COBRA fighting for the mic in a city where minority voices struggle to be heard

Hamilton's Coalition of Black and Racialized Artists doesn't want to have to exist.

Its members don't want to have to fight and claw for every inch towardequality, for visibility, for a mere foothold in the city's arts scene.

But they still do. So they are.

"It's funny to think about integration still in 2018, but we're pleading for it," said visual artist Stylo Starr, COBRA member. "We'd just like to have a little more integration. A little more equality.

"The overall idea is we're taking the mic, because we haven't had the mic yet."

COBRA launched in 2016to fill a niche its members say issorely lacking in Hamilton. Minority artists find themselves struggling to move in from the margins, and participate in a communitythey feel has grown without their inclusion. Hamilton's art scene has exploded in the last decade, but not everyone is experiencing the benefits of that boom.

That's where COBRA comes in. The groupincludes musicians, visual artists, fashion designers and photographerswho all share a singular vision.

Afro-soul musician Kojo Easy Damptey saysthe group is helping to connect the city's larger arts institutions with communities they might not normally explore, and make Hamilton's art scene all the richer for it.

"We're here for any person of colour who is trying to get their art out there," Damptey said. "We don't want our artists leaving and going to Toronto, New York and Montreal."

We feel like we've been shouting from behind a fence all these years. We're here include us.- George Qua-Enoo, photographer

All this week, CBC Hamilton is presenting a series of stories about the city's arts scene where it has been, where it is going, what's working and what isn't.

Visible minorities across the creative spectrum are all saying the same thing: Hamilton is a city lacking a level playing field in which they can create, and that needs to change or else thecityrisks losing some of its most intriguing, emerging talent.

Inroads are being made. COBRA has found a partnership with one of the city's biggest arts organizations, which is seeing the value of reaching out to communities and findingtalent that has been previously untapped.

Just making ends meet

Starr comes home each day from her "menial" data entry job feeling depleted.

It's a job that manages to pay thebills, but takes up a ton of time and energy that she would much rather funnel into creative endeavours.

"Then I go home and work as many hours as possible before I run myself ragged," she said. "I'm just making ends meet."

The problem is twofold. In a city presented as a shining beacon for arts and culture where "art is the new steel" or "you can do anything," many working artists still find themselves struggling, in large part thanks to the pressures of gentrification.

And if you're a visible minority, the odds are even further stacked against you, Starr said.

"It's been tough," she said. "The need is visibility, and accountability for the lack of visibility there has been."

Photographer and COBRA member George Qua-Enoo has endured a similar experience in Hamilton. Born and raised in Ghana, Qua-Enoo has been working as an advertising photographer in the city for six years yet the majority of his clients come from Toronto, the rest of the GTA, or overseas.

He feels shut out in Hamilton, where contracts tend to be awardedto the same people over and over. Qua-Enooloves the city and the promise it shows, but it's difficult to find a foothold, he says.

"We feel like we've been shouting from behind a fence all these years. We're here include us," he said.

"It's very systemic. Some people are not aware that's how it's coming across."

Funding problems

Part of the problem, COBRA's members say, is how municipal funding for the arts is distributed.

The city drastically shifted how it funded the arts back in 2015. Prior to that, it hadn't significantly increased arts funding in 15 years. That changed with the introduction of the City Enrichment Fund, which promised a bolstered investment in culture over a three-year period, topped up with a $660,000 pledge from the Hamilton Community Foundation (a funding source that has sincebeen shuttered).

Collectively,the arts community asked for just under $4 million in grants in 2017, while the city paid out just over $2.7 million. This year, artists requested over $4.2 million in grants, while the city again paid out just over $2.7 million.

Clearly, some projects are being funded. The problem, Damptey says, is that visible minorities are having trouble accessing that cash. Several COBRA members applied for enrichment fund grantsthis year, but to no avail, he said.

"Not many people of colour were awarded that grant," he said.

The city's largest institutions manage fine, says Jeremy Freiburger ofCoBALT Connects, a non-profit organization that connects creative businesses around the city.

It's the smaller organizations or singular requests that end up pushed to the margins, he said. What the city is lacking is new funding for new voices.

"A city that's growing like Hamilton has to have a window where new communities and ideas can be considered and funded," he said. "Until council adds new money, no new people will get through the door so great ideas will die."

Branching out

COBRA has already found success pairing its members up with larger institutions.

Last year, Starr and the Art Gallery of Hamilton partnered for an exhibit at the AGH calledSelf Made: Stylo Starr's 89 Dames aseries of photo transfers on collages intended toreformulate notions of beauty, specifically using images of black female celebrities from JET magazines of the 1950s and 60s.

Tor Lukasik-Foss, director of programs and education for the AGH, says the gallery has since partnered with COBRA for talk events, education activities, and public concerts.

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"I think that is the real power of this organization. It is a network of artists, all of whom have a rigorouspractice, and all of whom advocate for each other's talent," he said."So one inquiry basically spidered out into collaborations with a decent swath of their membership.

"There is formidable power in those kinds of collectives, and the city is lucky to have this one."

For Starr, the opportunity was everything to see her work highlighted on the main floor of the biggest arts institution in the city.

"It was so surreal. It was incredibly validating as an artist, and as a black female visual artist," she said.

"To know that's an opportunity within reach that changes the game."

adam.carter@cbc.ca