Considering that…

Art is not culture

Millions of dollars are being slashed from our already deficient infrastructures

The fat that we should be cutting has long since dissolved

Criteria multiply and funds contract

We are consulted with bogus surveys

As artists, cultural workers and technicians we make art together

We have many faces

We are in need of many voices

We are more than a lever for the economy of others

Cultural policies should support and not dictate creation

Industry is profiting from our “creativity” but withdraws from our precarity

The “economic returns” of art do not trickle down into our pockets

Incomes are stagnant

Passion is not a wage

Visibility is not a wage

We are offered an nth subsidized position, another unpaid internship

Precarity begets exploitation

Carriers are withering

Projects flounder

The search for funding takes us further from the completion of our own projects

Our autonomy is underhandedly eroded

Unbeknownst to us, we have become “service providers” and “actors in the value chain”

These words are not ours

Others speak in our place

Unmasking is necessary

Millionaires are managing us from afar

Maybe we should be managing the mining industry

We could dodge disasters

Philanthropists are becoming here and there the new gatekeepers of judgement and taste

We have given the time that we have and the time that we don’t

We are not a “good cause” for charitable gestures

The awards for THE best artist more often serve business rather than the community

Our careers are determined more than ever by the metric of visibility

We are asked for competitiveness where we should be seeking an ecology

We gain from allying with one another

We do not live in anyone’s grip

We are not maudlin

We are the makers of our horizon

Biting is an act that must be learned

Economic issues are not beyond our understanding

Our precarity does not justify drinking from every well

Works are destroyed

Self-examination is in order

If we must fight, it will not be against one another

We can apply pressure

We have every skill

The commons are to be reclaimed

Of it we must make our situation and our history

***

You each have your own considerations

Make them heard