I love language the most when it is clear, concise, and easily understood by as many people as possible and when the actions match the person who wrote the words.
– Haneen Mahmood Martin
Sticky Teeth’s micro-interviews ft. words on the intersection of arts and writing.
I met Haneen Mahmood Martin at a writer workshop back in 2020, and she’s been one of those creatives I’ve loved lurking online over the years. So, it feels special to feature her on sticky teeth for a conversation on actually genuine inclusivity in the arts and writing.
In this chat, Haneen talks about community accountability and perspectives through programming and storytelling in the arts sector, matching words with actions—i.e. more POC in leadership positions—and the use of clear, accessible, but impactful language.
xx Tahney
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Haneen Mahmood Martin is a Kuala Lumpur-born, Malay-Saudi multi-arts programmer, producer, writer, and artist based in Narrm/Melbourne by way of Garramilla/Darwin and Kaurna Yerta/Adelaide.
Haneen creates and seeks art that highlights the everyday rituals that make life meaningful, the precarity of memory as a means of holding knowledge, and the connection and understanding that sharing food can bring – creating a space for our ordinary stories in the archives.
When she is not working for institutions, she takes the lead on a directory for Malay and Malaysian creatives in Australia, hosts her Sayang-Sayang Supper Club – an opportunity to test recipes and her notions of hospitality right from her home in Melbourne, and dreams of a singular, full-time, programming role.
Tahney: What’s your view of writing and language in the art world?
How have you navigated this, esp. within texts?
As part of my Cultural Leadership MFA, I became obsessed with exploring the duty arts organisations have to be safer for People of Colour. It was difficult to find information actually written by People of Colour, particularly in Australia.
Thankfully, through my research, I stumbled across and continuously referenced the US-focused book Invitation to the Party by Donna Walker-Kuhne. It is so clearly written and borne of expertise. Throughout it, Walker-Kuhne outlines the most basic people and community-led strategies for engagement whilst reiterating the importance of understanding who you are trying to engage, why you are doing it, and how trust must be built.
Closer to home, I am reading the second edition of The Relationship is The Project, which has been so carefully edited by Jade Lillie and Kate Larsen-Keys to ensure that the book is written at a year 8 level. I have been privileged to learn at the age of 32 that this is Australia’s national reading level.
How important this attention to detail is so that the work we create can be consumed by others.
What have you been writing lately?
I have two recent writing projects I am particularly proud of.
The first is The Regional Scribes Anthology, You Together, released by Regional Arts Australia (RAA). It is a collection of writing from 18-24-year-olds based in Regional and Remote Australia who participated in the Regional Scribes program, curated and delivered with my favourite collaborator, Zoya Godoroja-Prieckaerts.
RAA really encouraged us as young people living regionally to recognise what was missing and gave us the organisational support and structure to tackle it head-on. Zoya is a gentle but tough partner in creative crime.
This program and the book provided these young people (and us) with professional development and social opportunities that can be missing in these areas or prohibitively expensive to access.
Carefully edited by Gabrielle Tozer, the book is available for free (!) here.
The second is Engage!, a report and toolkit published by Contemporary Asian Australian Performance (CAAP) and Arts on Tour, which explores PoC community and audience engagement in the performing arts, using a few regional Australian venues as a case study.
I co-wrote these documents with academic Phillip Mar and Executive Producer of CAAP Sandi Woo.
It was a big shift from my usual independent writing + consulting work and gave me hope towards a future of simple, focused, and accessible research informed by the industry.
Any other texts you’d like to share?
I haven’t got my hands on it yet, but I am dying to read Peripathetic (Notes on (un)belonging by Cher Tan.
Also, as always: Free Palestine. Read Sara Saleh, and feel free to start with this article about her debut novel Songs for the Dead and the Living, where she says: “I want to know the system and its flaws, so I know how to undo it, transcend it / But the law has its limits / As an artist, I can talk to the system like that.”
The novel itself is a compelling story that proves how powerful it is to share our experiences however they come.
More of Haneen Mahmood Martin here.
Interview by Tahney Fosdike.
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Haneen Mahmood Martin talks about shared accountability and diverse perspectives in the arts industry, matching words with actions—i.e., more POC in leadership positions—and the use of clear, accessible, but impactful language.
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