What are we worth? Artists and the Economic Crisis Seminar

Zineb Sedira, Shipwrecks: the Death of a Journey V, 2008
© Zineb Sedira 2011

Last week I attended 'What are we worth?' a seminar that is part of The New Economy of Art – a series of open discussions, ran by DACS, throughout 2011-12. Its focus was on the economic developments and opportunities in the cultural sector that impact on artists, from the perspective of artists. The seminar shared knowledge to provoke action to enable artists to influence the future ecologies and economies in which they operate."




The event hosted three speakers, John Kieffer, Zineb Sedira and Bob and Roberta Smith . Despite the general depressive content of the seminar in regards to the decline of art in education, and the prospect of survinging as an artist in our current climate being majorly under threat, it was motivational as inspiring.
I left with a deeper understanding of these turbulent times which has fueled my drive and passion to push on and to succeed. For me the most resonating point was that we need to come together. We need to move away from the isolated autonomous self, which has been a movement in art that well surpasses this comment, but one that still obviously needs to be repeated. 


John Kieffer particularly advocated the advice of "strength in numbers", to collaboratively pull together, not just for comparing ideas or advising each other but to find new models for working. This is an opportunity to start something new, perhaps the growth of a new sub culture. It is infact an exciting time, artists have never stopped making art, nor will they. I feel we are on the brink of something new, a movement into the unknown, but one we must do together, supporting each other through solidarity in these difficult and challenging times.


The next talk is in March 2011 . To listen to the discussion follow this link for the PDF downloads