“Don’t go to an ATM if you’re hoping to get a muffin, because no matter how much you argue with the ATM, it is not going to give you a muffin because it’s an ATM.” – Seth Godin

We’ve been thinking a lot about institutions, the good, the bad and the ugly. There are the government institutions, funding institutions, educational institutions, civic institutions, big institutions, small institutions, community institutions, undocumented institutions, to name a few. We are both grappling with our own roles as authors of this manifesto whilst working inside institutions with a capital I, and we have some questions with a capital Q.

Our first: is for you, dear reader.

What do you think we need from our institutions? By “our institutions” we mean the cultural entities that act as operatives in our sector and with/within/despite whom we do our work. Think big, medium, small, think bricks and mortar, think groups of people doing things, think brands and logos, think not for profits; with this we hope several examples come to mind. Institutions have a way of inserting themselves  -well – truly – just about anywhere. 

But what are they, really?

Dictionary.com defines them as something familiar, something established, a kind of organization with a specific purpose. It’s really more of a verb than a noun. We are constantly making things familiar, organizing them, structuring them so we can repeat them, constantly instituting. It feels like a superpower when considered in this way. All kinds of amazing things have been made possible because of our instituting powers as humans. We went to the moon, cured a million diseases, can watch a South Korean cat in South Korea be a cat in real time from anywhere in the world. 

But you can’t do any of these things, the moon, the cure, the #realtimekoreancat, without the institution!

If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

So with this, comes our challenge. If it ain’t exactly broke but it ain’t exactly working… what to do? When 13% of music venues have shuttered in Toronto since the pandemic and the unemployment rate is on a consistent climb, artists are being priced out of rents in urban centres and government funding for the arts is being clawed back at a breathtaking rate…how can we, in good conscience, not look at our institutions and ask what’s not working?

It’s a tough question for institutions. What’s not working?

We are so good at instituting, that the struggle to change anything is real. How do we know that a millimetre move to the right will improve things when it might not? The certainty of the creaking floor feels better than risking the investigation of what makes it creak;  with that, how does institute move to de-institute or perhaps re-institute. Institutions go to great lengths to build defenses against outside threats. Institutional immune systems  attack anything new and different (like a virus or a new idea) to protect the mainframe. Institutions like grooves, ruts, marks, their familiarity is comforting and comfort very quickly becomes a lens to our world view. This makes sense. But common sense is also an institution. And can delimit something brilliant that lives on the other side of common sense. Institutions are like a trap. They can kill the predator without recognizing that feeding it might have transformed prey into a pet. In both instances the institution holds the keys and there will always be outsiders and insiders alike looking for food. We all need to eat. Institutions are  – therefore – here to stay. 

In the US, with the imminent instatement of a rerun President, we are watching with a sense of dread… while a sense of comfort and familiarity is being withdrawn. The media that we read intends to crush the virus or the new ideas that the rerun president is employing. Most of Trump’s nominees are drunks or cheats or racists or sex offenders; all of them are WRONG. But the media that we don’t tend to read has the exact opposite response to Trump’s nominees. And as of right now, that story, the story of change, has a lot more battering power than the walls built by boomers who placed flowers in the barrels of guns. That protest and the walls built by it are almost sixty years old. It’s over. Do we wish it to be over? Well, yes, sure, of course we do. Vietnam was so last century.  But…do we wish it to be over in the ways it looks like it is ending? No. We don’t. But it is ending in the way that it is. This is what is happening. 

So…to survive…to possibly, eventually, to thrive…

We need re-instituting, de-instituting, and new instituting. We’ll wager a bet that the bigger and older the institution the harder all of this feels and the bigger the need to figure it out. 

But reinstituting means accepting the reality. The reality is that for now, things are changing. Promises that we lived by, housing, healthcare, compassion, have been slipping away.

But what about ART?

No! Not the right question. (we asked it, don’t worry!)

Okay,

“But what about respite?”

“better…”

“Relief and repair?”

“Better…”

“What about our spirits?”

“Best yet!”

“What about getting a break from the storm, so that we can live to fight another day? What about that?

“Yes!”

What about that question?

There is a famous study about drowning rats and the pop culture conclusion drawn from it was the human need for hope. We wonder if it might also be possible to conclude that the experiment suggests that what humans need is a break. Like “gimme a break”. That without this taken literally, humans, and therefore institutions not only can’t catch up, they can’t thrive.

Is it possible for institutions in this moment of significant global change to do things differently? Can institutions become spaces that look at respite, relief and repair, that care for our spirits,  so that we can live to fight another day? Is this possible? And if not, why not?

“So, yeah: I’m worried about our institutions. I’m angry at our institutions. I don’t want to defend them. I want them to work.” Ezra Klein November 22, 2024

What does a “working institution” mean in the cultural sphere?

This seems to us to be the fundamental question. 

Because, our institutions have an important role. They are our memory. Our yesterday is informing our present and they – government institutions, funding institutions, educational institutions, civic institutions, big institutions, small institutions, community institutions, undocumented institutions – will be the things we look to when the dust settles.  But there is a seduction in hindsight – it’s 20/20 (though we’d argue it’s also rose-tinted) and the future… well, let’s just say it is full of unknowns and many wrong turns lie ahead. Institutions can insulate but they have to be very smart. And they will likely have to change and accept change in order to survive and in order that they can be of service. 

The tectonic shifts continue. Recently it was announced that Berlin, the triple platinum standard in culture, is facing a major funding cut – 13% of its almost €1 billion cultural budget (Fun fact: Toronto’s culture budget is about $100 mil CAD, much less than the ENTIRETY of the “drastic and brutal” cuts Berlin is facing). And this was done with less than 2 months notice. 

Annica is the Buddhist term for impermanence,  it shows in many religions and philosophies; this too shall pass.

Accepting reality doesn’t mean laying down and giving up. It means quite the opposite. It means being honest about whether we’re making muffins or giving out cash.

What it doesn’t mean is defending our institutions dogmatically or tearing them down recklessly. It’s complicated, we know. 

Institutions gave us yesterday, and we will need that yesterday tomorrow but for today, don’t waste this moment by using the same recipe when all the ingredients are changing. You might make muffins again. And people may want them when you do. But for now, how can institutions truly help?

Like we said; we have questions with a capital Q. What about you?