Interview #126 — Kin Francis
by Vidya Rajan
Kin Francis is a writer and arts manager working across artforms, with an interest in joining experimental and community art practices.
They have worked with and presented work nationally at festivals and organisations such as Next Wave, Multicultural Arts Victoria, and Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, Komunitas Salihara (Indonesia), Battersea Arts Centre (UK), and Gate Theatre (UK). They are a 2019 Australia Council Future Leader.
How did you first develop your interest in the arts?
I grew up in a small beach town called Rockingham in Western Australia, so there was limited access to artistic experiences. Books were my sanctuary growing up, I read a lot of escapist fiction and then slowly found myself writing short stories before moving into poetry. Enjoying books felt like a private thing that was uncool and made me feel that participating in art was not ‘normal’.
Primary school was the bad place and it became clear to me that I was going to have a hard time for most of my life, as I wasn’t gifted at math or sport or anything practical and those who excelled in these areas seemed to have all doors opened for them. It was easy for me to see that there were clear pathways for those people but not for me. Finding a career in the arts seemed like a complete illogical choice for me but it was linked to survival—what else could I do? Later I figured out that studying publishing made sense as I always loved books and writing, and moved to Melbourne on my own at 19 from Rockingham to study. This move exposed me to other types of arts-work.
In terms of my first memorable encounter with theatre and performance—which are the forms I’ve had the most experience in working with—it was seeing Antigone directed by Matthew Lutton at the 2009 Perth Festival, through the school’s program. I remember thinking: oh, theatre can be dark and intellectually complex and emotional and this is what I want to make. It’s funny reflecting back on this now as I’m working against how ‘theatre’ is defined in this country by white men and couldn’t be less inspired by most of the work coming out of theatre companies.
Much of your work has been in producing and curating theatre and live art. What drew you to this pathway in the arts?
After infiltrating the arts through working in marketing and administration—this is usually where POC start inside organisations—I realised I had very little power. Starting out, I just needed to find work, and found myself in arts management land. Once inside this bubble though I realised that there were many things I wanted to change: How come the same artists were getting funding and opportunities? Why were tickets so expensive? Why did audiences look the same all the time?
What I love about independent producing is that I’m given the freedom to resolve problems and work flexibly outside of institutions. I love to communicate directly with artists and to be creatively involved. My way of producing is driven by working dramaturgically, picking apart ideas and looking at the bigger picture, and often people don’t understand that producers aren’t there just for taking on the administrative burden of projects.
What sucks about it is that I’m usually overworked and underpaid, it’s not sustainable, which is why I have to take on other contract work. It’s this financial instability that prevents me from being more involved in supporting fringe work.
In terms of curation and programming, this is the area of work I’ve been wanting to move into for a long time. It’s taken me seven years and travelling overseas in order to be considered capable of doing this — I still have much to learn but I’m excited to rethink curatorial models as I want to adapt all elements of this process, from dramaturgical input to audience development to budget management.
You’ve talked about the tiredness of waiting for a “seat at the table” and realising you need to be part of change in the sector. That’s a powerful realisation—how did it occur to you?
This is the most pressing issue I think a lot of First Nations and POC artists/arts workers are facing. Organisations are scrambling to ‘diversify’ their staff and programs, usually offering tokenistic representation or churning through people without any long-term or sustainable support. AsiaTOPA is a case in point, led by white people and founded on white philanthropist money, and in my opinion, offers very little artistic development and opportunity for local diaspora—it’s a cultural tourism/diplomacy exercise. If our arts organisations care about diversity they should be consulting with local diaspora, or bringing local diaspora into conversations with international Asian artists. It is covert white supremacy—supporting diversity on their own terms.
I caught onto this side of the sector early in my career, while I was working in Perth. There were no paid producing opportunities for me, or rather I wasn’t friends with any of the white gatekeepers, so I saved up and moved to London for an adventure and got producing experience. When I returned, not much had changed. Many Asian artists and creatives will be familiar with being gaslit by our industry, and that was part of my experience—people tell you a situation has nothing to do with race and privilege—but hiring practices often reveal otherwise. People will devalue your experience and skills despite you being over-qualified or doing literally the same job elsewhere. The divide continues to exist in my work, where white arts managers think I’m not experienced enough, yet I’m working nationally and internationally.
