This research draws together and analyses the combination of factors that create and enforce precarity for Belfast’s artists’ studio organisations and workspaces: impacting upon the labour of some 450 studio-based artists, occupying 18 spaces or buildings, and the artistic practices which have been lost or generated in response to substandard conditions. The scope of the research is between 2018 and 2022, although the issues raised are both anchored historically, and indicative of an ongoing crisis in the sector that extends beyond the completion of this research project. This is a hyper-local enquiry, with reference to specific gaps within arts policy in Northern Ireland, and failures to recognise the value or impact of this vital aspect of the visual art infrastructure through limited traditional measurements. More broadly, the research is situated within discourse that permeates our public and cultural spheres: neoliberalism; austerity; instrumentalisation; state disinvestment in culture; crises of labour, and – most recently – the COVID-19 pandemic. The arguments made throughout my research are for increased recognition and value for artists’ work, and for their workspaces as essential sites of artistic production and as vital contributors to civic and cultural infrastructure. This is the first expansive survey which aggregates the links between artists’ labour, spaces, and practices in the region. Through my active methodology of expanded curatorial practice - comprising extensive qualitative interviews as well as practical outcomes(including artist networks, collaborations, exhibitions, symposia, and lobbying) - I have raised awareness of the crisis facing this vital sub-sector and contributed to urgent policy review, activating much-needed positive change. The thesis concludes with a series of recommendations for the necessary ideological and practical measures that are required not just to mitigate any further losses to the sector, but to actively enhance it.
- Artists' Studios
- Precarity
- Artistic Labour
- Cultural Value
- Cultural Infrastructure
- Expanded Curatorial Practice
Precarious people, places, and practices: mapping, mediating, and challenging the instability of artists’ studios in Belfast (2018 - 2022)
Morrow, J. (Author). Feb 2024
Student thesis: Doctoral Thesis