The Basis of Unity affirms NDAC’s commitment to anti-oppression principles within our organization and in the arts community as a whole. This statement reflects our ongoing work to dismantle racism and oppression within all aspects of our organization, champion equity for the arts and plant the seeds that support more inclusive and sustainable arts communities.
In this work, we acknowledge our location on the unceded territory of Indigenous peoples. We are in solidarity with Indigenous sovereignty and are actively contending with how to honour and materially uphold it throughout our activities.
As an arts organization, we recognize that systemic oppression exists in and operates throughout arts communities to disempower individuals because of their ability, age, economic status, gender, nationality, neurodiversity, race, religion, and sexuality amongst other factors. The shapes these intersecting forms of marginalization take include: unequal access to opportunity and resources, exploitative demands of labour, exploitation of lived experience, cultural appropriation, psychological or physical harassment, ableism, ageism, sexism, cissexism, racism, microaggression, homophobia, tokenization, and transmisogyny. Systemic inequities compound and are compounded by personal biases, which can include affinity bias, attribution bias, confirmation bias, and stereotype bias. Systemic inequities and personal biases operate across all levels of work in the arts and must be recognized and understood to allow us to move forward in solidarity.
We are critically aware that as an arts organization, NDAC has benefited from the cultures of marginalized communities while contributing to their marginalization and appropriation. We acknowledge that good intention is not enough; anti-oppressive practice requires individuals to cultivate an ongoing awareness of the dynamics which disempower some and privilege others, in order to redress inequalities.
We commit to working towards operating within anti-oppression, disability justice, and anti-racist frameworks for all work between team, board members and membership.
We commit to prioritizing the knowledge and safety of individuals with intimate, lived experience of a particular oppression in order to collaboratively arrive at ways to address its effects.
We commit to amplifying the voices of equity-deserving individuals and communities, and ensuring equity of opportunity and equity of access to the programs, services, operations and decision-making processes that we provide.
We commit to decolonizing our space through our practices, language, and politics.
We commit to accessibility in all forms, including but not limited to ability, language and literacy, geography, and access and comfort with technology.
We realize that this is only the beginning and understand that anti-oppression work is always adapting, growing, and is part of a constant commitment. This Basis of Unity is a living document and an ongoing collaboration available to all of NDAC’s participants, including its membership, Board of Directors, and staff.
In the drafting of this document, we referred to many resources including statements from articule and IMAA. These resources are included below. This Basis of Unity was created in conjunction with a strategic planning process and will be part of the basis for long-term work in our organization.
Resource List
https://www.articule.org/en/about
https://www.imaa.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Basis-of-Unity_09_08_EN.pdf
https://www.bcpovertyreduction.ca/basis-of-unity
https://nctr.ca/records/reports/