Category: “Discourse”

Dou­ble Neg­a­tive masthead

Essay analysing flaws and impacts on artists of the UK’s extreme neo-lib­er­al arts econ­o­my with sug­ges­tions for chal­leng­ing and redress­ing the inequities caused.

Read “Let artists flourish, for equality’s sake” in full

Case 4 Cul­ture data

Data set from Case 4 Cul­ture free­lance survey

“We can­not be con­tent to go back to what was before, as if all is nor­mal… there needs to be a res­ur­rec­tion of our com­mon life.” Justin Wel­by, Arch­bish­op of Canterbury.

The East­er ser­mon – opined from the Arch­bish­op’s kitchen and dis­sem­i­nat­ed via social media to some 18,000 peo­ple – pro­vid­ed the cue for a dis­cus­sion on how to ensure artists’ sur­vival in an arts and cul­tur­al envi­ron­ment poleaxed by Covid-19. 

Read “Treating the rash or investing in a cure: the future of artists’ livelihoods” in full

Con­di­tions for motility

“This is a moment fraught with pos­si­bil­i­ty.” Isabelle Tra­cy, Par­al­lel State: State of the Nation pod­cast 27 March 2020

This text in the Covid19 port­fo­lio is on the future of artists’ liveli­hoods. It starts by evi­denc­ing the impact of exter­nal trends on visu­al artists’ liveli­hoods. It then iden­ti­fies some of the pol­i­cy mis­as­sump­tions and struc­tur­al bar­ri­ers that lim­it artists’ liveli­hood prospects before demon­strat­ing that visu­al artists as a ​‘spe­cial case’ with­in the arts work­force are deserv­ing of indi­vid­u­alised atten­tion with­in arts poli­cies. It con­cludes by out­lin­ing the core qual­i­ties for pur­suit of liveli­hoods through art prac­tices that enable many artists to con­tribute to soci­ety over a life-cycle as a point of ref­er­ence for pol­i­cy-mak­ing dur­ing the Covid19 emer­gency and into the uncer­tain decade ahead. 

Read “From myths to motility: doing better by artists” in full

Par­al­lel State 27 03 2020

Two pod­casts with­in the Par­al­lel State series dis­cussing the imme­di­ate and sus­tained impli­ca­tions of the Covid19 lock­down and iso­la­tion on artists and the arts. They brought togeth­er vir­tu­al­ly on 27 March 2020 Rose But­ler, Jon Dovey, Tim Etchells, Adri­an Friedli, Susan Jones, Simon Poul­ter, Isabelle Tra­cy and Hwa Young Jung.

Read “State of the Nation: Parallel State” in full

Artists emer­gency hashtag

“We must see the cul­tur­al ecosys­tem in which every per­son, every organ­i­sa­tion, every cul­tur­al expres­sion, has a legit­i­mate place.” Fran­cois Mataras­so, Let’s use this breath­ing space wise­ly, 25 March 2020

Strate­gic arts pol­i­cy fund­ing inter­ven­tions premised on equal­i­ty and co-oper­a­tion are key to sus­tain­ing visu­al artists’ liveli­hoods over a life-cycle. This text in the Covid19 port­fo­lio com­bines sec­ondary data analy­sis with cross-ref­er­ences to pri­or and new research to offer six ref­er­ence points for the eco­nom­ic val­ue of artists’ prac­tices with­in the arts and cre­ative indus­tries includ­ing indi­ca­tion of their income sources in broad terms. It con­cludes with an argu­ment for vital new struc­tur­al arts pol­i­cy and advo­ca­cy mea­sures to ensure that many visu­al artists – not just a few — sur­vive through the imme­di­ate peri­od of the Covid19 emer­gency and dur­ing what is like­ly to be a sus­tained peri­od of eco­nom­ic reces­sion beyond. 

Read “Artists’ emergency: arts policy’s role in the future of artists’ livelihoods” in full

Maia Tweet

After an intro­duc­tion to the spe­cif­ic eco­nom­ic cir­cum­stances of visu­al artists and, mind­ful of the wide and exten­sive impacts of the pan­dem­ic on their work prospects and liveli­hoods, this text in the Covid-19 port­fo­lio includes a four-point ​‘hope­ful pro­pos­al’ that sets out how to ensure artists sur­vive the fall out, and can bring their mul­ti­ple val­ues to ben­e­fit the arts and soci­ety in the decade ahead. 

Read “Do it all, for artists’ sake, now” in full

Susan Jones

Pre­sen­ta­tion for CAMP (Con­tem­po­rary Art Mem­ber­ship Ply­mouth) 13 Feb­ru­ary 2020 that address­es some of the myths about artists’ prac­tices and liveli­hoods, the con­di­tions most con­ducive for sup­port­ing the per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al lives of many artists over a life-cycle and pro­vides some rad­i­cal propo­si­tions for achiev­ing them.

Read “Exploding myths: the future of artists' livelihoods” in full

The chance to dream

Although not a major aspect of artists’ liveli­hoods, grants and awards to artists are a vital con­trib­u­tor to sus­tain­ing art prac­tices over a life-cycle. This paper starts by out­lin­ing the ben­e­fits of direct fund­ing to indi­vid­ual artists, describes dif­fer­ing arts pol­i­cy per­spec­tives on this in Eng­land over the last thir­ty years and pro­vides a case study of Arts Coun­cil Eng­land’s Grants for the Arts Scheme 2003 – 14 before mak­ing an argu­ment for new, nuanced, localised approach­es to nur­tur­ing and sup­port­ing the wider con­stituen­cy of visu­al artists and diver­si­ty of art prac­tices in future.

Read “The chance to dream: why fund individual artists?” in full

A provo­ca­tion around the role and val­ue of and expec­ta­tions for artists with­in cul­tur­al and social change. Rather than expect­ing oth­ers to artic­u­late artists’ val­ue on their behalf, I am propos­ing that artists take respon­si­bil­i­ty them­selves for this and for advo­cat­ing for and trans­lat­ing their val­ue to others.

Read “"Nobody wants you but everyone needs you"” in full

Draw­ing on past UK evi­dence , this essay pro­vides analy­sis how the land­scape and dri­vers for artists’ res­i­den­cies have changed and insight to inform more pro­duc­tive res­i­den­cy prac­tices with­in future arts policies.

Read “Residencies: practices and paradoxes” in full