Those early experiences made me realise if I wanted to change things I needed to learn how to support artists myself as a producer outside of organisations. Over time, through organisational work, I’ve also learned that it’s extremely difficult to change ways of working within those organisations as it’s often the people working inside of them who are creating problems. But I also don’t have all the answers! Producing, for me, at this point, is a process I use to support underrepresented artists to make work on their own terms.
After infiltrating the arts through working in marketing and administration—this is usually where POC start inside organisations—I realised I had very little power.
As a POC artist, it’s been necessary for you to travel for opportunities. You’ve also continued to grow your practice through other avenues, like the Australia Council Future Leaders program and recently through an Asialink residency in Indonesia. How does investing in these experiences impact your work as an emerging artist?
I’m 26 now and almost feel I can’t call myself ‘emerging’ anymore! You’re definitely right though, in identifying that I’ve been receiving some opportunities that are usually not given to younger artists. For instance, the Future Leaders program was dominated by people who work in organisations that I’d argue already have access to networks that can support them. In that sense though, it was an invaluable experience for me to meet arts leaders across the country and I highly recommend that independent artists apply for the program.
As part of the program we also receive funding to undertake a secondment, so naturally I’m returning to my mother’s home country of Burma —where I’ve never visited— to learn about my own culture and hopefully create long-term relationships. I’ve also recently been a recipient of an Australia Council for the Arts career development grant which will take me to Tokyo, London and New York that gives me direct access to learning opportunities instead of waiting for gatekeepers to let me in.
One of the biggest impacts from these programs is getting insights into the sector it would take years to learn otherwise. I remember being in Alice Springs recently and having a conversation about how ‘middleman’ arts organisations are actually sucking up funding that could go directly to the artists themselves. I’ve also really begun to understand how funding has always been predicated on growth (more programs, more artists, higher audience numbers) of bigger organisations rather than investing in individual practices or communities. When you look at collectives such as Liminal that work tirelessly to uplift underrepresented communities and build the capacity of POC to self-determine what is ‘excellent’ art, well, I’m not mad if funding could be redirected to more independent artists instead of organisations.
Thanks to Asialink and Creative Victoria, I was also able to spend almost two months in Indonesia and am planning more travel there. I’m still processing everything that I experienced but I’d have to say my favourite moments were meeting with local queer people and artist collectives—InterSastra and ruangrupa especially come to mind.
While I learned many things from my time in Indonesia, and will continue to do so, I also realised that some Australian artists are leading the way in terms of making art that focuses on colonisation while we continue operating as a colonial country that is hurting First Nations people. When I was in Indonesia, no one wanted to talk to me about what is happening in West Papua.
What does community in the arts mean to you?
For me it means walking into a space and feeling ‘seen’, which is a roundabout way of saying I feel a sense of community whenever I’m not surrounded by whiteness. Whether it’s bumping into another brown or Asian person for a quick hello, seeing First Nations people take up space, or the work just makes me feel all the things. As I had significantly less social energy in 2019, and also made the effort to stop seeing work by white people, it does mean that I haven’t been ‘around’ in the theatre sector that much recently. I think the theatre industry is failing at creating community, one that I want to be a part of anyway, I mean recently there was a 8-hour forum on playwriting — on a Saturday — for anyone to attend but how is that inviting for POC? A friend did go, but of course they told me it was full of white people.
I think that I’ve shifted back to consuming writing and gaining interest in the visual arts sector as it feels less draining and more contemplative (also significantly less expensive to participate in).
Connecting online and watching arts people you have deep care and respect for grow over time has also been truly magical. As I’ve moved around from Perth, Melbourne and London it’s been surreal watching careers flourish and now I get to see these people IRL. I first met Nikki Lam at the Emerging Writers Festival, I think in 2013, and whenever she’s around I feel like I’m in the right place, like I’m recognisable and I’m safe. That’s how Liminal also makes me feel.
I’m 26 now and almost feel I can’t call myself ‘emerging’ anymore!
Do you have any advice for emerging POC artists and producers?
In terms of advice for artists and emerging producers, you need to be resilient. In all of my workplaces over the years, I’ve usually been the only queer person of colour working in the entire organisation. You need to relocate if you can’t find work. You need to find a community that supports you. I can’t stress how important it is for underrepresented people to know how bodies like the Australia Council for the Arts operate — get the funding yourself instead of waiting for gatekeepers to give you money.
