Our Manifesto
Written by Claire Allen, SHIFT* Editorial Director
Edited by Emma Hwang, Paul Oprişe, James Mangar, Nawal Dabbagh, Mohamad Sinjab
Read the article in PDF form here.
SHIFT* team members at the launch of SHIFT11: Fantasy Deconstructed
A Preface
Since its revival in the summer of 2022, SHIFT* has aimed to provide space for emerging artists, writers, and designers to share their work through print and online publication. We believe that these efforts have had a positive impact on the student community at the Daniels Faculty, out of which SHIFT* is based, and that with further time, effort, expansion, and guidance, SHIFT* has the potential to become a thriving network of creatives that operates both within and outside of Daniels. Our ultimate hope is to compose a collective that welcomes artists of varying media, practices, backgrounds, and experiences, thus creating a supportive and uplifting community that breaks down barriers to artmaking and academia. We recognize that this may be a lofty goal; however, we strongly believe that despite this, it is an immensely important interest that must be pursued.
The SHIFT* team, being comprised of many different perspectives, strengths, and interests, proposes five core tenets by which we, as an organization, should abide. These five ideas should serve not only as guidelines in matters of collective operations and decision-making, but also as goals which are constantly being strived towards, both on an individual and aggregate level. By constantly working in pursuit of integrating these ideas into our practices, SHIFT* hopes to create better opportunities and conditions for artists, and healthier perceptions of what career artistry and research can—and should—look like. Rather than perpetuate the cycles that force one to choose between their passions and their profession, SHIFT* seeks to support emerging artists in developing their practices, thus helping them to facilitate growth and maintain the health of themselves and those around them.
i. Agency
Who are you and what business do you have here?
There exist many concepts that are essential to developing a strong, healthy, and sustainable practice within the arts, especially when such practice becomes part of one’s professional life. We believe that agency forms the foundation upon which those crucial concepts may be built. Agency, as we consider it here, encompasses a person’s ability to feel secure in themselves, their work, and their ideas, even when those things may be criticized or rejected. It involves deeply investigative processes of discovery, questioning, and reflection, so that one learns to critically consider their interests and how those interests inform their work.
SHIFT* hopes to provide artists the space to develop agency within their practices by creating a collective and platform that supports such development. Acknowledging that we exist and operate within a colonial institution, we hope to provide resources to creatives that allow them to develop their practice in such a way that helps them to take advantage of the benefits and opportunities that the institution may have to offer them, while not allowing the oppressiveness of its systems to encroach on their autonomy or identity, both as artists and as people. In order to support this growth, SHIFT* aims to facilitate the development of processes and the creation of work that guide artists in thinking critically about the spaces they inhabit, how they inhabit them, and where, if at all, they see that spatial relationship playing a meaningful role in their lives and their work. Rather than define a path of knowledge and questioning for artists to follow, we think it more productive to provide a framework that artists may work within (or without), and to which they can apply their own experiences; thus helping them to develop agency in their practices by uplifting them on their own journeys of discovery and knowledge-seeking.
TL;DR–Know what makes you up and moves you forward. The desires to learn and create must be fully understood before any work can be done.
ii. Access
Who is your ideal reader? Why aren’t they a jargon-addicted gremlin?
Essential to the development of agency is access. This encompasses both the facilitation of access that is compatible with the individual needs of persons, and the accessibility of information and research to an audience wider than that which exists within academic institutions. SHIFT* will always do everything possible to ensure that the work we do and the opportunities we provide are equally accessible to everyone who wishes to access them; to us, this means that the research we produce is written in such a way that is comprehensible to those outside of the academic sphere. It means the slashing of unnecessary jargon; it means providing necessary context. It does not mean dumbing down; rather, it means assuming our audience is intelligent enough that ‘dumbing down’ is not necessary. Thus, we must make deliberate efforts to ensure that our research does not stew behind barriers that serve no purpose but to preserve elitism. SHIFT* believes in democratic access to research, and desires to provide spaces in which anyone with an interest may indulge their intellect.
It must also be noted that our definition of ‘accessibility’ is by no means universal. And, while this definition may be used to inform our modes and methods of conduct, its most important element is its flexibility. The access we provide shall be defined by those who require it; rather than adhere strictly to our own definition, we aim to use it as a guideline which shapes how we provide access to our audience. We understand that access is extremely individuated, and in allowing our audience to inform how we provide access, we hope to consistently expand the scope of our collective beyond those with whom it is already familiar. Most importantly, access is not something that is defined by us, the collective; it is defined by our audience, and is made manifest in accordance with this by us, the collective. The mission to support emerging artists, writers, and designers demands a fluid and customizable definition of accessibility that directly caters to the needs of creatives; SHIFT* will always strive to do whatever is required to realize this.
