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Artists and pay — 20+ inspi­ra­tion and infor­ma­tion sources

This resource that includes com­men­tary, evi­dence and advice is intend­ed for indi­vid­ual artists, arts organ­is­ers, com­mis­sion­ers, train­ers and pol­i­cy­mak­ers intend­ed to achieve equi­table and inclu­sive con­di­tions in which indi­vid­u­als can flour­ish. It’s a basis for explor­ing fric­tions and mis­as­sump­tions about artists and pay and under­stand­ing why indi­vid­ual nego­ti­a­tion is a vital to ensur­ing pro­duc­tive exchanges and collaborations.

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Rethink­ing artists: the role of artists in the 21st Century

This essay for the 2014 Seoul Art Space, Seoul Foun­da­tion for Arts and Cul­ture Inter­na­tion­al Sym­po­sium briefly cov­ers UK arts poli­cies for sup­port to artists’ devel­op­ment, com­ments on their impact on artists’ social and eco­nom­ic sta­tus and sug­gests a rethink­ing of the artists’ intrin­sic role in soci­ety as a vital part of secur­ing and sus­tain­ing con­tem­po­rary visu­al arts in the future.

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Cre­ativ­i­ty at the heart: the holis­tic approach

This paper com­bines argu­ments first pre­sent­ed by Susan Jones at an engage annu­al con­fer­ence in which she ques­tioned the effi­ca­cy of our insti­tu­tion­al­ly-dri­ven visu­al arts ecol­o­gy with new research and enquiry into future cul­tur­al, dig­i­tal and social envi­ron­ments for the arts. It calls for adop­tion of a more open, imag­i­na­tive, lat­er­al, col­lab­o­ra­tive and respon­sive approach­es to cre­at­ing cul­tur­al val­ue, premised on build­ing rela­tion­ships and rap­port with the dif­fer­ent kinds and band­widths of audi­ences and with the enablers and the mak­ers of art. Links updat­ed 17/05/2018

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Bite the hand that feeds you

This provo­ca­tion com­mis­sioned by Stoke Air­space for an Artists’ Soup Kitchen address­es and con­firms the impor­tance of the role and val­ue of artists with­in cul­tur­al and social change. The four sec­tions are designed to open up a dis­cus­sion on what now?’ and – more impor­tant­ly – what next?’ for Air­space and artists and future artists locat­ed in Stoke.

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Ways and means: liveli­hood strate­gies 1984 to 2014

This audio of a pre­sen­ta­tion by Susan Jones at Work and Art, CRATE, UCA Can­ter­bury, March 2015, con­sid­ers the cli­mate for visu­al artists’ prac­tice and their abil­i­ty to make a liv­ing. Ref­er­enc­ing evi­dence and data from arts and cul­tur­al sources over the last thir­ty years and con­sid­er­ing insight from future fore­cast­ing, it iden­ti­fies the pre­vail­ing issues sur­round­ing sup­port to artists and their liveli­hoods with­in the pub­lic sec­tor. It con­cludes by artic­u­lat­ing some of the inher­ent issues and chal­lenges with­in the cur­rent and future ecol­o­gy for artists and the con­tem­po­rary visu­al arts to be addressed by pub­lic fun­ders and the sec­tor alike. 

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Are there too many artists?

This paper used com­par­a­tive data as a back­drop to a com­men­tary designed to illu­mi­nate a dis­cus­sion on whether there are Too many artists?’, rais­ing a range of issues, ques­tions and (mis)perceptions — in part about the role of artists in life in gen­er­al and impact of state inter­ven­tion and arts pol­i­cy-mak­ing in particular.

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