Sustainability of Artists in Precarious Times; How Arts Producers and Individual Artists Have Adapted during a Pandemic

Josephine Caust
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Josephine Caust: School of Culture and Communication, Faculty of Arts, Parkville Campus, University of Melbourne, Melbourne 3010, Australia

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 24, 1-15

Abstract: Making a living as an artist, whatever the discipline, is challenging. In addition to skills and talents, artists need resilience, adaptability, creativity, and the ability to withstand endless setbacks and rejections. Most critically, they need an on-going, stable income. Several studies have demonstrated that the income of most artists is usually very low. To survive, artists often find other sources of income aside from their creative work. Ideally, they also need a place to work, the capacity to do their work and a sense of validation from others of their work. When your livelihood disappears over night because of a pandemic, how do you then sustain that creative work? Using multiple sources of data and a qualitative methodology, including case studies and interviews, this paper addresses the ways that artists and producers from different art forms have addressed these challenges in Australia. It is concluded that while the impact of the pandemic on artists’ lives has been considerable, some artists have been able to survive, adapt, and move forward.

Keywords: artists; sustainability; pandemic; adaptability; digital platform; income (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:24:p:13561-:d:697390

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