Invitation

I hope you have been well. I am curious what you have been up to since leaving Artspeak!

I am writing to ask if you would be interested/able to contribute a text to a publication that I am co-editing with Lauren Wetmore about my project, The Employee. The project was a year-long delegated performance in which I hired a grant-writer/performer to supplement the work-force of Forest City Gallery, which normally operates with a single staff member, paid part-time. The project pointed to an endemic problem with the labour-demands of artist-run culture.

The publication currently includes contributions from Mariane Bourcheix-Laporte, Marina Vishmidt, Dana Kopel, and █████████ █████, with Art Metropole on board as a publisher. I have also written a text about the project which details the challenges and conceptual premise of the project. An online project archive will be launched alongside the printed publication, collecting and making public the entire email correspondence generated by the work inclusive of the publication process.

The current contributed texts address the project from a theoretical-critical perspective, but are written by people who have never worked within artist-run culture themselves. I think that it is essential to include this experience within the publication. Addressing this gap is primarily why I am approaching you (also because you are an incisive writer and a strong critical thinker!).

If you are interested and have the capacity, I am hoping for your text to respond to your experience with Artspeak as a staff member, speaking to the labour culture of artist-run contexts, what artist-run culture offers that is special and different from other contexts, and the role of funding bodies in ignoring, obfuscating, or possibly positively impacting working conditions in the sector. What were your expectations coming into the job, and how did these find support or get overrun by the board, the network, and the priorities imposed by funders?

This text should be around 2500-3000 words. Ideally we would like to receive a draft by mid-May, but also don’t want the deadline to be the deal-breaker for whether or not you accept. I can offer you a $600 fee for the text. I would be happy to share the already-extant texts with you, as well as to meet over zoom to tell you more about the publication. (linked here is a short synopsis of the publication in progress).

Let me know if this is something that is of interest to you. I have wanted to work with you since we met in Vancouver, and would be truly delighted if you had an interest in joining myself and Lauren in this publication. 

warm greetings,

Josh

It's so good to hear from you! I've enjoyed getting to witness and get glimpses of your projects from afar (unfortunately). Thank you for your invitation to contribute something. Syd and I did attend an associated zoom discussion/event for this project at Forest City Gallery last year. I'd most definitely be keen to contribute something, but I'll need a few days to consider what exactly. 

You've reached me at a good time, as I've finally had a little space to reflect and decompress post-Artspeak. I'm currently in the process of completing a text that is adjacently related, where I am writing about labour and the distinction and necessary tension between the work we do in our practice, and the work that is necessary for us to undertake (admin and bureaucratic engagement with funders/boards etc in working towards systemic shifts and changes). I am looking at three particular case studies. One of the key points that keeps arising is why the negotiations and demands our peers and colleagues were making in the 70s-90s essentially remain the same today. The performance of progress seems to readily maintain a built in culture of amnesia. BUT most importantly for our collective health - how to keep encroaching disillusionment at bay! 

I'll do a little more thinking, and read through the documents you sent through to me and be in touch in a few days. 

Have a good weekend! 

b 

This text is long (and not final final), but it gives you greater and more specific details.

I'm happy to hear that we're thinking and working towards similar aims. Thank you for generously providing the working doc. I'm sure it'll help to determine the direction in a more cohesive way. I'd love to read everyone else's contribution too. I'm familiar with their work, aside from Sebastian. 

I'm in the midst of a few deadlines until the end of the month. If it's ok with you, I'll be in touch again then. I feel like a mid-May deadline works for me. 

Have a good week! 

best, 

b