Confer: CREATIVE LABOUR IN TRANSITIONence

Workers in every sector are experiencing the 'bite' of post-2008 austerity and the entrenchment of neoliberalism. Discourses of entrepreneurship have become a warrant for the removal of worker protections, the individualisation of responsibility within and outside organisations, and the transfer of economic risk onto individual workers. In addition, intern culture provides new justifications for precarious employment and low pay ('the work will build up your cv'). As the global creative sector has become established, for many creative workers optimism is giving way to a new anger as they contend with both old and new problems.
Alongside the continuing need to manage precarity and low pay, one challenge for today's creative workers is to survive various transitions occurring in the sector – whether to austerity policies and neoliberalism, and an associated growth in neo-conservatism, or to re-institutionalisation, internationalisation or increasingly divided communities and occupational fields. Relatedly, there is the challenge to find a voice and be heard, based on a politics which can bridge at least some of these divisions. And a further challenge is to achieve the transition to a mature status, within an occupational field, by establishing a common project, practices and standards and at an individual level, to new creative employment norms that enable career achievement and a 'decent' working life.
This half-day symposium showcases creative labour research and creative practice being undertaken in various transitional institutional, political and cultural environments, including post-Soviet contexts. The workshop also involves the participation of creative practitioners, artists and curators.
This event is supported by the Department of Culture, Media and Creative Industries at King’s College London and the Centre for German European Studies SPBU-Bielefeld University.
Confirmed speakers:
Margarita Kuleva National Research University Higher School of Economics, Centre for German and European Studies SPBU-Bielefeld University
Susan Luckman University of South Australia and Cheney Fellow, University of Leeds
Anastasia Tarrasowa Garage Museum of Contemporary Art
Vlad Strukov University of Leeds
Jenny Judova London Art Map and Vastari Group
Dominik Czechowski Curator