Author: Anne L'Ecuyer

Today is the second day of the World Summit on Arts & Culture in Johannesburg. So far, I’ve heard speakers from South Africa, the United Kingdom, Jamaica, Spain, Nigeria, Palestine, Canada, Australia, Pakistan, Slovenia, Kenya, Singapore, and Germany. It’s been such a delight — not a single American has had the floor.

This is fun for me. I gravitate toward perspectives that are different from my own. I’m voraciously curious and a decent listener. I feel at home among a wide variety of people and a calm center inside diversity. I often feel more like myself there.

Comfort with the other has become the theme of the conference. It was first introduced by Njabulo Ndebele and has been echoed since. The work of cultural understanding, he says, is really about what human beings do when they encounter a person or an experience that they find strange. Do they shy away or ask a question? Do they engage or judge… or both? How do they deal with the feelings of disorientation — the sense that things are suddenly not what they expect or know?

The professor made the distinction that the idea of “strange” may be more helpful than “difference.” The latter tends to become a static category that masks a greater truth. Black people are different from white, for example. True in one way but also deeply false in another. It also tends to give a special pass to the one who is different, as though he or she must be accepted without question. Those moments when bad behavior is awkwardly accepted as culturally different, but ought to be challenged on its integrity.

Ndebele argued that approaching something as “strange” brings both people back into the moment. It returns us to the creative possibility of the encounter and reinforces the basic truth that all of us are strange to those we have not yet come to know. “When you arrive at the place that you don’t know,” said another speaker, “make theatre.”

As I said, it is the role of culture to give the cues. It’s our job to make the other visible, to give priority to the unknown, and to prepare in such a way that there is room to explore whatever one finds — including fear, doubt, and judgement as well as satisfaction and enchantment. Cultural spaces are designed to make this kind of interaction a norm.

It is never ours to control, but the hope is that this exposure strengthens our capacities when the strange appears in truly unexpected ways — on the street, as a loved one evolves, and in our own souls. The invitation, Ndebele says, is to ponder something at the very moment it unsettles us.

Rosebank is a privileged enclave north of the Central Business District in Johannesburg. I was up at 5am this morning and snuck into the hotel gym which technically didn’t open for another hour. I had the place to myself and watched the sun rise from my perch on the stationery bike.

A small group of men gathered outside a gate across the street. I later learned that they were waiting for the morning meal at the Catholic shelter. I’d witnessed a similar scene outside a hotel in Paris. How strange it was to hear homeless men speaking French.

I still had more energy to burn so I asked the concierge about a good route for a walk. She pointed me toward the side door and a small street busy with morning traffic. I walked north on a cobbled sidewalk toward a mall. People on foot were headed to the office and I passed dozens of men working on construction projects that seemed to be happening everywhere.

Halfway through my assigned path, I found a wealthy neighborhood tucked behind a school. The sky was bright blue, the air crisp, and I felt lucky to trade the smell of car exhaust for jasmine along the beautifully landscaped residential road.

Though the environment seemed welcoming, it was hard not to notice the security walls with prominently displayed signs, cameras, and barbed wire around every house. I said hello to several private security guards along the way and silently wondered just how out of place I appeared. I took a deep breath in a block or two when I heard peals of laughter and came upon a preschool just starting up for the day. After a long stroll the sun warmed up. I rounded back toward the hotel and stopped to chat with the homeless guys for a few moments.

Going out for a walk, taking a turn in a different direction, greeting both the happiness and the fear I feel — it all reminds me that freedom requires that we exercise it. Places become truly secure when people go outside, mill about and smile at each other. I know so much more about my own personal liberty from these walks. It’s easy for me to distinguish between the worries my mind produces and the instinctual responses that tell me when it’s time to turn back. It has also helped to feel more confident in my body — to actually feel the powerful rush that comes with danger and to learn how to manage it well. I find that I trust both myself and other people far more because of the exposure.

Of course, it’s true of speech as well. It’s not enough to have the freedom of one’s own thoughts. Democracies thrive when people say what they think out loud and it is the role of culture to give those cues. I’m off this afternoon to visit a place dedicated to such ideals. The Constitutional Court of South Africa — the building itself and its astounding art collection — was created specifically to ensure that people feel free and equal under the law when they enter the court. I fell in love with the project when I first heard about it and have tracked its progress ever since. As I was reminded again this morning, there’s a big difference between the idea and the actual experience. I’m excited to see for myself.

Phoenix was my last stop on the tour and the first place they took me was jail.  Gregory Sale organized a group—artists, scholars and cultural managers—to visit the infamous Tent City. My first cultural job in the Phoenix was with Essential Theatre, a company that worked in prisons and other social service settings. Years later, I find my attention there again.