Precarity, Biography and Event: Work and Time in the Cultural Industries

This article explores the temporality of work and employment in the cultural, creative and media industries (‘cultural work’). Building on recent sociological writing on ‘event-time’, I explore the ways in which owner-managers of small creative firms navigate the contingent workplace in a world of allegedly advanced ‘precarity’, yet seek also to maintain their own stable anchorage to a linear ‘biographical’ time marked by continuity and a control of material privilege. It is argued that understanding the political economy of time in cultural work requires theorisation of temporal continuity as well as change, not only to avoid making undue epochal judgments, but also to ensure continued recognition of social differences in the ways time is being encountered and experienced at work

Creative Economies of Tomorrow? Limits to Growth and the Uncertain Future

This article contributes to emerging critiques of UK creative economy policy by challenging the unremitting celebration of “growth” as the primary indicator of economic success. The ecological fallacies of “exclusive” growth and the social and environmental injustices that “creative growth” has occasioned are initially discussed – and a range of possible other understandings of growth introduced. The article concludes that under conditions of real economic stagnation and incipient environmental crisis, growth needs to be made limited, but also more fully socialised in a dual sense; made more evenly and equitably redistributed in terms of benefits and rewards, as well as re-conceived in terms that afford greater priority to non-economic values and human prosperity indicators

Being in the zone of cultural work

In the cultural industries, workers surrender themselves to ultra-intensive work patterns in order to be recognised as properly creative subjects. In its more affirmative versions, there is a recurrent idea that captures that special moment of creative synthesis between the ever-striving worker and the work – the moment of ‘being in the zone’. Being in the zone (hereafter BITZ) describes the ideal fusion of the intensively productive mind and the labouring body. But what precisely is this ‘zone’, and what is its’ potential? As part of a wider project examining exemplary and intensified subjectivity, in this article I examine BITZ from different perspectives. The main aim is to contrast affirmative readings of BITZ (mostly derived from ‘positive’ social psychology) with other, more critical perspectives that would seek to politicise the conditions of its emergence and examine its range of social effects. The overall aim of the article is therefore to suggest the kinds of social and cultural frameworks that might facilitate exploration of the political potential of BITZ in different kinds of empirical context

Living Precarious Lives? Time and Temporality in Visual Arts Careers

Although precarity has always been a characteristic feature of artistic labour, many critics now claim it is becoming more widespread and engrained. However, while the idea of precarity offers a good descriptor of the conditions of artistic labour, it also has its limits. Firstly, it tends to gloss over social differences in the distribution of precariousness. And secondly, precarity tends to imply a universal condition of ‘temporal poverty’ where all social experience appears dominated by the frenetic demands of a speeded-up, unstable and fragmented social world. In this article, we show how these two omissions are interlinked and prevent a more nuanced understanding of time in artistic labour. Drawing from findings from empirical research with working visual artists in the Midlands of the UK, we propose three schematic ways of thinking about the organisation of time and temporality in routine artistic practice. We name these three temporal contexts ‘the artistic career’; ‘the time of making art’ and ‘the temporality of the work’. By researching how artists might be differently positioned in relation to time, we suggest, we not only obtain a more precise understanding of how professional artists’ lives are organised, managed and lived, but also a more distinct understanding of precarity itself

Executive Summary. It Takes A Region To Raise An Artist

The It Takes a Region to Raise an Artist research offers the first in-depth survey of the visual arts in the East Midlands. Its purpose is to take stock of the region’s visual arts sector, identifying its key institutions, as well as its strengths and constraints, and to discover what members of the community might need in order to fulfil their professional and artistic potential.The research was conducted through mapping existing provision and support, an online workforce survey, and conducting 15 one-to-one interviews. This new evidence will inform the development of It Takes a Region to Raise an Artist, CVAN EM’s future programme to further develop the East Midlands as a region where artists and visual arts practitioners can flourish – artistically and economically.466 individual artists and visual arts practitioners participated in an online survey with 399 meeting the inclusion criteria of: a) professional (not self-defining as an amateur); b) living/working within the East Midlands; and c) self-identifying as a member of the visual arts community.This research was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council through a 10-month Creative Economy Engagement Fellowship awarded by the Midlands4Cities Doctoral Training Partnership (M4C) in 2019. The research was undertaken by the CAMEo Research Institute for Cultural and Media Economies at the University of Leicester, in partnership with CVAN EM.Project Team:Dr Antoinette Burchill (Creative Economy Research Fellow, lead researcher, CAMEo)Professor Mark Banks (Director, CAMEo)Christina Williams (Research Assistant, CAMEo)Dr Stefano De Sabbata (Lecturer in Quantitative Geography, University of Leicester)Elizabeth Hawley-Lingham (Director, CVAN EM)</div

Workforce Diversity in the UK Screen Sector: Executive Summary

Executive Summary of the "Workforce Diversity in the UK Screen Sector" Report. The review systematically evaluates the research on workforce diversity in the United Kingdom’s film, television, animation, video games and visual effects (VFX) industries published between 2012 and 2016. It gives the most complete picture to-date of what is known about the screen sector workforce

Workforce Diversity in the UK Screen Sector

The review systematically evaluates the research on workforce diversity in the United Kingdom’s film, television, animation, video games and visual effects (VFX) industries published between 2012 and 2016. It gives the most complete picture to-date of what is known about the screen sector workforce [Taken from Executive Summary

It Takes a Region to Raise an Artist: Understanding the East Midlands’ Visual Arts Economy

The It Takes a Region to Raise an Artist research offers the first in-depth survey of the visual arts in the East Midlands. Its purpose is to take stock of the region’s visual arts sector, identifying its key institutions, as well as its strengths and constraints, and to discover what members of the community might need in order to fulfil their professional and artistic potential. The research was conducted through mapping existing provision and support, an online workforce survey, and conducting 15 one-to-one interviews. This new evidence will inform the development of It Takes a Region to Raise an Artist, CVAN EM’s future programme to further develop the East Midlands as a region where artists and visual arts practitioners can flourish – artistically and economically. 466 individual artists and visual arts practitioners participated in an online survey with 399 meeting the inclusion criteria of: a) professional (not self-defining as an amateur); b) living/working within the East Midlands; and c) self-identifying as a member of the visual arts community. This research was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council through a 10-month Creative Economy Engagement Fellowship awarded by the Midlands4Cities Doctoral Training Partnership (M4C) in 2019. The research was undertaken by the CAMEo Research Institute for Cultural and Media Economies at the University of Leicester, in partnership with CVAN EM. </p