A selection of free or open-access resources to support a conversation about creative labour, exploitation and self-exploitation in the arts and culture sector.
Resources/toolkits
- Precarious Workers Brigade: https://precariousworkersbrigade.tumblr.com.
- Precarious Workers Bridgade’s workbook Training for Exploitation? Politicising Employability and Reclaiming Education: http://joaap.org/press/trainingforexploitation.htm
- Carrotworkers’ Collective’s Surviving Internships: A Counter-Guide to Free Labour in the Arts, and Payback Campaigns (2009). Open access publication: https://carrotworkers.wordpress.com/counter-internship-guide/
- Not Going Back to Normal (2020). A collective disabled artists manifesto. https://www.notgoingbacktonormal.com/
- Sheila Ghelani’s Checklist of care (2017). A series of prompts for considering the terms of one’s working environment: http://sheilaghelani.blogspot.com/2017/10/checklist-of-care.html
- Julie Vulcan’s talk on artist self-care at I’m Still Standing (2016). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEu6wNNSck8
- Ruskeat Tytöt’s self-care manual for artists of color (2020): https://www.kulturradet.no/english/vis/-/a-self-care-manual-for-artists-of-color
- Unlimited’s Resources for disabled artists and freelancers in response to COVID-19 (2020): https://weareunlimited.org.uk/links-and-resources-for-disabled-artists-and-freelancers-in-response-to-covid-19-includes-medical-guidance/
- Creative Scotland’s rates of pay guidance with links to unions and rates cards across the creative sector: https://www.creativescotland.com/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/38979/Guidance-on-Industry-Standards.pdf
Commentaries
- Hans Abbing’s book Why Are Artists Poor? The Exceptional Economy of the Arts (2008). Open access publication: https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/35101
- Amitabh Rai’s study-room guide for LADA, Managing the Radical (2020). Free: https://www.thisisliveart.co.uk/resources/managing-the-radical-2020/
- Greig De Peuter’s essay ‘Beyond the Model Worker: Surveying a Creative Precariat’ (2014). Creative commons publication: https://journal.ep.liu.se/CU/article/view/2073. Quote: ‘The figure of the self-reliant, risk-bearing, non-unionised, self-exploiting, always-on flexibly employed worker in the creative industries has been positioned as a role model of contemporary capitalism’.
- Gessa Helm’s essay ‘The presence of precarity: Self-employment as contemporary form’ (2011) in Variant issue 41. https://romulusstudio.com/variant/41texts/ghelms41.html
- Diverse Actions: Vanishing Points (2020). A free version of the publication is available digitally: https://www.thisisunbound.co.uk/products/vanishing-points
- Alberta Whittle’s essay ‘Biting the Hand That Feeds You: A Strategy of Wayward Curating’ (2019). Open access publication: https://doi.org/10.1080/02560046.2019.1688848
- Josie Giles’ ‘My Wages As An Artist, 2015-20’ (2020) https://harryjosephine.com/blog/page/2/ and ‘Provocations for a Culture Strategy (2017) https://harryjosephine.com/2017/06/20/provocations-for-a-culture-strategy/
- Joy Forever: The Political Economy of Social Creativity (2011). Free download / donation: http://mayflybooks.org/?p=214
- Critique of Creativity: Precarity, Subjectivity and Resistance in the ‘Creative Industries’ (2011). Free download / donation: http://mayflybooks.org/?p=212