Graham Fink: Multimedia Artist. Creative Director. Designer. Agent to Sophia (robot)
Ways of seeing
My dad is a butler. He has worked for the Queen and many rich families here in the UK. When I was growing up we lived in the downstairs bit of the stately home or the small cottage at the bottom of the driveway. Most of the time we were on a large country estate.
I went to the local school in the village and during summer holidays learnt to drive a tractor at an early age.
I don’t think I ever saw a Black or Asian person until I went to Art School.
I remember there were two overseas students from India in our drawing class, and one day we went out to a local park to draw the views. We all sat together in a small group and drew what we saw. Mainly a huge tree in front of us with sprawling branches, and behind it, at the bottom of the hill, a cityscape. It was incredibly difficult to do, just seeing fragments of buildings broken up by the spidery arms of the tree. Most of us struggled.
At the end of the session we went back to college to put our drawings on the wall. Everyone had made a pig’s ear of it - apart from the two Indian guys. They both had simply drawn the tree on one side of the paper and the city on the other. Our tutor, looking very nonplussed, asked them to explain why they had done this. They simply said, the tree looked so beautiful on its own that they didn’t want to mess it up by putting a city behind it, so they drew that separately. I think they got bad marks. But I thought it was brilliant. A completely new way of seeing and thinking.
Of course, in art, it wasn’t that new, but to me on that particular day, something stuck forever. I wanted to see the way they could.
Years later when I worked at Ogilvy in China, I remembered that story and tried to encourage the local creatives to find their own USP (Unique Selling Point).
Don’t put the brief on the page, put yourself on the page.
I would often get some of the young copywriters who were struggling to learn English to write the copy in English as well as Chinese. I figured it would not only be a good way for them to learn, but a good way for them to write something in a unique way. Because very often they used completely new sets of words to describe things.
Rather than say the clichéd ‘at the end of the day’ they might translate that as something about a candle slowly burning down as time passed. The head copywriter used to joke with me about the Chinese language being so much more poetic than English.
As the months went on, the group got more and more confident in finding their own voice. And as much as I was mentoring them, they were mentoring me. Learning about their culture, their upbringing, their ways of thinking and seeing. This changed my own point of view.
It strikes me that different cultures and people should be recognised and respected for what we all are.
Yes, we are all human. Yes, perhaps we should all look for the similarities.
But I also think we should look for the differences too.
And celebrate them.
It is Graham Fink. Our allies have reached out, let’s welcome them. The Pitch Fanzine is open to all.
All (ish) viewpoints are welcome here if they will help us understand each other as we continue our journey.
I’m here for open dialogue, which I hope will lead to actionable change in our industry.
I also have an idea to think on if you have some time.
Here’s the idea:
Instead of everyone doing a bit of this here, or a bit of that there, to tackle the lack of diversity and systemic racism in our industry, how about we create One Vision that we can all adopt across brands, agencies, production and post, to make real changes that will be long-lasting.
One Vision with real practical ideas we create together and put in place at the same time, adding more each year.
Here is one idea I love which super DoP Rina Yang announced on her Instagram recently. She is inviting a person of colour intern to work alongside her on all of her shoots going forward, training up a new generation as she goes. Imagine if this idea was taken up by every production company, for every department, as we slowly ease ourselves out of lockdown.
For larger agencies, once we head back to our desks, how about one month, every year, inviting all your diverse talent (who are up for taking part) to take over your company culture. Paid of course – call it a bonus we will all benefit from – with potential for promotions for those involved after. We invite all the guests, including our family (meet our mums and dads), and our friends from the community, to see for themselves what exactly it is that we do.
It might be a chance, as well, for some Reverse Cultural Mentoring – an idea by Haydn Corrodus, Co-founder, We Are Stripes – starting in the boardrooms.
Cast your mind back to your workplace. Don’t you fancy a change for the better?
Also, do ask of your creative, when another culture, not your own, is included in your script: Is this racist though?
Brands. All that money. All that budget telling us how much you care for our community during this time. Why not come together under One Vision and put your anti-racism marketing budget into a fund our creative community can actually use towards projects which help us all move forward.
And an idea for those who can, you could host creative classes, one day a week, sharing work and how it’s done with local state primary and secondary school children, as well as young people in youth centres – especially those in deprived areas. If we are still on lockdown, this can be done as a live-stream or broadcast into schools or homes. We could even have a week-long global online kids creativity festival each year, also aimed at the parents.
These are just a few ideas, but I’m sure you have plenty more.
Real practical ideas we can all do together, that will help create real change.
Best wishes,
Sherry Collins
