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Ecologies for artists' resilience

Knowl­edge of artists’ indi­vid­ual expe­ri­ences of mak­ing progress, sus­tain­ing art prac­tices and of their liveli­hood choic­es over time is vital to under­stand­ing what makes the lives of artists live­able. This new qual­i­ta­tive research which exam­ines what artists are doing all day and why con­tributes to under­stand­ing what are the most sup­port­ive infra­struc­tures and ecolo­gies for con­tem­po­rary visu­al artists over their life cycle. 

Com­ple­ment­ing and ampli­fy­ing an array of exist­ing demo­graph­ic and eco­nom­ic data from arts and cul­tur­al indus­try bod­ies, it explores how an artist’s per­son­al cir­cum­stances includ­ing their social back­ground, loca­tion, fam­i­ly respon­si­bil­i­ties and life con­texts impact on their every­day deci­sions, artis­tic ambi­tions and career prospects. In a post Covid world with ambi­tions for net zero, find­ings can con­tribute to iden­ti­fy­ing new struc­tur­al inter­ven­tions with­in an arts ecol­o­gy intend­ed to be sup­port­ive of the well-being and resilience for many cre­ative indi­vid­u­als over the long term.

Through in-depth con­ver­sa­tions with select­ed indi­vid­ual artists, the research illu­mi­nates what pur­suit of art prac­tices looks and feels like for the artists engaged in them on an every­day basis, where they live, includ­ing iden­ti­fy­ing aspects that help and hin­der. Cap­tur­ing this gran­u­lar­i­ty con­tributes to under­stand­ing the artists’ community’s ​‘con­stel­la­tion val­ue’ as formed through their per­sis­tent, diver­gent and place ori­en­tat­ed con­tri­bu­tions to soci­ety over time. 

Scope

The term ​‘artist’ has mul­ti­ple def­i­n­i­tions and visu­al artists hold many dif­fer­ent roles in soci­ety.[1] Visu­al artists’ career paths and employ­ment prospects and are hybrid and more diverse than those of most cre­ative work­ers.[2] Recog­nis­ing this social real­i­ty for artists and encom­pass­ing the ​‘whole per­son’, this qual­i­ta­tive study for 2024⁄25 that incor­po­rates a lon­gi­tu­di­nal aspect draws direct from artists’ expe­ri­ences to pro­vide gran­u­lar, top­i­cal evi­dence about the scope, and high­ly indi­vid­u­alised nature of artists’ devel­op­ment includ­ing the levers and pit­falls they expe­ri­ence as con­tri­bu­tion to artic­u­lat­ing artists’ solu­tions to achiev­ing sus­tain­able art prac­tices over a lifecycle.

Cred­its

This inde­pen­dent study is being sup­port­ed by Axisweb and CAMP: con­tem­po­rary art mem­ber­ship platform. 

Ref­er­ences

[1] Wright, J (2023) Research digest: The role of the artist in soci­ety, Cen­tre for Cul­tur­al Val­ue https://​www​.cul​ture​hive​.co​.uk/​C​V​I​r​e​s​o​u​r​c​e​s​/​r​e​s​e​a​r​c​h​-​d​i​g​e​s​t​-​t​h​e​-​r​o​l​e​-​o​f​-​t​h​e​-​a​r​t​i​s​t​-​i​n​-​s​o​c​iety/

[2] Sana Kim, S, Lee, H and Warn­er, K (2024) Pol­i­cy approach­es to tack­le pre­car­i­ty in free­lance cul­tur­al work https://​sus​tain​ablecul​tur​al​fu​tures​.wee​bly​.com/​u​p​l​o​a​d​s​/​1​/​4​/​5​/​1​/​1​4​5​1​2​3​9​4​8​/​s​c​f​-​t​h​e​m​e​2​-​r​e​p​o​r​t​-​f​v​1.pdf pro­vides con­fir­ma­tion of the ​‘atyp­i­cal’ and chal­leng­ing envi­ron­ment for visu­al artists ​‘due to the high­ly diverse and hybrid nature of work and careers’ and the ​‘solo’ nature of artists’ practices.