Union members employed within the Arts

Arty-Farty Cities

9

February 2023

9

Feb

2023

3

Mar 2023

Gallery 3

Arty-Farty Cities

Union members employed within the Arts

9

February 2023

9

February

2023

3

March 2023

Gallery 3

Arty-Farty Cities promotes workplace organisation and union activity within the arts industry. Working within the industry involves adapting to a culture of volunteerism, irregular casual employment and dead-end jobs. This is symptomatic of the creative industry’s unsustainable structure that serves the interests of elite philanthropists, private industry and the Australian government’s commitment to free-markets. Australia’s creative industry itself flourished from the defeat of unions during the 1980s, and now workers and the general public are left with an industry and culture that celebrates the elite ideals of individualism.This exhibition contributes to the efforts of arts workers to understand and be inspired about their own position within the Art industry. While artists, employees and volunteers work at the behest of an industry that serves oligarchic funding bodies, Arty-Farty Cities ultimately seeks to build solidarity between those who turn on the lights, sell tickets, greet patrons and cloak jackets.We would like to thank the Victorian Trades Hall Council and the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance (MEAA) for their assistance in this exhibition.

Exhibition documented by Teagan Ramsay.

Arty-Farty Cities promotes workplace organisation and union activity within the arts industry. Working within the industry involves adapting to a culture of volunteerism, irregular casual employment and dead-end jobs. This is symptomatic of the creative industry’s unsustainable structure that serves the interests of elite philanthropists, private industry and the Australian government’s commitment to free-markets. Australia’s creative industry itself flourished from the defeat of unions during the 1980s, and now workers and the general public are left with an industry and culture that celebrates the elite ideals of individualism.This exhibition contributes to the efforts of arts workers to understand and be inspired about their own position within the Art industry. While artists, employees and volunteers work at the behest of an industry that serves oligarchic funding bodies, Arty-Farty Cities ultimately seeks to build solidarity between those who turn on the lights, sell tickets, greet patrons and cloak jackets.We would like to thank the Victorian Trades Hall Council and the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance (MEAA) for their assistance in this exhibition.

Agnes Whalan

Agnes Whalan is a queer artist, writer and musician who is currently studying a BFA in Drawing and Printmedia at the Victorian College of the Arts.Their practice explores systemic phenomena in the context of the anthropocene. Through a compulsive investigation of contemporary structures, their work follows a logic of both semblance and paradox to catalogue self-ascribed taxonomies.