Figure out what you have to offer that is different to everyone else. Know that you are the most important element in a project, not the organisation you are working with and use this to your advantage. Push back on restrictions when possible and if you can’t get paid properly take that as a sign that you are not a priority — there is always money that can move around in a budget but people tend to value artistic output over the care of the individual.
These organisations need independent artists and collectives more than we need them. As someone who has worked on the inside, the resources offered are usually tokenistic anyway and it’s still up to the artists to market and build an audience for their work. So what do organisations actually offer, is it just clout? Does this clout only resonate with middle class people? I’m sick of seeing ‘takeover’ programs or one-off events being the only option for First Nations and POC to access organisational resource. Artistic directors, producers and curators are just looking for programming slots to fill with very little time available to care for artists.
Forming artist collectives can also be powerful, but know that you probably will need to work with institutions to access resources and that’s fine! It’s a tricky problem when you want to operate as your own organisation and require resources, but are then beholden to funding models and more administrative labor. So being able to partner with organisations who will financially invest in your work is important for survival.
Looking to the future, what are some urgent changes you’d like to see in the Australian arts landscape?
Less white people in positions of leadership but also new models of governance that move power away from individuals, much more transparency in terms of how companies operate and how they program work, a desperate rethinking of how we assess artistic excellence in our funding systems but also as audience members, and more platforms for culturally diverse artists. Above all, more investment (time and money) into the arts being led by non-white people in this country.
What are you listening to?
Basically anything that’s femme power pop. I can’t stop listening to Silver Cross by Charli XCX whenever I’m on a bus heading into the city from Footscray or catching the trams around. It’s a track that is kind of melancholic and sad but also strangely uplifting?
Figure out what you have to offer that is different to everyone else.
Who are you inspired by?
There are many people who inspire me, first and foremost my family — especially my mum and my grandparents, who are the most giving people I know — that have built empathy into me, followed by a range of activists and artists who are too many to mention here.
Although, I would like to draw attention to some of my peers and those who are a little further along from me on their career journey. Tania Cañas’s article, ‘Diversity is a white word’ is still a reference point for my work and she’s just so rigorous in her critiques of power. Andy Butler is someone I’ve been excited by for ages as he offers imaginative ways of thinking and producing art—we recently collaborated on a project with Asialink.
While I lived in London, it was impossible to not witness the excellence of Black British artists who are paving the way forward. For a while, I coincidentally ended up working alongside Lynette Linton at The Gate Theatre, before she stormed the theatre industry and is now the Artistic Director of The Bush Theatre.. Lynette is so genuine and committed to collaborative ways of working while also creating excellent theatre that happens to be culturally diverse.
Finally, I have to mention Tobi Kyeremateng, an incredible producer I met while I was doing the Young Producers program at Battersea Arts Centre. Tobi’s career has just skyrocketed after so much hard work. She’s worked on brilliant projects such as AFRO-CITY, a 2-day festival celebrating Blackness and queerness at London’s Roundhouse, and The Black Ticket Project which is an initiative helping young black people access the arts.
What are you reading?
Look, I’m that horrible person who reads three different books and keeps picking them up and putting them down again (and forgets what they’re reading when asked). My heart was recently mauled by Ocean Vuong’s beautiful debut novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous and I’ve slowly been working my way through Against Creativity by Oli Mould.
How do you practice self-care?
I don’t have a clear response to this, but remember a conversation between Nayuka Gorrie and Raquel Willis at the Broadside Festival, where they both scoffed at the idea of self-care as something that ‘happens to you’. They discussed how self-care meant being with family and community, about putting time in with your relationships. I definitely relate to this, but because of my travelling and work commitments feel that I haven’t had any energy left to give to people.
I’ve been struggling a lot this year with anxiety which I know is the result of trauma, racial gaslighting and being overworked. I think my version of self-care is telling myself that I’m doing the best I can and that I’m enough.
What does being Asian-Australian mean to you?
Lately it’s meant having agency over how I’m seen in the world. My identity is also shaped by my queerness so I’m in a constant state of being in-between, not enough of one or the other. It takes a lot of energy for me to be in the present moment, as I’m always trying to bring all the different versions of me together. When I can do this, I’m my happiest self.
It takes a lot of energy for me to be in the present moment, as I’m always trying to bring all the different versions of me together. When I can do this, I’m my happiest self.
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Interview by Vidya Rajan
Photographs by Leah Jing