TL;DR–Access is to be defined by those who desire it. To facilitate genuine access is to allow the formation of said access by its applicable audience; in this case, the ‘applicable audience’ should be anyone with an interest.
iii. Acknowledgement
Why this? Why you? Why now?
Crucial to the creation of meaningful and successful work is an acknowledgement of everything that makes up oneself, one’s interests, and all applicable precedents. Acknowledgement is required on both a historical and contemporary level; one must acknowledge the relevant histories of a subject when working on or within it, while also thoroughly comprehending how these histories inform the subject’s position within its current contexts. One must extensively understand how their current practice came to be; this includes the social, political, and economic contexts under which it became relevant, and how this context informs its relevance today.
Considering the problematic and oppressive practices that have informed much research in the past, acknowledgement demands a critical consideration of a subject’s history. It allows the space to appreciate work while acknowledging the problematic or morally skewed contexts under which said work may have come to be. Acknowledgement must also include an examination of one’s own lived experience and the biases, conscious and unconscious, that may exist as a result of it. To acknowledge these biases is to view them with neutrality, and to work toward changing them when they do not align with equitable practice. Acknowledgement does not condemn; it makes space for positive and productive change.
In addition to this, acknowledgement must also encompass a thorough investigation into how the histories of one’s interests and one’s practice function in the present day. What exactly is ‘relevant’ may be defined by the practitioners themselves; what is most important is an ability to critically consider a subject or medium, in all of its iterations, and to relate this to one’s practice in a way that considers both the work itself and one’s own proximity to it.
TL;DR–Understand both the relevance of your interests and your authority to speak on them; take necessary care to ethically conduct your practice, considering the good, bad, and ugly of your interests and influences and their precedents.
iv. Awareness
What can be made of your work if you remove yourself from the equation?
Equally important to the existing history of a practice is its potential history. In doing creative work, one must consider how their methods will impact not only their fields of practice, but also the existences which become implicated in them. This may include people, places, canons, cultures; regardless, creatives must critically examine the direct and immediate impacts their practice will have on the world around them. One must be able to entirely remove themselves and their ego from their work and be able to objectively analyze it; one must take even the most subjective findings, and understand their potential impact from that removed position. Creative work is often highly personal; it demands commitment, it exhausts, it enlightens, it induces enigma. In many senses, it is immensely powerful. For these reasons, SHIFT* asks its practitioners to acknowledge their personal connection to their work and maintain the awareness to take a step back. This means an openness to criticism from oneself and from others; it means recognition of one’s own mistakes and a willingness to try and fix them. We do not expect perfection. We expect effort towards honesty and humility from our contributors and their work, and accept the implications that subjective experience has on creative work while making effort to ensure this subjectivity does not infringe on scholarly integrity.
TL;DR–Creative work does not exist in a vacuum. In doing it, one must consider the implications that such work will have, especially for any people or places that it implicates.
v. Advocacy
What purpose does this serve, if not that of social change?
To us, advocacy consists in the goal which takes precedence over all others in creative contexts. We fiercely believe that, all things distilled and critically considered, the goal of creative work is social advancement. We acknowledge that social advancement can take many different definitions, and its achievement through creativity takes many different forms. We thus ask our practitioners to work towards a thorough understanding of the wider impact that their work may have, and the greater purpose it serves. We expect them to question why they believe their work is important, what goals they wish to achieve, and how they believe their practices and methods align with these goals. Our understanding of the intimate relationship between a creative and their practice assumes that creatives will always want, above all, what is best for those implicated in their work, and not what is best for the work itself. Acknowledging the time and rigorous effort that goes into developing a practice, we trust that our practitioners would rather take care to practice and publish in such a way that will reflect positively on them and prove beneficial to their personal growth as artists. We hope that our practitioners consider not only how their work may enrich their lives, but also, and most importantly, how it enriches the lives of others. Unlike awareness, advocacy demands the consideration of one’s work beyond the passive impact it will have, and an expansion of their critical consideration to the active, positive difference their work can–and should–make on a grander scale.
TL;DR–The ultimate goal of all creative work should be to improve the world in which we live. Universal and equitable wellbeing must be considered by, and in the context of, the practice, the practitioner, and their positionalities.
Our manifesto is a living document. It is made better by the constructive comments of our readership and community.
If you would like to respond to any of our statements or offer feedback, please reach out to us directly at shiftmagtoronto@gmail.com.