HOLDING TENSIONS: Balancing Local Actions and Global Changes

By: Jeff M.Poulin

As the final author in Creative Generation’s “Holding Tensions” series as part of our Campaign 2022: Building Creative Futures, I have the distinct pleasure of summarizing an incredible amount of ideas.

However, I have been thinking about this topic since we began the process back in late Summer 2022. I’ll illustrate the scene for you: Every summer, the team at Creative Generation gets together for an in-person retreat in Frederick, Maryland where we introspectively examine our contributions to the world as individuals, how those contributions integrate with our work as a Collective, and the ways in which we collaborate with others. Almost immediately, I left the retreat and traveled abroad to the 6th International Teaching Artists Collaborative conference in Oslo, Norway where we thought about local actions in the global context.

Two experiences on almost the exact same topic… but in two totally different realms.

Upon my return home, I jotted down some notes on the topic of “holding tensions” and kept them in a folder until now at the start of 2023. I’ve just broken them out – and having read the whole series from my colleagues – I feel affirmed in my reflections from both then and now.

Starting with Process

As we started this year’s campaign, Building Creative Futures, we framed our quarterly topics in order to explore the four inquiry based processes, which emerged from a global study. 

In this graphic we see four processes, which were originally shared in the 2020 Young & Emerging Leaders Forum:

  • Unlearning (represented by a thought bubble): The process of questioning the status quo, norms, and current definitions of leadership; reflecting on how privilege and advantage have impacted your own positionality in the field; and interrogating the pathways, credentials, or assumed qualities of leaders in the past – read the series here.

  • Bridging (represented by a bridge between our current place and future place): The process of building connections between self and others; create pathways between communities of practice; and de-silo arts/culture, education, and allied fields of practice – read the series here.

  • Navigating: (represented by a winding river): The process of responding to broader issues within your context (community, nation, world); demonstrating flexibility among changing circumstances; and remaining resilient with goals and a vision for the future in mind – read the series here.

  • Holding Tensions (represented by two people on a see-saw): The process of balancing divergent or converging influences on your work; honoring differences and drawing on similarities between people and experiences; and doing the work, while seeking to make yourself redundant – read the series here.

Just as this entire body of work is viewed as a process towards ‘distributed collective leadership,’ so, too, is ‘holding tensions’ a process of self-work-organization discovery.

It Begins with the Self 

In May 2022, our own Jordan Campbell wrote a blog titled, “Professional Identities In Arts & Cultural Education: “Arts Hybrids” As Cultural Knowledge Brokers,” outlining a study Creative Generation had embarked on to understand the complex relationship between our personal and professional identities. At its very core, the concept of “arts hybrids” or “multihyphenates” is a tension that we all hold as practitioners and leaders in the intersectional fields of culture, education, and social change.

At Creative Generation, we have intentionally constructed a Collective of multihyphenates, fostering a space where individual members bring both their personal and professional identities together. We believe that this strengthens our collective work – both internally and with external collaborators – when we can be artists, educators, researchers, administrators, storytellers, activists and more. 

Embracing our multi hyphenated nature as one that is not divided, but rather unified is essentially in our work. I invite you to revisit some of the ideas shared by my colleagues:

We can see here that when we embrace the integrated nature of our diverse identities as individuals and as a collective, we are able to elevate knowledge beyond just own personal, local experience to a more broad and global applicability.

Integrating Work

In June, I wrote about the topic of bridging in relation to systems change to improve pedagogy, policy, and practice; this work emerged from Creative Generation’s foundational research. In 2022, we engaged in a number of projects which explored the topic of arts integration, and published our preliminary thoughts on a new, enriched understanding of arts integration: One that intentionally integrates artistic, cultural, and creative practice with elements of education and human development.

As educators, artists, and community organization leaders charged with the realization of arts integration, we must hold the tensions between the artistic, cultural, and creative practices, and those elements of education and human development. As we become more comfortable integrating our multi hyphenate identities, we likely become more comfortable integrating these two practices. 

At Creative Generation, we seek to integrate our work in this way as articulated in our new Theory of Change and Ethnographic & Heuristic Inquiry Model, both of which embed the arts as a central component. Within these internal processes, one will experience creative practice as a research method, data inquiry, professional development, and communication of knowledge.

Embracing integrated ways of working is essential to our work and manifests in myriad ways. I invite you to revisit some of the ideas shared by my colleagues:

Throughout the last four years of our work at Creative Generation, we have noted that when we integrate artistic, cultural, and creative practice within our ways of working – be they educational, organizations, or beyond – that certain global applications of local knowledge become apparent. 

A Focus on Organizational Change

In March of last year, I wrote a piece titled, “Towards Being A Values-Forward Organization,” which outlined our journey of identifying, articulating, and embracing our values as an organization. As we – together as a collective of individuals – embraced the holding of tensions, we must recognize the unique experience of holding those tensions together, as an organization.

Maintaining adherence to your stated values is a tension, often overlooked. Too often, organizations proclaim public statements of values with little or no follow through with actions – this was particularly noted in the “We Can’t Go Back” series co-created by Teaching Artistry with Courtney J. Boddie and Creative Generation, resulting in the publication, “Where Do We Go From Here?” At Creative Generation, we seek to hold the tensions between our values and extra-organizational forces in our work through constant reflection and affirmation. Here are a few ways we have operationalized this:

  • We have written extensively, communicated internally and externally, and regularly revisit our values and commitments. 

  • We have produced a decision-making framework – created through the Adaptive Impact Planning process – and shared how we employ it. 

  • We created a values-based personal and collective development planning process to hold ourselves accountable to consistent growth and collaborative development – more will be written about this soon!

I’ll be honest, though, this is the tension that is hardest to hold. What do you do when your values get compromised by an external stakeholder? How do you systematically resist oppressive systems, but also rely on them to make a living? How can you balance your beliefs and convictions with slow-moving change?

Well, these we still grapple with – and will likely continue to do so forever.

In the meantime, I invite you to revisit some of the ideas shared by my colleagues:

Though we are still learning, it is apparent that what we learn in the microcosm of our own organization, can be extrapolated to inform others in their work around the globe. And we are committed to sharing that.

Bringing Local Actions to Global Changes

Throughout 2022, I feel like I was asked the question about scalability one million times. (Well, that’s an exaggeration, however, we did co-produce a publication on the matter, read it here).

I am not trying to make the case that every local action should contribute to global change – but I am here to say that there is potential for that to occur. Imagine a world where folks operated in such a way that they valued local action in the same way that they valued global changes. Imagine if we, as practitioners, identified from the start the opportunities to scale work. Imagine if we intentionally didn’t in certain contexts.

The possibilities are endless, really. In some cases, we must scale what we learn locally to impact global change; and in others we absolutely should not. What can be learned, no matter what the appropriate decision, is not done in a vacuum – we first begin with ourselves, then consider our work, and conclude with our collaborations with others. This is the process that can grow a local action to a global change – and it’s time for our community of practice to engage.