Sonya Lindfors: Diversity is integral to making high-quality art
The award-winning choreographer and a member of the Uniarts Helsinki Board strives to promote equity, diversity and anti-racist activities in various fields both through her art and by taking other kind of action.
“When you’re the only one in the room, you’re easily pushed into the role of being a spokesperson for those who aren’t there to voice their opinions,” says Sonya Linfors.
Lindfors is a choreographer, the founder and artistic director of the art community UrbanApa and a member of the Uniarts Helsinki Board, whose artistic work is centred on promoting equity and diversity.
The Finnish arts sector has historically excluded minorities. Lindfors’ personal experience of the Finnish arts scene has been defined by the repeated experience of being the first.
In 2013, Lindfors was the first Black choreographer to graduate from the Degree Programme in Dance. In 2022, she was the first Afro-Finn and choreographer to receive the State Award for Public Information.
“Repeatedly having the experience of being the first or the only one doing something is hardly a coincidence. It’s a clear indication of exclusive structures,” Lindfors notes.
Budget cuts jeopardise equity work
Throughout her career, Lindfors has striven to shake up discriminatory structures and influence prevailing practices not only by making art, but also by promoting discussions about topics such as Blackness and otherness in Finnish.
It has also been natural for her to come up with concrete practices that promote equity and diversity. These have included, for example, offering mentoring to the younger generation of artists and facilitating training to organisations about equity.
“As a field, the Finnish arts sector is still mainly for white, middle-class, cisgender and able-bodied people,” she says.
“Even though there’s been progress, people with disabilities, sexual and gender minorities and Black and racialised people are still marginalised. It’s a waste of enormous potential and talent.”
In many ways, work for promoting equity, equality and non-discrimination is still in its infancy, and on top of that, the Finnish arts sector is currently going through the worst crisis in its history.
The Government has made substantial cuts in the budget for the cultural and arts sector in recent years, and this trend will only escalate within the next years.
Dwindling resources and growing needs are a challenging equation.
“The cuts will inevitably affect not only the vitality of the arts but also the non-discrimination work carried out in the field, which would require its own designated time and money.”
Art supports the national identity
Art and artists have played a key role in the creation of the Finnish identity. The identity created in the past continues to influence perceptions of Finnishness and who is allowed to be Finnish and who is not.
“Finland can be viewed as a cultural project, and its contributors were artists like Gallen-Kallela, Canth, Kivi, Schjerfbeck and Sibelius, for example,” Lindfors says.
However, the national identity that was shaped at the end of the 19th century cannot be held on to indefinitely, because the world is evolving.
Finland’s population growth, for example, is mainly dependent on immigration, at least for the time being. In Vantaa, already almost a third of the city’s residents speak some other language than Finnish as their first language. In Helsinki, the same figure is close to twenty per cent.
“I think it’s a fair question to ask how the structures and repertoire of the Finnish National Theatre, which was founded in 1872, or any long-standing arts organisation for that matter, serve these new audiences, not to mention how they serve the new generations of professionals.
All discrimination is prohibited by law in Finland, but the gist of the work is not just observing the law.
The way Lindfors sees it, it is a matter of maintaining competence.
“An arts organisation cannot be relevant in the future and produce high-quality art if it’s not diverse and inclusive.”
Standing against racism
Finland is still one of the most racist countries in Europe. This statistic should not be trivialised, because the experience of equity and belonging is a key foundation of a stable society.
“The cultural sector has its own challenges in this regard, but ultimately, it’s a major societal issue that can be solved only through system-level changes,” Lindfors says.
However, there are many things that can be done within a single sector to promote equality and non-discrimination.
For example, Uniarts Helsinki is currently in the process of updating its Equality and Diversity Plan, which Lindfors, too, has read.
“It has a lot of good things going for it. That being said, implementing changes won’t happen without some sort of friction in a large, complex and multi-opinionated institution like Uniarts Helsinki.”
Establishing anti-discriminatory structures in real life requires persistent work in any organisation. Actual progress has been made, however.
Uniarts Helsinki has updated its admission requirements, the student body has become more international and diverse and an increasing number of master’s programmes can be completed in English.
“Besides updating the admissions criteria, to promote equity we also need to pay attention to the variety of available study paths, diversity of representation and content of studies,” Lindfors lists.
Role of recruitment in equality and non-discrimination work
Uniarts Helsinki’s students are more international than ever, but its staff still largely represents white, European tradition.
“Obviously, I’m not saying that recruitment should be based on someone’s skin colour, ethnic background or functional capacity. What’s important is competence and gaining a broader understanding of art,” Lindfors explains.
To provide an example, the worldview of a Sámi artist can teach us to live more sustainably with nature, or the ancient rhythms of a West African musician can bring a new angle to explore alongside young European classical music.
In addition to diversity, fostering an anti-racist organisation requires a basic understanding of cultural sensitivity, equity and anti-racism gained through training and facilitation, at minimum.
“Diversification is an asset, and the promotion of non-discrimination and anti-racism is everyone’s responsibility and right,” Lindfors says.
“My hope is that even when we’re going through tough times, we’d remember why we work for equity: the goal is to build a more equal, diverse and sustainable arts sector for everyone.”
Bio:
Sonya Lindfors, b. 1985
- Choreographer with a Master of Arts (Dance) degree and the founder and artistic director of the anti-racist and feminist art community UrbanApa
- Member of the Uniarts Helsinki Board 2022–2025
- Recipient of the State Award for Public Information in 2022 and State Award for Dance in 2013
Text: Elli Collan