A window of tolerance is a term used in different kinds of therapeutic processes. It describes an optimal zone where one is able to regulate their emotions and function well in everyday life. It’s a way to understand how our lived experiences affect the ways we encounter the world. It’s also a tool that helps us identify what happens when stressors—internal and external—start to shrink this window, sending one into a state of hyperarousal (a fight, flight, or freeze response) or hypoarousal (the body starts to shut down). This concept allows us to better understand our emotional range, behaviours, and interpersonal relationships, amongst other things. Through different types of support, a window of tolerance can be expanded, resulting in a greater sense of comfort and safety.
We at Feminist Culture House (FCH) have been interested in playing with this concept for a while, toying with it as a metaphor for describing the fluctuating zone(s) of comfort within which cultural workers operate. We think of it transcending instances of individual psychological responses; we notice how it seeps into our lives in insidious and persistent ways. Maybe you feel tired all the time, can’t stay on top of household chores, haven’t had a home-cooked meal in months, are finding it hard to get out of bed, haven’t had time to spend with friends and kin, struggle to get away from screens, are overwhelmed by your to-do list, or are finding it hard to make time for fun and pleasure.
Or maybe you wake up in the middle of the night worried about paying your medical insurance, renewing your residence permit, obtaining a steady income, securing affordable housing, navigating social security bureaucracies, paying caretaker bills, dealing with microaggressions and harassment from co-workers, finally getting an appointment to pursue gender-affirming care, or having to advocate for your neurodivergent experience within educational settings. These and many other material and structural conditions also contribute to narrowing not only individual windows of tolerance but our collective windows too. They intersect and slowly accumulate into layers of stressors that limit our capacity to live fulfilling and dignified lives. The intersections of these conditions are, of course, infinite, and are experienced by many people in different contexts; it would be impossible to list them all. As an intersectional feminist collective working in Finland, our focus is to think about how these conditions permeate the art field.
Think of an artist who has a multi-year grant, a curator with a full-time position at a contemporary art museum, or a graphic designer working for an agency that has a steady flow of commercial and cultural clients. These art workers probably have a wide window of tolerance, supported by a secured income, professional development and recognition, holidays, time to care for others, and access to different types of subsidised medical and holistic care. Then, think of the members of a theatre collective without any funding: they can only work together a few times per month because they all need to have day jobs, and are only able to meet on weekends or evenings. Or consider a freelance producer, burnt out for several months after their last project but unable to find their next gig, anxiously wondering how to pay this month’s bills. Or a musician who teaches children how to play guitar during the day, plays concerts at night, and works as a food delivery driver during the weekend. Their windows of tolerance are probably so narrow that they barely manage to function beyond the most basic tasks, and have no space for professional development or experimentation, nor time for taking care of themselves and others.
While windows of tolerance can be used as a conceptual frame to analyse an individual’s behaviour, we think that this tool also allows us to visibilise how larger societal structures produce conditions that benefit some and disadvantage many—that is, our windows of tolerance are often the result of prevailing intersectional inequalities, and to overcome these conditions, we need collective tools to help us communicate, share, and hopefully expand everyone’s windows.
Negotiations
Within the field of arts and culture, it’s rare to work alone. Our practices are propelled by our relationships, and often involve different formulations of cooperation and coming together. Moments of fun, experimentation, solidarity, hospitality, reciprocity, empathy, pleasure, and celebration blossom when we work collectively. Through doing and learning together, we build friendships and connections that can nurture us for many years.
The cultural field is often characterised by precarity and scarcity, which creates structures that feed individualism and competitiveness. In the long term, this ends up stripping away possibilities for solidarity and collectivity. Resources, safety, and security therefore become unequally distributed, creating unideal working conditions that compromise people’s wellbeing. For us, this is unsustainable and needs to change.
In the hypercompetitive cultural field, sometimes you feel pressured to accept any opportunity you’re offered, rather than taking time to contemplate if it’s a good fit for you, or negotiating the working conditions it entails. Asking questions can feel stressful, or might brand you as ‘difficult’ or ‘ungrateful’. This is particularly pertinent when the ones negotiating are a salaried institutional representative on the one hand and a freelancer on the other. Unfortunately, the power differential between the two usually benefits the institution. Negotiating and getting on the same page is also work! It’s something to consider when scoping a job, offering a fee, or quoting for your services, for example.
Ideally, your collaboration started with a clear invitation that clarifies the project’s material conditions, and everyone is on the same page about their respective responsibilities. But remember that working dynamics will undoubtedly change and shift alongside budgets, timelines, capacities, and life situations. Let’s recognise that life happens, that many things are out of our control, and we need to negotiate (and renegotiate) throughout a project. Sometimes we might even need to step away from a project, and that’s okay too.
