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Posted On: October 23rd 2026, 09:07 am
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Many of us in music & culture know the feeling of carrying too much: our own wellbeing, our organisations, our colleagues, and the violations of rights we witness or experience ourselves, often while the structures around us grow weaker. That’s not a personal failure, it’s a sign that the system needs to change.
This week I shared a video reflection at @womex.expo at the panel ’Beyond Sound Barriers: Resilience and Collective Care – Strengthening Artistic Freedom Through Solidarity, Reflection and Exchange’. My message was about systemic change: instead of only asking how each of us can cope, we change the structures we work in, so that they care for us instead of exhausting us. From this point of view, I see 4 foundations for that system:
✨Care. A system that understands people: their situations, histories, wellbeing and also trauma. One that sees us as human beings, not as tools that serve it.
✨Alignment instead of reaction. Crises will keep coming. Our resilience doesn’t come from running faster, explaining ourselves, reacting and striking back, but from returning to our core values from where we can lead and shape what comes next, with clarity and courage, not fear.
✨Structures that protect our rights. Care written into statutes, agreements and legislation, and systems locally and internationally that recognise when artistic freedom is violated and know how to act. It also means resilient organisations, anchored so deeply in their values that they stay on course for the long term, whatever comes. As funding is cut and the space for civil society & culture shrinks, the structures that protect us need protecting too.
✨Using our platforms for what matters most. Our organisations and networks have a voice: we have to use it courageously and loudly to protect the artists, the communities and the people who rely on us. Music & people belong at the heart of the system, not in its service.
I’m grateful to be part of a network that takes this work seriously, and takes care of each other while doing it 💖 @kathi.son @mirkitte @jamilaandtheotherheroes @mwambaba1
Thank you WOMEX, everyone in the room, and all of you who have shared your thoughts with me since 💖
This week I shared a video reflection at @womex.expo at the panel ’Beyond Sound Barriers: Resilience and Collective Care – Strengthening Artistic Freedom Through Solidarity, Reflection and Exchange’. My message was about systemic change: instead of only asking how each of us can cope, we change the structures we work in, so that they care for us instead of exhausting us. From this point of view, I see 4 foundations for that system:
✨Care. A system that understands people: their situations, histories, wellbeing and also trauma. One that sees us as human beings, not as tools that serve it.
✨Alignment instead of reaction. Crises will keep coming. Our resilience doesn’t come from running faster, explaining ourselves, reacting and striking back, but from returning to our core values from where we can lead and shape what comes next, with clarity and courage, not fear.
✨Structures that protect our rights. Care written into statutes, agreements and legislation, and systems locally and internationally that recognise when artistic freedom is violated and know how to act. It also means resilient organisations, anchored so deeply in their values that they stay on course for the long term, whatever comes. As funding is cut and the space for civil society & culture shrinks, the structures that protect us need protecting too.
✨Using our platforms for what matters most. Our organisations and networks have a voice: we have to use it courageously and loudly to protect the artists, the communities and the people who rely on us. Music & people belong at the heart of the system, not in its service.
I’m grateful to be part of a network that takes this work seriously, and takes care of each other while doing it 💖 @kathi.son @mirkitte @jamilaandtheotherheroes @mwambaba1
Thank you WOMEX, everyone in the room, and all of you who have shared your thoughts with me since 💖
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