Ecologies for artists' resilience

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 involves artists in three Eng­lish regions and incor­po­rates a unique lon­gi­tu­di­nal aspect. It draws direct from artists’ expe­ri­ences to pro­vide gran­u­lar, top­i­cal evi­dence about the scope and high­ly indi­vid­u­alised nature of artists’ devel­op­ment, artic­u­lat­ing the bar­ri­ers and the lad­ders expe­ri­enced and the role engage­ment in local­i­ty and com­mu­ni­ties plays in achiev­ing sus­tain­able art prac­tices over a lifecycle. 

This study’s evi­dence-gath­er­ing method coun­ters a ten­den­cy in sec­toral eval­u­a­tions to ​‘talk up’ artists’ suc­cess­es and align to ​‘artis­tic excel­lence’ pol­i­cy con­cepts by pre­dom­i­nant­ly cap­tur­ing expe­ri­ences and tra­jec­to­ries of ​‘known’ or ​‘suc­cess­ful artists’, such as grant or com­mis­sion recip­i­ents and oth­er artists ​‘picked out’ or oth­er­wise ​‘known’ to fun­ders, inter­me­di­aries and gate­keep­ers.[3]

Inter­views result­ing from an ini­tial self-select­ing ​‘wider pool’ method respond to the acknowl­edged lack of evi­dence of ​‘every­day cul­tur­al prac­tices’ with­in arts pol­i­cy devel­op­ment.[4] Pro­vid­ing anonymi­ty to par­tic­i­pants min­imis­es poten­tial for select­ed artists to pro­tect their pub­lic image by ​‘play­ing down’ neg­a­tive aspects of prac­tices and lives, which hin­ders accu­rate assess­ment of the suc­cess fac­tors.[5]

Cred­its

This inde­pen­dent study is sup­port­ed by Axisweb, CAMP: con­tem­po­rary art mem­ber­ship plat­form and Cre­ative Land Trust. 

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.

[3] For ben­e­fits of ​‘open’ selec­tion see Frasz, A (2024) Cre­atives Rebuild New York Artist Guar­an­teed Income for Artists Process Eval­u­a­tion CRNY/​Helicon Collaborative

[4] As not­ed in Crossick, G and Kaszyn­s­ka, P (2016) Under­stand­ing the val­ue of arts & cul­ture: The AHRC Cul­tur­al Val­ue Project. Swin­don: Arts and Human­i­ties Research Coun­cil and relates also to Frasz (2024) as above.

[5] ​“It’s not cool to be ​‘dif­fi­cult’. Per­son­al angst, nihilism or mere mis­giv­ings must be pri­vate­ly man­aged and, for the pur­pos­es of club social­i­ty, care­ful­ly con­cealed. This is a ​‘PR’ mer­i­toc­ra­cy where the ques­tion of who gets ahead on what basis and who is left behind finds no space for expres­sion.” In McRob­bie, A (2002) Clubs to Com­pa­nies: Notes on the decline of polit­i­cal cul­ture in speed­ed up worlds’. Cul­tur­al Stud­ies, 16(4) p523