From September 27th until October 1st, the Institute of Network Cultures, Hotel Maria Kapel (Hoorn), and Platform BK organize an autumn camp for young art workers. Fifteen recently graduated artists, designers, and theatre-makers are invited to five days of conversations, workshops, and communal activities. Each day, we will address one important theme of working and living in the Dutch cultural sector: from working in the gig economy and money flows in the cultural sector, to experiments with crypto, staying happy and healthy, and durable self-organization. The results will be collected and distributed in a zine, to make sure that all (young) cultural workers can share in the developed insights.

Program

Day 1 – Monday 27 September: Working in the gig economy
09:30-10:00 – Arrival
10:00-10:30 – Welcome, tour through Hotel Maria Kapel by Tirza Kater and Annelien de Bruin (HMK)
10:30-12:30 – Workshop ‘Working in the Gig Economy’ by Alina Lupu and Silvio Lorusso
12:30-14:00 – Lunch, introduction in the artistic program of HMK
14:00-14:30 – Introduction to zine-making by Morgane Billuart (INC)
14:30-16:00 – Working together
16:00-17:00 – Yoga

Day 2 – Tuesday 28 September: Money Flows in the cultural sector
10:00-12:30 – Workshop by on commoning perspectives on public funding by Marianna Takou (Casco)
12:30-14:00 – Lunch, introduction to the Fair Practice Code (Platform BK)
14:00-15:00 – Discussion on private money in the arts with Timo Demollin
15:00-16:30 – Working together
16:30-18:00 – Collective film program, guided by PLOKTA

Day 3 – Wednesday 29 September: Experiments with crypto
10:00-10:30 – Introduction by Geert Lovink (INC)
10:30-12:30 – Workshop on art and crypto by Rosa Menkman
12:30-14:00 – Lunch, conversation with Marisella de Cuba (We Promise Hoorn)
14:00-15:30 – Working together
15:30-18:00 – Art walk through Hoorn, guided by Martijn Aerts

Day 4 – Thursday 30 September: Staying happy and healthy
10:00-12:30 – Workshop ‘Curriculum Veto’ by Art Goss
12:30-14:00 – Lunch, conversation with Wethouder Samir Bashara
14:00-15:30 – Roleplay ‘An Analogy: Art and the Immune System’ by The Long Tail of Art (Caradt)
15:30-17:00 – Guided tour through the West-Fries Museum

Dag 5 – Friday 1 October: Durable self-organization
10:00-10:30 – Lecture ‘A Criticism of the Cultural Sector’ by Sara Strandvad (University of Groningen)
10:30-13:00 – Workshop on the artistic biotope by Koen Bartijn (Platform BK)
13:00-14:30 – Lunch, conversation with Jip de Ridder (CommonEasy)
14:30-16:00 – Working together
16:00-17:00 – Reflection
17:00-20:00 – Communal meal

Workshop descriptions

Working in the Gig Economy, by Alina Lupu and Silvio Lorusso
Most of us have used Freelancer.com, Fiverr, Helpling, Uber, and Thuisbezorgd – either as users or as workers. In this workshop, Silvio Lorusso and Alina Lupu. together with the participants, will create a checklist of all the different perspectives one can take to analyze these platforms: from interface design to the origin stories of the founders, and from stock markets to flagship offices and public campaigns. This generalizable methodology for looking at gig economy platforms will help you, the cultural worker, to consider how (not) to use gig platforms, and how to manipulate and subvert their structures.

Commoning Perspectives on Public Funding, by Casco
Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons is an experimental platform in Utrecht, where art invites a new vision of society. Casco has a long track-record of handling public funding as a common pool resource. Good examples are the Parasite Lottery, the Arts Collaboratory, and the recent Covid Solidarity Fund. In their workshop, Casco explains the (practical) principles behind these examples, and how they can be used by freelance cultural workers.

Experiments with Crypto, by Rosa Menkman
Earlier this year, NFT’s briefly dominated the world news. Cryptocurrencies keep skyrocketing and are here to stay. But it remains unclear how smart contracts and crypto can actually serve artists (instead of contributing to the destruction of the environment). In this workshop, Dutch artist, educator, and researcher Rosa Menkman will share the insights from her studies of crypto and netart from both critical and practical perspectives. Participants learn about the workings of these technological phenomena and the way they can be used to support cultural practices. Is it possible to use the online markets, while making the things you want to make?

Curriculum Veto, by Art Goss
Curriculum Veto takes as its starting point the CV: the ultimate, universally recognized, individualized standard that conditions labor. The abbreviation for the Latin ‘curriculum vitae’, or, ‘the course of life’, its name implies a consolidation of life and work; Curriculum Veto starts by critically investigating this conceptual entanglement. Curriculum Veto stems from the idea that it is urgent and insightful to consider the many forms of ‘wasted’ art-work; the labor that falls between the lines of the CV-as-standard. In this workshop, participants will index unexpected assets to their artistic practice like (un)productivities, care work, (un)related work, activism, rejections, boycotts, and refusal.

The Artistic Biotope, by Platform BK
Finding balance in one’s practice is notoriously hard for cultural workers. Where do the professional sphere stop and the private begin? Pascal Gielen has argued that the dichotomy between private and professional is too simple to create a healthy ‘artistic biotope’. Instead, a balance should be struck between four domains: the domestic, the civil, the market, and the peers. In this workshop, Koen Bartijn will guide the participants through a series of exercises to map the inventions needed to create a better balance – for individual participants, but also for the collective.

Participation and results

Because of the Covid circumstances, to avoid labor-intensive application letter-writing at the end of the participants, and to create a group with diverse backgrounds and educations, we have decided to personally invite the participants. If you’re very interested in one of the day topics, please send an email to sepp@networkcultures.org, to see if we might be able to accommodate your attendance.

The knowledge built up during the program will be gathered in a publication, developed in collaboration with the HvA Learning Community Critical Making & Learning Through Design, and freely distributed.

Research context

The Post-Precarity Autumn Camp is the kick-off event for the new INC research strand Our Creative Reset, which explores new principles and strategies for cultural work, policy, and solidarity after Covid19. A programmatic text (Dutch only) about this subject was previously published as an INC Longform, which can be read here.

Organization

The Post-Precarity Autumn Camp is organized by the Institute of Network Cultures, in collaboration with Hotel Maria Kapel and Platform BK. The project is supported by the Centre of Expertise for Creative Innovation (CoECI).

Project partners

Learning Community Critical Making & Learning Through Design