DR. ISMAIL MAHOMED CULTURAL CORNER: Thoughts and Experiences- Festival Programming Models

Day 31 of 100 of the Siphindile Nuh Chelsea Hlongwa challenge that I should write down my thoughts / experiences about how I survived four decades in cultural leadership positions. In this post I write about why I took full ownership for how I defined my role as an Artistic Director and my relationship with festival committees. 

 Dr. Ismail Mahomed Illustrated Portrait. Photo Credit: Facebook 

Arts festivals in South Africa generally operate on one of three programming models:

1. Festivals can have a curatorial committee that is responsible for the overall selection of the content for a festival and a director who essentially is reduced to being a technocrat who is tasked with having to schedule the committee’s selections. 

2. Festivals which have an Artistic Director who is accountable for the overall artistic programme and who may be supported by a non-executive Artistic Advisory Committee comprised of experts. 

3. Festivals can have a hybrid model of the above with the festival committee selecting the core of the programme and the festival director / artistic director having some leeway to independently programme a small number of “filler events” at the festival. 

At festivals where I have worked as well as on festivals on whose boards I serve I strongly advocate for model 2 to be the most effective and sustainable model for the festivals. Models 1 & 3 are incredibly problematic and they threaten both the integrity and sustainability of festivals for various reasons:

- a committee seldom considers a long-term strategy. They plan specifically for the immediate festival or for the duration of its members’ tenure. Not planning long-term is the first threat to organisational sustainability. 

- unlike a Board whose members hold fiduciary responsibility and have overall oversight of the festival a committee can assume absolutely no fiduciary responsibility and it often lacks any understanding of the festival’s organisational strategy, organisational culture and organisational capacity to make intelligent decisions that can sustain or advance an organisation and its relationships with partners and stakeholder communities. The committees are one-dimensional in their approach. They think only of the immediate year’s programme. 

- curation by committee can often result in a programme that lacks coherence in relation to the festival’s artistic vision; but more importantly, it can often result in mediocrity. Curation by committee often results in members compromising in order to reach consensus. When an artistic director is invested with making decisions he / she will have the courage to take an unpopular decision. 

- committees which have no fiduciary responsibility or executive authority but which are tasked with final decision-making will often overplay their status and will attempt to undermine their artistic directors. In models 1 & 3 there is often an unhealthy tension between the artistic director and the curatorial committee because the artistic director’s long term vision will constantly be diluted. Decision-making will in most cases be ridiculously slow and it will ultimately impact negatively on both raising funds and brokering partnerships to support collaborations. The impact of this is often deep cracks which results in distrust, disappointment and disillusionment in both the organisation and in the sector. 

Whilst I am opposed to “curation by committee” I hold strong views that organisations must have unambiguous artistic vision statements which must be supported by:

- clear Terms of Reference for its Artistic Advisory Committees spelling out their responsibilities, tenure, conduct and the limitations in relation to the ambit of their roles; 

- a strategic policy framework that sets out the architecture for how its programming will be realised to serve its organisation’s mission statement, commitment to funders and relationships with its diverse stakeholder communities. 

I currently serve on the boards of two major festivals. I limit myself to playing an advisory role to its artistic directors and offering my frank advice when requested or when necessary. I respect, trust and value the decisions made by the directors and if it is in accordance with the values of the festival and the South African constitution I will support and defend their choices because I am confident that they make decisions that are in accordance with advancing the organisation’s long term strategy rather than serving short term narrow interests. 

Directors / curators for the various festivals hosted by the Centre for Creative Arts report directly to me. Here-to, I leave them with significant amounts of curatorial independence as long as it serves the long term vision of the Centre. 

I have always advocated for model 2 to be the best way for festivals to create coherent programmes that can foster effective and impactful relationships with partners and stakeholders. How an artistic director creates programmes of excellence and impactful development programmes is the core reason why funders will invest in festivals and for why audiences will patronise the arts.

Dr Ismail Mahomed is the Director for the Centre for Creative Arts at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. He is a multi-award winning and multi-published arts management strategist and playwright with more than 35 years’ experience in cultural leadership positions.