BE IT lived and breathed the idea of self care as a radical act.1 Particularly with the backdrop of Covid-19 and the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement around the murder of George Floyd. Throughout the programme the team and cohort cared for themselves and each other in acknowledgement of the collective trauma we were all facing.
Placing care and people’s individual needs for rest, recognition and recovery at different points in the programme created an ebb and flow of work (see Slow Inclusion) whilst establishing mutual trust and respect. It allowed the necessary vulnerability needed to explore and dismantle traditional forms of leadership – to rebuild something more care-full in it’s place.
Kiara Corales, Cohort 1
I just want to say how incredible it has been in terms of taking very small decisive steps and constantly checking in and making sure everyone is at the same level of understanding and making sure everyone’s prioritising their own needs.
cohort 2 interview
I think I have learnt about rest and just allowing myself to be completely human and prioritise rest and still be able to create the art that I think is really important to be making. There’s something important about rest and making sure that I look after myself, self-care. It’s about the sustainability of the work I want to be doing, I feel like I’ve been equipped with a foundation for a life long journey that’s embodying everything Rising stands for about learning, growth and collaboration which has deeply changed how I want to continue being an artist and I feel good about that. Before I saw art as sometimes quite isolating but now I see it as the opposite.
cohort 1 interview
It’s been an eye opener for me and it felt weird to adjust to it. It was like an adjustment period of oh can I have my camera off. It’s a great thing to adjust to, it’s been an eye opener in that respect and has added lots of value to me in the respect of like setting boundaries for myself when I’m in other places, which is empowering. I would feel comfortable saying something if I’m uncomfortable when previously I would have thought I’m not worthy of that space I suppose.
cohort 2 interview
The way we engage with the cohort occasionally knocks something into place and I’m learning to care for and look after myself, with the way it’s being run and given the Be IT role models who have care as the priority.
cohort 2 interview
What surprised me is definitely the level at which they practiced what they preach, so things not just being words or ways of being, but actually they created a culture where they live by what they say and there are loads of examples of that, around co-creation and how much influence we had on the structure and being involved in helping set up the second round, which is great.
cohort 1 interview
when I compare Be it as it is just this environment of love and care and everyone is really supporting you and you can feel that energy or having that really extreme end of the spectrum of how we see the world and stepping into other spaces and seeing the opposite. Feeling the environment is not really that balanced, you start to learn and identify what bad leadership is around you?
cohort 2 interview
Rising I’ve learned to understand they put a lot of care in their content and it’s shown in the way the artists they work with, it’s shown they have this value system where care is a big part of it, empowerment is a big part of it, collaboration is a big part of it so those things have been apparent from the get go. For me to now create something, there is a quality of work rather than a quantity, so it’s taught me how to take care of myself as an artist.
cohort 2 interview
Footnotes
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paraphrasing of the quote from Audre Lorde: “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” ↩