Ola! Hej! Hello!
We’re Camila and Trine – co-founders and artistic directors of Foreign Affairs. This year we started keeping a journal: reflecting on our practice, on the balance between art-making and producing, and on what it means to lead a company together after 16 years.
Working so closely for so long is our greatest strength – but sometimes we get lost in the we. So we’re trying to carve out space to really sit with our individual perspectives, and see where we each find ourselves in the work.
To guide our reflections we ‘re using three prompts:
- Where are we / what’s happening?
- What is it bringing up?
- What are we carrying forward?
We’re sharing it here in case it’s useful to other theatre-makers. It’s not polished – just honest, immediate responses. A diary, essentially.
Camila & Trine x
Where we are / What’s happening
Digesting it all. The ideas, the enthusiasm, commitment, and generosity of everyone!
The contributions and support from the team. Caring.
Everyone’s involvement and dedication. Mind-blowing!
Seven days – two days focussing on translation, five days focussing on the company and our overall practice – seven days looking at how we shape the next phase of the company in a way that honours our journey so far, but also brings into the conversation the people who have informed and influenced everything so far – the Artist Steering Group (ASG).
Genuinely a mind-blowing process – it wasn’t that I was surprised by the group’s commitment to our work, but I was genuinely blown away by how invested everyone was. In the process of looking back, thinking about where we are now, and looking into the future. How can we take FA from here to there – with there being something none of us quite know yet.
Thinking of it as an organisational development process, it feels odd to reflect on it within this journal entry set-up – it’s not really artistic or creative practice … or is it?! And honestly, I think this has been part of the battle all these years – trying to split the running of the company and the producing of projects from the artistic and creative work. So maybe it’s time to shift that thinking. Running a company, facilitating space, holding a room – these are creative acts too.
What it’s bringing up
Surprise. In awe of everyone’s dedication, willingness and readiness to move forward, make things happen. Ownership. Individuality but togetherness. Collaboration.
Navigating many, many things. Schedules, energy levels, expectations, pov, logistics, relationships…
Coordination and coordinate. A sort of ‘restart’ 16 years down the line, older, wiser (are we?), more experienced, knowledgeable. Sense of direction. Road maps that are more intricate and complex, with many intersections. Clarity. Hands on deck – the time is now!
Conceptualising and designing new structures. Finding our ground within new structures,
Roles. Avengers!
Madness and keeping up with LOADS of coffee!
Return to origins from a new perspective. Many points of view. Expansion. More arms and legs.
More than any of the season’s projects, this brought up a sense of ambition that we don’t always resource properly. Planning seven days of facilitated exercises and frameworks – allowing us to reflect, think and imagine whilst still working towards a goal (a fairly movable goalpost) – took much more time and energy than we had considered or planned for. We had the skills and experience to do it, but we hadn’t thought it through. This was one of those lessons we really didn’t need to learn at the time, yet I’m glad we did.
With that comes a sense of us continuing to devalue what it is that we actually do. And I think it’s a bit of both – internal and external – but mainly internal. For so long we just did whatever it takes without much thought to paying ourselves properly, and that has sort of stuck with us. So when it comes to budgeting a project, we’re reluctant to budget for the time we actually put in. The sector doesn’t help – funders rarely resource this kind of work adequately – but if we’re honest, we’ve absorbed that and made it our own.
And then there’s the harder thing to say: we’re tired. Physically and emotionally. With our ambitions and projects only growing, capacity is a real issue. We simply can’t continue the way we have – we’re on the edge of burnout, and we know it.
What we’re carrying forward
Stepping up. Accountability. It’s us, but more of us.
Being bold, brave(r) and generous.
Capacity – to be considered, assessed at all times. Brain capacity 🤯😅
Sharing our work – with our close teams – with the wider people. Feelings of belonging. Asking together. Finding some answers, together!
The communal lunch – so much more than just food!
Sense of direction. The right direction. Embracing mistakes. Learning.
Reassessing. Changing.
Taking the next steps, a ‘joint’ journey. Decisions.
Positioning ourselves. Ownership.
This is genuinely exciting – moving forward with a plan to shift how we operate, working more closely with our Artist Steering Group and changing how we lead the company, so that it’s not just the two of us but still recognises that we are the founders and artistic directors who have put sweat, blood and tears into this – a little dramatic, but not really that far from the truth.
As a starting point, we’re testing a model that involves the steering group in a more traditional steering function – regular meetings and discussions around artistic and strategic decisions – whilst the members continue to be core artists and support with specific focused work.
I’m genuinely excited and less apprehensive than I thought I’d be. I think the idea of making decisions differently is daunting – it’s always just been the two of us having the final say, and in that way it’s always been straightforward. But maybe what’s shifted is the realisation that we’re not actually changing how we work too much as the group informally has always been steering – we’re making small steps towards big change. One step at a time.