HOLDING TENSIONS: On Diving Deeper into Community Engagement

By: Bridget Woodbury, Director of Engagement

As the Director of Engagement for Creative Generation, a lot of my work is surprisingly internal — it often centers around how we engage with our community and collaborators — but sometimes I do get to do some work directly with all of you. That work is usually to help communicate complicated ideas and information or articulate nebulous concepts. I touch on nearly every project in the final stages when I design publications recapping specific programs and research. But my favorite work to do is Adaptive Impact Planning. You can learn more about that full process here, but the notable part, as far as holding tensions goes, is that we spend a great deal of time learning about the communities of which our collaborators are a part.

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I procrastinated for a long time writing this blog post. The concept of ‘holding tensions’ is so broad. It touches everything in my work, my creative practice, and my personal life — and probably yours too. I was overwhelmed trying to figure out which things to talk about. 

I realized the breadth of the topic leant itself perfectly to a ‘Best of’ list, culled from the answers collaborators have given to one of my favorite questions: “what surprised you?”

We ask this question to find disconnects between our collaborators and their communities: gaps in knowledge, different priorities, hidden challenges. So I wanted to share some answers we’ve heard and explore the ways in which they illustrate this concept.

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“I was shocked at the candor”

Often, we hear from organizational leaders who cannot believe how honest their audiences are being. I personally believe that part of the surprise stems from the fact that while a leader may merely be talking about their work, community members are talking about their whole lives.

We would never get anything done if all we did was empathize, but we also can’t effectively serve a mission or our values if we never consider the impact our work has.

This comment presents an opportunity to hold tension between big picture decision-making and the well-being of individual community members. Perhaps a performing arts organization might explain more of the logistical constraints behind seasonal planning when it announces next year’s program and creates a way for audiences to respond. Thus, balancing the need to make a decision with the need to understand the impact of that decision. A consistent conversational exchange might eliminate some of the surprise when you ask for direct feedback.

“I hadn’t considered that people don’t feel comfortable being themselves in all spaces”

Our lived experiences are so vastly different, regardless of what we might have in common. I grew up with profound privilege in most ways — but I also didn’t know any out queer women until college and didn’t come out as gay until I was nearly 30. My sense of self will then necessarily be different from a straight person that grew up where and how I did.

That’s just one axis out of an unlimited number of possible identities and experiences. 

When folks are not showing up as their whole selves in a given space, it can be because they know that it does not always benefit them to show a room full of people their entire self. They are holding tension between honest self-expression and having their needs met or even a general feel of safety. 

Sometimes this is good — we don’t generally want folks at the symphony interrupting the music to share that it’s made them sad, for example — but sometimes we make folks feel unwelcome, as they are. Perhaps there’s a dress code for that classical concert that seems obvious to some, but makes others feel that they can’t attend at all, if all they own is jeans. 

It’s certainly worth revisiting policies and seeing which are helping achieve a mission and which might be vestigial. 

“I’m surprised at how many people didn’t know we have___”

This is by far the most common kind of comment I encounter when sharing the results of conversations and discussions. 

“We offer free parking!” 

“We have an audio description of our collection!” 

“We have a whole exhibit featuring the work of Black Impressionists!” 

Okay! How are you telling people about those things? Do they even want them?

This is the tension between getting things done and doing them right. We all feel beset on all sides by things we could, should, and must do, but what’s the point of checking a box if it won’t have a positive impact on your collaborators and community in the long run?

You have free parking, but 70% of your attendees rely on a bus that stops running at 2pm on the weekend. Maybe you have an audio description of your collection, but blind audiences have no way to know that. If you program a whole exhibit to elevate Black Impressionists, you might have to work to get the attention of folks that have only ever seen you program Western Realism.

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Surface tension is the phenomenon that causes droplets of water to bead instead of laying flat across a surface. The water molecules that are on the surface don’t have contact with water on every side, so they expend more energy to attach the other molecules that they ARE touching. It creates a sort of skin or film that holds the water together and minimizes how many droplets are exposed. When surface tension is disturbed by a solid item — a finger poking a raindrop — the liquid fights to maintain this shape. 

If you add another liquid, like soap to water, it disrupts the water’s ability to adhere to itself and it no longer beads up.

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If you recognize yourself or your colleagues or collaborators in some of the statements or surprises I shared, consider this my invitation to look a little deeper into your community. Where are there tensions you don’t know about? What tensions are people holding for you? Are there systemic tensions that perhaps we can put down? 

Despite our absolute best efforts, sometimes we find ourselves in our own little bubbles, but we can always choose to introduce new information into those bubbles, which improves our programming, strengthens our relationships, and welcomes new people into our communities.

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Sure, we can choose to preserve the still surface of a bucket of water — but we could also add some soap and let our neighbors use it to wash their cars.