As part of the exhibition Out of Office at IMPAKT curated by Marijn Bril, we host a workshop for artists and art workers on solidarity in artistic biotope on 25 March, 13:00 — 17:00. Together, participants will explore together what interventions in everyday practice can enhance solidarity among art workers.
Date and time: 25 March, 13:00-17:00
Location: Astare (next-door to IMPAKT)
Tickets: 5 euros, free for member of Platform BK
Book tickets here or send an email to kantoor@platformbk.nl to get a free members ticket
For more than 10 years Platform BK is fighting for a better appreciation of art and art workers in The Netherlands. We do this, with action, public discussions, policy influencing, writing open letters, and developing policy bottom-up, like the Fair Practice Code and the Guideline for Artist Fees. All our work and collective action is based on the conviction that self-organization and solidarity are necessary for a better art climate and a stronger position for everyone working in the art sector.
Practiced solidarity tries to find an answer to the shared precarity of art workers. If solidarity could be an answer to the problematic precarious socio-economic position of cultural workers, and if we want to find out what this practice of solidarity could mean within the arts field, we should first get a deeper insight into what causes this shared precarious predicament. During this workshop, the participants will work with different individual and collective exercises that give them insights into their precarity. As the working life of the cultural worker is interwoven with their personal life (more than in other sectors), it’s more difficult to analyze and specify the elements that cause precarity.
The focus of this workshop lies not only on the individual position of the participants but more so on the collective position. Once the participants learn about their collective predicament – the knowledge about this can also be turned into an emancipatory force: to improve your social-economic situation together with your fellow colleagues, by challenging our way of working, the institutions, our public and policymakers.
This part of the workshop follows the extensive research and the accompanying method of Pascal Gielen entitled The Artistic Biotope. The biotope is an abstraction of the artist’s living domain – divided into four different sub-areas between which the artist moves in the everyday. The biotope is the result of extensive empirical research, in-depth interviews, panel discussions, and surveys with cultural workers from different disciplines. It turns out that a sustainable career in the arts requires a balance between the four sub-areas: the domestic domain, the educational institute, the market, and public life (civil society).
We’re constantly either working or thinking about work, or else feeling guilty about not working. Out of Office explores actions for critique and resistance. The artists in the exhibition reflect on their own position as workers and the current conditions in the workplace. They question standard practices and explore the subversive potential of conventions such as the auto-reply, the CV and the eight-hour workday. Doing nothing, not showing up, or gestures of mutual support become acts of resistance against a system in which profit, efficiency, and optimisation are central. How to extend such resistance to foster collective action and solidarity?
Out of Office is on view at IMPAKT till 10 April
With works by: Art Goss, Alina Lupu, Sam Meech, Adrian Melis, Mario Santamaría, Tytus Szabelski, Pilvi Takala, Total Refusal en 996.icu.
Curator: Marijn Bril
Exhibition design: Zalán Szakács