Prioritising: “What do you put on Top of the Pile when Everything is Urgent?” With Soraya Rodriguez
Soraya co-founded the pioneering not-for-profit Zoo Art Fair, which ran from 2003-2009 and provided a platform for emerging galleries, profit spaces and artist collectives. Soraya has also been a lecturer and now works at White Cube Gallery as Artist Liaison, with artists including Harland Miller and Theaster Gates. She is currently WFH and sharing childcare with her husband, an artist and university lecturer.
'I realised I have to give into this in a way and let myself slipstream through it. There is no spreadsheet that can manage the mental-ness of this.'
At the moment when it very much feels as if everything is urgent, and it's very hard to see the wood from the trees, she outlined her four priorities as keeping safe, keeping sane, work and childcare.
She acknowledged that finding the balance between keeping safe and keeping sane is not easy and in terms of work we are all having to re-learn how to manage in this new environment, at this new pace and learning to communicate in a completely different way. Seeing into the future is so difficult, everyday our concept of where this is going to take us changes - 2 months, 6 months, a year - the unknowns makes the act of prioritising very difficult.
As the crisis unfolded, work at the gallery was initially very much firefighting, and figuring out how to get everything on-line. But in terms of the day to day it's very difficult to distinguish between things that previously could have a priority order put on them.
‘At the minute, it's dealing with what invades my mind, I get distracted on that, and come back to this. From how to get the food ordered, to making almond milk, and then going from that to getting a major consignment from an artist to the sales team to keep funds coming in, to finding a Spanish app to keep my son busy, to staying in touch with museums. I realised I have to give into this in a way and let myself slipstream through it. There is no spreadsheet that can manage the mentalness of this’.
Although we are not moving around as much as we were, extraordinary tiredness seems to be a hall mark of this new way of working, and Soraya suggests thinking about how to accommodate that and to being kind to oneself is essential.
The urgent 'must have, must do' approach has been put to the back burner and being mindful, kind and human is key.
There are always lights of positivity that come out in times of crisis, and Soraya gave as an example the print that the artist Harland Miller made as a charity fundraiser. Using one of his classic penguin book covers he changed one letter, so 'who dares wins’ became ‘who cares wins’. He was caring for his father who had Alzheimer’s and the phrase came to him at point when he realised there was nothing he could do but care. Changing one letter changed the meaning, even though the original still resonates.
'This idea of militarising caring, sending care into battle has really sung to a lot of people’
Thinking back to the 2008 financial crisis, which spelt the beginning of the end for Zoo Art Fair, Soraya remembers how very painful it was losing that business. But she survived that and went on to teach and do lots of things she wouldn't have done otherwise. Her advice is to remember that in everyone there is a survivalist construct 'you will survive and you have to hold on to that knowledge'.