Dear Artists Without Frontiers
I met Sirus Malakooty last year. We talked about his idea for a internet based network through which artists all over the world could share their ideas, hopes and problems. I took his use of the word "artist" to mean those who work or are trying to work in any creative field. I was keen to be involved and was one of a small group who met in London to push forward the idea. Together with Abol Froushan, I wrote the original mission statement and came up with the name Artists Without Frontiers. Most names that had any relevance to our project were already taken, things like "Creative Web" or "Artists Together" - we tried nearly a hundred.
Now, finally, we are up and running. I look at the website and ask myself: "Is this how I imagined things?"
On a first, big, positive note, AWF has happened. More than three hundred of us have already become part of the network.
However I have some criticisms. Rather than just share these with Sirus or Abol or Nathalie or others in the founding group, I have decided to go public. I always thought that AWF should become what its members want it to be. I'm looking for mutuality and interdependence; I want a community. I hope this letter will generate discussion so that AWF may grow to reflect its members aspirations.
I don't like the way in which AWF introduces itself to potential members - its bureaucratic. Straight off, comes the request to fill in a form. I hate forms. Why should I define myself according to the categories that some guy has decided in order make the web design look smarter. The potential member should be able to get to know us a bit first and then tell us the personal things that they choose: things that perhaps they feel are pertinent to their work or simply that they want other members to know. Take for example the question about Nationality. What's that about? Nationality is merely a political concept that doesn't speak to me of the individual or their work. If I look up another AWF member I'll be curious to know where they were born, where they grew up. I'll be interested in what their language is, or languages. I'll be fascinated to hear about the cultural influences that have marked them. The membership form should be freer, more of a personal introduction. Yes, it can contain useful headings to guide us and help stop us rambling on too much - but basically it should be OUR tool of communication.
What do you all think about the list of artistic activities by which we are asked to define ourselves? In principle, why should someone designing a website decide what constitutes a creative activity? In practice, it is difficult to make it work satisfactorily. I am an actor. I also try to write, have directed and led workshops. I have published newspaper articles and made a radio documentary. What is my category? Cinema sound recordists are often creative - where do they go? More broadly defined divisions might be easier. How about: Performing Arts, Visual Arts, Music, Writers and (perhaps) New Media. Do we need categories on the Home Page? If so, what should they be?
Sirus showed me several pages of questions from members and wanted my opinion about how he should answer them. Some of the questions were practical, concerning the website structure and what we can do with it. Those questions will be answered elsewhere on this site. Other questions were more philosophical or political. I said: don't even try to answer them. AWF cannot be a fount of wisdom. The people who started this are just like everybody else: guys who love working creatively and, like everybody else, are struggling to make a go of it. I have no desire to be part of a group that tries to define how the world should be run and I am sceptical of anyone who claims to know. I think all our aims can be summed up in one guiding principle:
AWF IS A SELF-HELP NETWORK OF ARTISTS WHO, ALONGSIDE THEIR OWN WORK BELIEVE IN AND, WHERE THEY CAN, WILL PROMOTE FREEDOM FOR ALL THOSE WORKING IN ANY CREATIVE FIELD. (By "freedom" I refer to all human rights.)
This promotion can effected only by the strength of the membership, us, using whatever influence we have as individuals and as a body. I am talking, again, about mutual aid. But AWF as a body cannot make pronouncements like: "We campaign for Peace and against War", as someone asked. If you publish in the magazine a poem describing the horrors of war, good; if your local music school has been destroyed by conflict and you ask if anyone can help find the means to re-establish it, good. These things we can or certainly hope one day to be able to do.
AWF is a network. It will be as good as the people who join to it.
I see no reason why some members cannot have a political debate that is connected to their work; afterall, we believe passionately in freedom of expression. But AWF must stay out of it. AWF is the common ground, the meeting place, the network.
So, I became part of AWF because I wanted in some small way, through mutual aid (again!), to help fellow artists. But that is only part of it. We can also help each other in our work. Contacts can be make, work shared, friends made. We might have some fun.
I hope these views provoke debate.
And now I am going to fill in my form (argh!), complete my web page and send in my photo. Yes, the anarchist finally submits.
Best wishes and good work to all
Philip

Phillip

I'm glad you pointed out some of the concerns you have about the site. Now I know I'm not alone in feeling like the forms/categories are somewhat constraining, though I realize the necessity of order on a website. Your vision is reassuring. Now, the matter is starting the dialogue among the members..
I am happy to see such a wide variety of people represented on this site- open discussion of ideas should bring about some interesting threads of conversation.

Dear Philip,

My sympathies for you and your dealings with the wretched "form". If you find it difficult to categorise your creative activity I'll go further and confess that I find it difficult to categorise my very self. So I dont even know if I qualify for AWF in the first place. Is it as an artist that I take an interest in politics and technology? Or was it because of politics that I escaped into art and science? Or maybe vice versa? Anyway I joined this network too. Lo and behold what should I find first? Your posting which immediately attracted my three-sided attention. There is a bit of each of me in your letter which in its range of topics reflects your own many-sidedness!

I entirely agree with you that AWF is at the end of the day what the people who joint it make with it. But surely this should not stop us from planning ahead. AWF as a whole cannot as you say "campaign for peace and ahainst war" but surely if some of its members do then they can expect assisstant from this network. In the same way we know for a fact that many artists live in societies in which sensorship, abuse of human rights and repression are the order of the day. So why should we not consciously make an effort to organise campaigns in their defence without waiting to see what is asked of us? In other words we as members can start raising issues which we know as artists are important and affect our fellow artists. However, if at the outset we take the attitude that these things dont concern us as a whole or that we have to wait for some one to raise an issue before organising anything as a body (in the fear of being accused of trying to "define how the world should be run" then we may end up not doing much as a self-help network of artists either.

And back to the issue of categorising our activities, it is not so much the problem of how we define ourselves as how to make it easier for a fellow artist to find us. These categories would help others to find who they are looking for. So I suggest we should in fact stick to these categories (and even make them more numerous) but allow users to pick more than one (i.e., I can select to be known as a painter, writer and photographer and appear in any of those lists). And also add a category "other" to the list to cater for any eventuality (i.e., some one who does not like to be defined by any of the above categories). This is not difficult to implement in terms of the IT side (a simple database modification).

best wishes
siamak