I have some new articles out that are focused on issues of art and labour – some related to the Vitals residency that ended in December, and some related to the new National Cultural Policy ‘Revive‘ that was launched in January. It’s been a great period of work and reflection for me, having been writing about these issues for years – I hope I am not sounding too much like a broken record (join the union, tho).
First up, Artlink has published my essay about Adhocracy, ‘Art in the Works,’ on their website. The result of many hours of interviews with almost all the projects in residence at last year’s experimental art hothouse, it was an honour to speak with these incredible and generous artists and an excruciating but illuminating process distilling all these insights into one article. I couldn’t cover every project or every idea, of course; I hope that the voices of the artists are prominent and that people pay attention to the issues they raise. Have a read, and keep an eye out for all these brilliant projects as they develop.
Secondly, I have an article in Overland about Revive. The piece is focused on the policy as it relates to the artist as worker. There are a lot of good things about this turn, not least the big change to make funding conditional on fair pay (win!) but I’m also cautious about the risk of adding art to existing mutual obligation regimes, as well as the potential of losing some aspects of art-making that are not so readily absorbed into economics or measurable forms of value. We should celebrate gains for working artists, but we should never lose sight of utopia. Grateful as always to Overland for giving these ideas space, and to AICSA who have supported the writing.
I have another essay coming up in Australian Book Review next month which is more focused on the specific changes for literature. Books and writing are receiving a significant boost after being badly neglected by the Australia Council for so long. There’s a lot to digest in the policy. My analysis will appear in the forthcoming issue of ABR and also feature in their podcast, read by yours truly.
As a new Director of the ASA I am also particularly excited about Digital Lending Rights (at last!) and the expansion of Creative Australia’s capacity to support literature, particularly through fellowships and the Poet Laureate, with the establishment of Writers Australia from 2025. We have much work to do now to ensure that Writers Australia is a robustly governed body that is set up to get a fair deal for working writers and has the resources and direction to look after the entire literary ecosystem.
It was a lovely surprise this week to hear The Airways featured on RN’s special World Pride edition of The Book Show. I’m so proud of the way the book is still popping up and being read and discussed after having such a tricky start in life during the pandemic, which feels like a million years ago but is also still happening now, and giving me a pretty strong case of dyschronia.
I went and got my fifth dose of the vaccine yesterday. It’s now three years since the first clusters of Covid cases were found in Lombardia and Veneto, and my partner and I were nervously checking the Italian news for updates, one eye on the trickle of stories coming over social media from Wuhan. By early March, we were all in lockdown, listening to constant sirens, surrounded by fear. I am still processing the events of these years; I don’t think I’ve really stopped for long enough to fully comprehend them. Right now it feels important to seize every opportunity to make them as transformative as we can.