Bodies of Work – A Symposium

Vitalstatistix & Reset Arts and Culture

Bodies of Work – A Symposium

Labour rights for artists, cultural democracy for workers

BOOK NOW

Have art and cultural sectors lost their connections to the rights, welfare and aspirations of working people and communities? What can legacies from past alliances and struggles teach us about current campaigns to combat precarity and poverty amongst cultural workers?

What do the histories of union-led initiatives such as ‘art and working life’ offer us for the future? What can we learn from overseas experiments on basic income or co-operatives? Does the new National Cultural Policy give us hope?

Three days of talks and discussion, activist training and art, will explore these big questions, in the latest edition of Vitals’ ongoing Bodies of Work initiative in collaboration with policy provocateurs, Reset Arts and Culture.

Creative team: Curated by Emma Webb, Justin O’Connor and Tully Barnett

Light refreshments will be offered for morning and afternoon tea, please note that as this is a free event lunch is not provided.

Program

Download the full PDF program for this free, three-day national symposium!

THREE-DAY PROGRAM

DAY ONE – Wednesday 1 November

Art, communities and activism

10am

Welcome to Country and introduction to Bodies of Work, Vitalstatistix, and Reset Arts and Culture

10:30am

Keynote: Crying Through Our Singing – A Union Hall, Communal Luxury and Cultural Activism

A love letter to and potted history of the Waterside Workers Hall, the power of singing, women and wharfies, and the time for communal luxury, mutual aid and collectivism.

Speaker: Emma Webb, Artistic Director, Vitalstatistix

11:30am

Panel: Art and Working Life – Legacies and Futures

A wide-ranging discussion tracing the histories and futures of artists working with unions, including the famous ‘Art and Working Life’ initiative of the 80s, exploring the place of art and culture in everyday life and as a force for radical change.

Speakers include:
>Ali Gumillya Baker, Unbound Collective, artist and scholar
>Catherine Story, artist and ACTU educator
>Kathie Muir, researcher and arts worker
>Ian Milliss, artist and activist

12:30pm

Lunch – please note that as this is a free event lunch is not provided

1:30pm

Workshop: Activism and policy toolboxes

This workshop will empower participants to build their skills and develop their ideas for campaign planning. A provocative toolbox of strategies and activities, sharing insights about how the policy process really works. For all levels of activist experience.

Speaker: Greg Ogle, Senior Policy Officer, South Australian Council of Social Service

3:30pm

Break

3:45pm

Panel: Campaigns, alliances and civil society

An inspiring discussion of current campaigning work, building alliances across unions, communities and civil society, what cultural organising looks like today and what it might offer the future.

Speakers include:
>Abbey Kendall, Director, Working Women’s Centre
>Aira Firdaus, union and community organiser
>Ben Eltham, arts commentator and NTEU activist
>Dale Beasley, Secretary, SA Unions
>Jessica Alice, Chair, Arts Industry Council of South Australia
>Pas Forgione, activist, Anti-Poverty Network of South Australia

5:30pm

Arts Industry Council of South Australia event

Jessica Alice, Chair, AICSA, in conversation with South Australian Minister for the Arts, the Hon. Andrea Michaels MP, about the SA Government’s new taskforce into sustainable careers for artists and arts workers. Incl. drinks, snacks and networking.

7:30pm

Close

DAY TWO – Thursday 2 November

Basic income, dignified work, real rights

10am

Coffee and updates

10:30am

Keynote: A Basic Income for Artists – The Irish Experience

An exclusive-in-Australia presentation about the successful campaign for a basic income for artists pilot in Ireland and the lessons arising from the first year of its implementation.

International guest speakers:
>Angela Dorgan, CEO of First Music Contact and former Chair of National Campaign for the Arts who championed the Basic Income for Artists pilot in Ireland
>Sharon Barry, Director, Culture Ireland

12:30pm

Lunch – not provided.

1:30pm

Panel: Winning cultural labour and income rights in Australia

A deep dive into how the arts and cultural sectors can ‘dare to struggle, dare to win’ – what we should be fighting for in our unions, workplaces, and the public policy space and what we might dare to imagine next.

Speakers include:
>Ben Eltham, arts commentator and NTEU activist
>David Pledger, artist and activist
>Ian Milliss, artist and activist
>Jennifer Mills, writer and MEAA activist
>Penelope Benton, Executive Director, NAVA
>Sam Whiting, scholar and activist

3:30pm

Break

4pm

In-conversation: CoUNTess: Spoiling Illusions since 2008

A conversation about Melinda Rackham and Elvis Richardson’s extraordinary 2023 publication about data, gender politics in the asymmetrical art world, and the ground-breaking project The Countess Report.

Speakers: Melinda Rackham in conversation with Jennifer Mills

6pm

Performance lecture

A Perfect Day by Catherine Ryan

A guided listening tour through ‘pop song schedules’ – songs in which the singer lists everything they do in a day. This darkly funny and smart performance work explores how the pressure to be productive determines the rhythm of our existence under contemporary capitalism, through subversive pop song samples and numerous low-brow musical interludes.

7:30pm

Close

DAY THREE – Friday 3 November

Culture as Foundational

10am

Coffee and updates

10:30am

Panel: New thinking about culture and social foundations

A globally informed panel looking at the wide range of new ideas and empirical work which is changing thinking about culture and public policy. A touchstone here is the work around culture and the social foundations undertaken by the Reset Arts and Culture Collective and their collaborators overseas.

Speakers include:
>Abigail Gilmore, University of Manchester
>Ben Eltham, Monash University
>Justin O’Connor, University of South Australia
>Tully Barnett, Flinders University

12:30pm

Lunch – not provided.

1:30pm

Participatory session: A New Cultural Policy – Culture, democracy and change

A participatory process that will bring together the themes of the three days, make space to plan campaign priorities and consider how to elevate progressive change both inside and outside the national cultural policy framework of ‘Revive: A Place for Every Story, A Story for Every Place’. Time to collaborate, build solidarity, and imagine the future together.

4:30pm

Drinks and networking

6pm

Performance lecture

A Perfect Day by Catherine Ryan

A guided listening tour through ‘pop song schedules’ – songs in which the singer lists everything they do in a day. This darkly funny and smart performance work explores how the pressure to be productive determines the rhythm of our existence under contemporary capitalism, through subversive pop song samples and numerous low-brow musical interludes.

7:30pm

Werk – DJs Ben Eltham and Catherine Ryan

10:30pm

Close