[oberlist] Open Call // Artists Against Precarity and Violence – Resistance Strategies, Unionizing, and Coalition Building in a Time of Global Conflict and Contradiction

[Art Leaks]

Please consider contributing to the forthcoming issue of the ArtLeaks  
Gazette and help us spread this open call widely!



http://art-leaks.org/2015/01/28/al-gazette-no-3-open-call-artists-against-precarity-and-violence-resistance-strategies-unionizing-and-coalition-building-in-a-time-of-global-conflict-and-contradiction/



The ArtLeaks Gazette aims to shed critical light on both the  
challenges and obstacles inherent in the contemporary art world, in  
order to work towards constructive and meaningful transformations.  
Beyond “breaking the silence” and exposing bad practices, we are  
exploring the ways in which art workers around the world are pushing  
towards changing their factories of art, embedded in larger socio- 
economic-political flows. We realize this is a difficult task, as the  
global condition since ArtLeaks was established in 2011 is quite  
different. The (art)world has changed and it seems that violence and  
hostility rule around the globe. The years to come seem like they will  
be even more full of conflict and contradiction. Due to the increase  
of global wars, the threat of climate breakdown, and other devastating  
realities, new media and technology are being used in a negative way,  
encouraging deeper precarity, austerity, and inequality. This is  
happening in the sector of arts and culture increasing the debt of  
artists and cultural workers. We believe that art workers need to  
formulate an answer to these challenges, to build global coalitions,  
and to unionize in order to counter precarity and violence in a  
countervailing way.

The third issue of the ArtLeaks Gazette will bring together  
theoreticians and practitioners dealing with these urgent questions  
about models of organizations, unionizing, and strategies of  
resistance. This helps to illuminate new ways of production and  
coalition building in international and local environments that are  
increasingly hostile.

Specifically, social institutions of the welfare state are in poor  
shape thanks to the neoliberal offensive now underway for several  
decades. This process affects art workers. For example, in so-called  
“creative” European cities, significant numbers of registered  
artists function as a “reserve army” for cheap or even voluntary  
work. Conditions of artistic labor are summarily dismissed as  
unimportant, frequently among the upper echelons of the art management  
class, and sometimes even among artists that have either achieved  
economic hegemony or aspire to it. In some cases, when members of the  
art community do decide to speak out, they face the danger of being  
excluded from an exhibition or a project, or blacklisted from working  
in certain institutions.

One of the problems lies in the fact that artists usually do not  
understand themselves as workers, but see themselves working against  
each other and feel that art production differs from the capitalist  
working relations of the greater economy. The challenge is to continue  
to question the autonomy of artistic production, to confront those who  
benefit with this mode of cultural profiteering, and to demythologize  
the production process of art itself.

Several present-day activist art worker groups are beginning to look  
back to the late 1960s and early 1970s, and even further to the mid  
19th century, particularly in the 1930s, as moments of inspiration  
during social movements and political struggles, for the fight for art  
workers’ rights, reclaiming cultural institutions, art and/as labor  
in a global context. Indeed, we would emphasize today’s art workers  
need more of that do-it-together spirit, a greater common interest and  
a more developed strategy and plan for transformation.

Therefore, the key issue the third installment of the ArtLeaks Gazette  
wants to tackle is the question:“Is it possible to make an  
international coalition of artists on the basis of art workers’  
solidarity and to struggle for better material conditions?” And if  
so, then what could be the mechanisms to build and spread the network  
and to make stronger demands? Are there modes of production that can  
support coalition building?

We welcome contributions in a variety of narrative forms, from  
articles, commentaries, and glossary entries, to posters, drawings and  
films. The deadline for entries is the 5th of April, 2015.  
Contributions should be delivered in English, or as an exemption in  
other languages after negotiations with the editorial council. The  
editorial council of ArtLeaks takes responsibility for communicating  
with all authors during the editorial process.

Please contact us with any questions, comments, and submit materials  
to: artsleaks at gmail.com.

The on-line gazette will be published in English under the Creative  
Commons attribution noncommercial-share alike and its materials will  
be offered for translation in any languages to any interested parts.

Limited printed copies will be available. We are calling on those of  
you who regularly print as a part of your work to help us get the ALG  
by committing to small print runs of 50-100 copies. We will make  
several PDF formats of the ALG to meet various digital needs, as well  
as an epub edition. We encourage contributors to be an active part of  
spreading the ALG by hosting it on their site and forwarding it on to  
their networks.

The editorial council for the third issue is: Corina L. Apostol, Brett  
A. Bloom and Vladan Jeremić.

Previous issues of the ArtLeaks Gazette can be read here and here.

-- 

ArtLeaks // It is time to break the silence!

http://art-leaks.org/

artsleaks at gmail.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: </pipermail/oberlist/attachments/20150201/af3f2872/attachment.html>