people in the cultural sectors can continue to sustain their engagement with communities around democracy beyond the current election cycle.
I also think about how we can maintain the European Parliament’s interest in young cultural and artistic voices beyond the level of instrumentalisation, and how we can bring our learnings from these three months back to cultural organisations that are active three-hundred and sixty-five days a year.
I also want to applaud the choice to invite young artists and cultural workers from this project on each panel at this conference.
However, remember that those of us speaking here cannot represent all young people, especially those at your local and national levels. So to the cultural organisations in the room, I say: find those voices, engage with them, and invite them onto your panels, your roundtables, your boards, your working groups, your teams, and in decision-making processes.
Our times call for risk-taking in nurturing intergenerational dialogue.
Back in Malta, where I’m originally from, a very small organisation (which was also the first Culture Action Europe member from Malta) took the risk on me at a young age.
They took me to conferences and networks, gave me an equal seat at the table, learned from me as much as I learned from them, to the extent that seven years later, I’ve moved to the Netherlands, but I still collaborate with them — because I recognise how that is an environment that has nurtured me and that still continues to welcome my criticism as a strength, rather than a threat.
Now this was a small organisation with very limited resources. Imagine what big organisations — with more resources (even if never enough) could do if they were open to risking a little bit more.
Internships are valuable for young people to gain experience and for cultural organisations to gain insight, but they can also easily turn into situations of inequality and unsustainability if we are not careful.
I also want to propose the idea of taking on young board members. This shouldn’t be a token group of young people making suggestions for experienced board members to consider, but rather a deliberate and equal process of integrating intergenerational voices into decision-making, which also enables us to understand the responsibilities that come with being part of that decision-making process.
So, there are many of us here in the room. Please brainstorm together with us. Please engage with us. Of course, that also goes for us — we need to engage with you; but if you’re working for a cultural organisation, you need to also recognise that you hold some form of power and resources — even if they are very limited — and which you need to choose how to use responsibly.
So please invite us to observe and contribute, and please get creative in finding ways to compensate us fairly for our contributions.
On a final note here, I also say, to both young and older generations: be ready to be uncomfortable. Of course there is going to be a clash of perspectives, ideologies, attitudes, and approaches — but let’s please embrace that diversity instead of viewing it as a conflict to the point that we shy away from it.
Possibility 3 — (Radical) hope
And then the final thing I want to talk about is radical hope.
I know that some of what I’ve just said or proposed may be interpreted by some of you as naivety, but I want to also assure you that — also through my work in policy environments — I am aware that change takes time, that it doesn’t happen overnight, and that big changes are often the result of very small minute actions sustained over a long period of time.
Change needs strength, perseverance, resilience, and lots of patience — the latter being something that us young people need to learn to nurture, because yes, we acknowledge that we are also often impatient as a result of our passion and understanding of the urgencies around us.
And nevertheless, despite knowing all this, I — not only as a young person but also as a young professional trying to build a future — find myself needing to be urgently critical because it’s ultimately our generation’s futures on the line.
And this is then where radical hope comes in. With my ‘Pop the Vote’ project, I have been exploring this theme of hope with local communities in Rotterdam through the community initiative ‘STORIES FOR HOPE’, and one thing I’ve learned is that we need to talk about hope more.
Do not mistake hope for wishful thinking. I am not talking about sitting down and hoping that things will get better, but rather about acknowledging what it is we hope for, so that we can then imagine alternative futures for our world, and actually start to take the actions needed in order to realise those hopes.
Radical hope specifically is based on an understanding of the past and a critical awareness of the present.
It is a reminder that we have been here before, and that possibilities — such as the three I just shared — exist.
There is strength in bringing our collective, intergenerational voices together, and I trust and believe that the cultural sector has the capacity — and dare I say, the responsibility — to set the example here. But that can only happen if we all — young and old(er) — are willing to come together, to hope, and also to act in the radical ways that our urgent times demand of all of us.
I close by referring back to Manuela’s words: “Hope frightens you because it breaks out of the doldrums of those who believe they cannot improve their condition. And I want to be revolutionary, I want to get my hands dirty to actually build it, a different life.”
