Before We Go Down in History (we have to make a living) I. Class Composition

During the [contra]panorama project, we will think about the costs of surviving as an artist, and the costs of giving up, but we will also speculate about which economies, technologies, times, mechanisms of redistribution and infrastructures we will need to imagine together. During this first session of the public programme, we will think about what Eleonora Belfiore has called the “moral failure” of cultural policy. With María Ruido, Isabel Seguí, Lorena Cervera and Radia Cava-ret, we will think about the emergence of a new artistic class consciousness that is aware of these changing conditions and yet refuses to think of artistic labour as deserving some exceptional kind of protection, establishing its emancipatory horizon as the base on which new forms of identification and networks of solidarity must be established.

Artistic labour is no longer associated with the aspiration towards non-alienated work. Today it appears irreversibly intertwined with the continuous self-exploitation and intermittent employment of the gig economy. What used to be imagined as a lifelong vocation, one based on meritocracy and made possible by a welfare state to come, turned out to be no more than a proverbial carrot. In the age of platform capitalism, artistic work seems increasingly condemned to become a hobby for those who can afford it and – in the best of cases – a side hustle for those who cannot. But moreover, at a time of polycrisis (Tooze, 2022) – economic, technological, geopolitical, social and environmental – the better we get at surviving, the more resilience we build, the higher the pressure on us increases. Pushing ourselves beyond our means in our professional ambitions can turn into an infernal feedback loop.

with the support of:

related activities

2 activities

Before We Go Down in History (we have to make a living) I. Class Composition. Session 1

activity
2024-07-09

Before We Go Down in History (we have to make a living) I. Class Composition. Session 2

activity
2024-07-10

participants

Alicia Escobio

Eleonora Belfiore

Isabel Seguí

Lorena Cervera

María Ruido

Ourense, 1967

Radia Cava-ret

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Saberes & Sabores

see detail

Yaiza Hernández

This activity is within the framework of the [contra] panorama project, a year-long series of interventions that take the project’s title literally, in order to question both the continuing relevance of the triennial (or biennial) format and its capacity to offer a panoramic image of the present.