Healing & Dealing

The Healing & Dealing pilot programme was realised by the Finnish Cultural Institute for the Benelux in Helsinki and in Brussels in the spring of 2022. The concept had a lot of positive interest from different international partners already early into the planning stages of the project. The two mirror events were overall well received and based on the feedback from participants the conversations and workshops held were much needed in order to improve the social relationship between the two groups. Equally, the idea of promoting tools for well-being towards the black community, giving the participants the room and space to breathe and exist, was very welcomed among the invitees.

The Healing Day was realised in Belgium in June 2022, and was a day for black women and non-binary participants to come together in order to simply exist as humans, as opposed to constantly feeling pushed into the narrow stereotypes and collectives that they are often categorised into. The Finnish Cultural Institute for the Benelux invited guests from Finland, the Netherlands and Belgium to part-take in the day. In total the group consisted of eight participants with three persons facilitating the day.

The Healing day was facilitated by Curator and Cultural Organiser Isabelle N’diaye and Mindfulness Coach Céline Gaza, who created a space in Café Congo in Brussels, where everyone was safe and welcome to express and embrace all of their feelings. New connections and bonds were made, and the participants expressed feelings of gratitude towards the event and its focus on shared experiences, community, and self-care. Many of the participants had never been in a safe space before and some got to feel belonging for the first time in their lives.

The Dealing workshops were organised in Helsinki in May 2022 as part of the annual #StopHatredNow festival, and consisted of a Whiteness Aerobics workshop that gave white cultural workers and other participating professionals perspective and tools on how to respond when faced by racist behaviour – either by witnessing such behaviour, or by being challenged as an instigator of the said behaviour. The holistic approach helped the participants to better understand their own emotional and physical responses to unpleasant social situations and interactions, and thereby were able to work on their own approaches to such challenges in the future. The workshop was delivered once online and once in person at the Cultural Centre Caisa, and was developed and facilitated by multidisciplinary artist Lehmus Murtomaa. The Dealing workshops were aimed at white participants from the cultural sector, but were also open to a wider audience. Both workshops were booked at capacity, with a total of 48 persons attending.

The Healing & Dealing programme was born out of the urge to shift the responsibility of anti-racist praxis in culture from black communities to white organisations, and to promote self-care and healing practices for black communities. Tackling racism and the implementation of anti-racist praxis has been researched and discussed on a national level in Finland as well as within EU-policy. Equally, the Finnish Call to Action spurred in the aftermath of the 2020 Black Lives Matters protests in Europe challenges cultural institutions to look over their internal praxis’s, demanding improved conditions for non-white actors on the field and challenging the dominating social norms in the cultural sector. And not without reason – as a study on quality of life among persons of African descent in Europe shows Finland as one of the most racist countries in the region, with the highest recorded numbers of racist harassment (63%) and violence motivated by racism (14%).[1] Systematic racism is embedded in white European society at a structural level, and in Finland the importance of recognition and cooperation with local communities and municipalities are key factors in the efforts for change.[2]

In Finland, one in ten inhabitants are of foreign descent, and this number increases to one in five in the Helsinki metropolitan area, of which Somali descendants make up the largest non-European population. Today, Afro-Finns constitute the largest second-generation immigrant population, of which the majority resides in the Helsinki region. Yet the black population and communities still face scrutiny and discrimination as well spatial marginalisation. In the visualisations of Finland, the dominant image of the cultural landscape still omits BIPOC populations both in terms of heritage and the notion of Finnishness.[3]

As arts and culture functioning as a driving force for change, much of the cultural sector are working towards and have made efforts to improve their conditions and programme output to better reflect an inclusive and more diverse image of Finland. However, the progress is slow, and often even the internal best efforts rely on education and advise (often unsolicited and not reimbursed) from black actors either working in or with the institutions in question. In addition, much of the efforts made are in the format of workshops and education about the differences between the white majority and black minority in Finland, which maintains the minority groups as “others”.

Staff education about cultural differences is seen to suffice as an anti-racist effort to improve the internal working conditions. This method of white innocence merely shift the reoccurring issues, misunderstandings, and micro-aggressions aside under the label “we are still learning”, but with little long-standing progress shown.[4] Shallow attempts at structural change and anti-racist agendas can even prove counteractive, where non-white cultural aspects are presented in forms of celebration, instead of recognition of rights, cultural heritage, as well as identities.[5] 

The implementation of safer working environments and creative spaces are not simple principles to add to an institution which is already dominated by a white institutional structure, but requires tools, new methods of working, and continuous self-reflection. The Healing & Dealing programme takes both communities into account – the black artistic/cultural community and the white artistic/cultural community – as collaborating entities for structural change and accountability, where each entity is given their own safe space to grow. The notion of accountability is not placed on white institutions for change, but on the workers that function, evolve, and develop the institutions’ internal structures. The subject of responsibility is approached with an understanding for implications of the personal role in a white supremacist society, given tools on how to encounter and challenge injustices. The notion of healing and self-assessing is given further tools of examination, by widening professional and support networks. 

References:

[1] Being Black in the EU: Second European Union Minorities and Discrimination Survey. Summary, (2018), EU-MIDIS II, European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, pp. 2. Retrieved from: https://fra.europa.eu/sites/default/files/fra_uploads/fra-2019-being-black-in-the-eu-summary_en.pdf [23.08.2022]; “Finland among most racist countries in EU, study says”, YLE news, (29.11.2018), online. Retrieved from: https://yle.fi/news/3-10531670 [23.08.2022].

[2] An Equal Finland: Government Action Plan for Combating. Racism and Promoting Good Relations between Population Groups, Publications of the Ministry of Justice, Memorandums and statements 2022:2, Ministry of Justice Finland, pp.48. Retrieved from: https://julkaisut.valtioneuvosto.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/163737/OM_2022_2_ML.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y[23.08.2022].

[3] See Kelekay, J. 2022. “‘We’re Not All Thugs in the East’: The Racial Politics of Place in Afro-Finnish Hip Hop.” In Finnishness, Whiteness and Coloniality, edited by J. Hoegaerts, T. Liimatainen, L. Hekanaho and E. Peterson, 207–37. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.33134/HUP-17-9; Mäkelä, H. H. 2022. “Visualizing Heritage, Ethnicity and Gender Bodily Representations of Finnishness in the Photographs of the National Inventory of Living Heritage.” In Finnishness, Whiteness and Coloniality, edited by J. Hoegaerts, T. Liimatainen, L. Hekanaho and E. Peterson, 41–71. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.33134/HUP-17-3.

[4] Kuokkanen, R. 2022. “All I See Is White: The Colonial Problem in Finland.” In Finnishness, Whiteness and Coloniality, edited by J. Hoegaerts, T. Liimatainen, L. Hekanaho and E. Peterson, 291–314, pp. 292. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. DOI: https://doi.org /10.33134/HUP-17-12. The notion of “innocence” in white vs racialized context is extensively discussed in the different research approaches in this volume on Finnish coloniality, and can be further examined in Wekker, G. 2016. White Innocence: Paradoxes of Colonialism and Race. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

[5] Ibid.