In moments when collaborations give rise to tension and conflict, let’s try to challenge the idea that conflict is taboo, and remember to keep checking in throughout the collaborative process. The following exercises and prompts have been developed to help guide and normalise negotiation conversations: asking questions, sharing needs, and negotiating the terms of a collaboration.
To prepare, we first suggest thinking through and naming all the different types of labour you do for a project, and the amounts of time they take. This will help when communicating your boundaries around schedules and responsiveness. Then consider what needs to be shared, how to respectfully recognise people’s different life situations, and what aspects of communication, language, and accessibility are important to you. You might wish to share an access rider too.
1. Visualising your labour
Clearly articulating the routines and demands of your current projects and commitments can help you plan realistically, set boundaries, and encourage others to respect your time.
2. Email signature
Adding a signature to your emails is a helpful way to communicate your work schedule and capacity to others. It can also serve to highlight other aspects of how you work that might be relevant. You might want to include:
Name, pronouns / Email + website + social media / I work on: [list days]/ I read my emails on: [list days] / It might take up to days to reply / I spend % of my time on this work/job
3. Coming together & sharing needs
Prompts to communicate your needs when introducing yourself
- (Everyday life) things that are important to me, that I’d like to share
- How I best process information
- How I like to receive feedback
- My ideal conditions / I am at my best when
4. How to work together?
Prompts to structure a collaborative process
- How do we imagine this collaboration will take place?
- Reasons we want to work together
- What skills can we offer each other?
- What values/principles are meaningful for us?
- Can we agree on how to equally distribute fun / less fun responsibilities?
- Can we speak about our different working conditions, & how to support each other?
- What resources / other currencies can we offer each other?
- How can we incorporate pleasure, fun, & celebration in this project?
5. Communication
Prompts to navigate communication and expectations
- My preferred method/platform for communication is
- I’m available to communicate during
- These are my predicted response times
- Social media preferences/energy for using social media
6. Language & accessibility
Let’s discuss…
- Language and terminology that’s important to me
- Terms that might be hurtful or problematic
- Forms of support I appreciate
- Accessibility needs
CONFLICT AND TENSION
At some point, negotiations—and collaborative processes—might develop into disagreements, arguments, or conflicts. Unresolved disputes are stressful for everyone, and can become more stressful the longer they remain unresolved. While most of us might feel ill-equipped to deal with conflict, the individualistic nature of each situation means there’s no such thing as a conflict ‘expert’, or a fail-safe technique for resolving conflict. Being conscious of when a situation has become polarised is important, and a good indicator that mediation could help you get on the same page. Sometimes a facilitator or ‘neutral’ person in the room can be helpful for conflict de-escalation too.
While it might feel challenging in the moment, persisting in talking through difficulty can build goodwill and result in preserving—or perhaps even enhancing—relationships. Conflict can also be transformational and a site for growth—it ushers in new ways of being in the world, understanding oneself, and relating to others.
Reaching a resolution may also vary a lot depending on the kind of work you are doing, the context, as well as the people involved, how they’re connected to each other, and how they relate to conflict. Acknowledging that our response to conflict could fluctuate over time might also be helpful. The following lists of questions and prompts might aid you when needing to address conflict in a collaborative process.
I’M SENSING TENSION IN THE AIR: WHAT DO I DO?
- I can tolerate the situation
- I avoid talking about it
- I feel stressed
- I can initiate a conversation to acknowledge the tension
- I can lead a mediation discussion
IF YOU’RE HESITATING OR DON’T FEEL CAPABLE OF INITIATING A CONVERSATION JUST YET:
- Can I ask for some time to think things through / sit with my emotions?
- Have I communicated how long I need to reflect, & when I will get back to this?
- How do I react when I’m hurt?
- How do I feel knowing that I’ve hurt someone?
- Can I empathise with how the other person/people might be feeling?
- Am I being avoidant/defensive, angry/ungracious?
- What do I want to do next with these emotions?
WHEN YOU’RE READY TO LISTEN AND HAVE A CONVERSATION
- What do I want out of this conversation?
- What forms of communication work best for me in this moment?
- How do we structure our conversation so that we all feel heard?
- Do we need facilitation? Who can facilitate?
- What do we wish to be acknowledged?
- How do we sit with difficulty?
- Does apologising feel hard right now?
- How did our behaviour affect each other?
- What steps can we take to fix this?
- What happens next?
***
This text is an excerpt from Windows of Tolerance: Tools for Ideal Collaborations in an Unideal (Art) World, a publication by Feminist Culture House. A compilation of exercises, checklists, workflows, prompts for conversation, and practical tips, the publication invites readers to become attuned to the social, cultural, and political implications of the working methods they put into practice, and to implement intersectional feminist working methodologies when collaborating with others.
You can download the digital publication for free at feministculturehouse.org. The publication also includes a print-at-home version of the exercises presented here, and other prompts for conversation and reflection for those interested in collaborative processes grounded in intersectionality.
- Cover Image
Windows of Tolerance publication.
