Our core mission at Globe Art Point is advocating cultural equity, diversity and inclusion in the arts and cultural sector in Finland. But what is diversity and how does one appropriately characterise this complex term? Some say that diversity is about empowering people by respecting and appreciating what makes them different. Others, on the other hand, perceive diversity in a more negative light as unlikeness, an absence of something they are familiar with which often leads to apprehension.  

Whether we are talking about differences in people’s gender, sexuality, socioeconomic status, age, religious beliefs, cultural and ethnic background or language, diversity if not empowered and inclusive can lead to feelings of loneliness and otherness. Anxiety and feelings of low self worth, hostility or anger that are often brought upon by our daily struggles to soothe these differences, in order to fit in, can in fact have detrimental consequences on people’s physical strength as well as mental health. And even though the majority of us are accustomed to taking care of our well being, only a few of us actually take their psychological health seriously. Surprisingly, the topic of mental health is still fairly muted in our society even though according to some statistics almost half of the world’s population experience some kind of mental health problems in their lifetime. 

Therefore, Globe Art Point has decided to join in the campaign that promotes and highlights the issues of mental health in support of the World Mental Health Day event, organised by MIELI Mental Health Finland on 10.10. 2020. 

This is your chance to also contribute to this campaign. G.A.P is now launching an Open Call for a blog post in which we invite artists and cultural workers to share their ideas on how to improve welfare and equality in the Finnish culture field. What are the concrete steps that our society can take in order to improve diversity and inclusion of artists and culture workers with a foreign background? Or would you perhaps like to share your own story and tell people about your personal struggles with inclusion?

The theme: listening and being heard

Please send the proposed article with a short biography (max. 150 words) and a photo of yourself to info(at)globeartpoint.fi (subject: Blog – GREENLIGHT LISTENING!) by 29 of September.

The submissions will be forwarded anonymously to Globe Art Point’s board members for selection.

We will select and publish 2 blog contributions on 10 October 2020. 150 euros will be paid for each published article. The recommended length of the article is anything between 500 and 1500 words.

The blogs will be published on our and Mieli’s website.

Some useful links:

Omamieli

The mission of MIELI Mental Health Finland, MIELI, is to support and promote good mental health, considered essential at all levels of society and in all spheres of life. As a non-governmental organisation MIELI stimulates the interaction between individuals and communities, while activating people to work for the welfare of their own communities.