CARROT WORKERS COLLECTIVE / PRECARIOUS WORKERS BRIGADE

(2008- present)

A London-based group of cultural workers, artists, educators and interns and former interns who undertake participatory action research and direct actions around internships, job placements, workfare, voluntarism and compulsory free work. We conduct both micro and macro-political analyses of the impact of free labour on material conditions, everyday life, subjectivity, education, and class interest and act together to challenge these developments in our society. We also develop shared tools (bust cards, education packs, peoples' tribunals, photoromances) and work on campaigns both in the creative sector (Intern Payback), and in solidarity with other groups working on issues of precarity outside this sector (Anti-Raids Campaign with LAWAS: Latin American Workers Association, Stop the Arrests with X Talk, and Boycott Workfare and others)

Selected Exhibitions, Workshops and Events

Truth is Concrete, Artistic Strategies in Politics and Political Strategies in Art, Steirischer Herbst Festival, Graz, 2012

I Can’t Work Like This, exhibition and workshop, CASCO, Utrecht, 2012 (http://www.cascoprojects.org/?entryid=490)

I Can’t I Have to Work…, workshop, Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst (GfZK), Leipzig, 2012 (http://www.gfzk-leipzig.de/?p=17156&lang=en)

Precarity: A People’s Tribunal, workshop series at no.w.here, London, and People’s Tribunal ICA Theatre, London, 2011 (http://www.ica.org.uk/?lid=28789)

Photoromance: Staging the Scenes of Our Aspiration, workshops and exhibition, Labour and Leisure/ Estrangement, Alternativa Festival, Wyspa Institute of Art, Gdansk, Poland, August 2011
(http://www.wyspa.art.pl/title,CarrotWorkersCollective,pid,44,oid,38,cid,319,type,10.html)

Photoromance: Staging the Scenes of Our Aspiration, lecture, workshop and exhibition, ‘Essomenia: Showing Things as they will be in the Future’, The Hub, Dublin, September 2011 (http://essomenia.wordpress.com/)

The Long Avant-Garde, Cartel Gallery, London, June 2011 (http://www.cartelgallery.com/beech.html)

“What Struggles Do We Have In Common?” Learning Play following 48 hour Communal Seminar with Chto Delat?, ICA, September 2010 (http://www.ica.org.uk/25896/Live-Art/The-Factory-of-Found-Clothes.html)

Creative Jobs Survival Fair, ‘At Your Service’, curated by Cylena Simmonds, David Roberts Art Foundation London, 2009 (http://www.davidrobertsartfoundation.com/exhibitions/_20/)

Making a Living: Artistic Survival in 2009, Austrian Cultural Forum, London, September 2009
Temporary Agency, three-day series of performative actions exploring concepts of value, free labour and social networks in the arts, Chelsea Space, London, 2008

London Cultural Workers Enquiry, walk and mobile seminar with Brian Holmes, Gasworks Gallery, INiVA, 56a, Rampart and other venues, London 2008 (http://www.acflondon.org/lectures-talks-symposia/making-living-artistic-survival-2009/)

Various Workshops at Occupy LSX Tent City University, Really Free School etc (2009-2012)

Publications

‘Free Labour Syndrome’, in Maps of Precariousness Forms and Processes, Social Imaginary and Subjectivity, Emiliana Armano and Annalisa Murgia (eds), Bologna EMIL 2012

‘Working Woman: A Photonovela’ visual chapter in Submidialogias, Fabiane Morais Borges (ed), Peixe Morto, Sao Paolo, 2012, pp.250-260

‘Meet Your Acquaintance: Precarious Workers Brigade and LAWAS (Latin American Workers Association)’, Common Thread award and published text for artists and collectives to meet with other figures or groups who have inspired them, 2012 (http://www.commonthread.it/)

Training for Exploitation? Towards an Alternative Curriculum, downloadable pdf resource pack for use by students, teachers and cultural workers to address free and precarious labour in the arts, design, education and the creative industries, 2012 (http://carrotworkers.wordpress.com/2012/05/02/training-for-exploitation-towards-an-alternative-curriculum/ and http://dismagazine.com/blog/32484/training-for-exploitation-towards-an-alternative-curriculum/#more-32484)

Surviving Internships: A Counter Guide to Free Labour in the Arts, illustrated guide book published with Hato Press, London, October 2011 (http://carrotworkers.wordpress.com/counter-internship-guide/)

‘Tools for Collective Action—Precarity: The People’s Tribunal’, Dis Magazine, June 2011

‘Fragments Toward an Understanding of a Week that Changed Everything…’, Paletten, guest-edited by Maria Lind, April 2011 [ http://paletten-tidskrift.blogspot.com/ accessed November 2011]

‘Fragments Toward an Understanding of a Week that Changed Everything…’ Article re-printed in eflux journal, April 2011 [http://www.e-flux.com/journal/view/225 accessed November 2011]

‘Fragments Toward an Understanding of a Week that Changed Everything…’ Article re-printed in Are You Working Too Much? Post-Fordism, Precarity, and the Labor of Art, Julieta Aranda, Anton Vidokle, Brian Kuan Wood (eds.) Sternberg Press, 2011, pp.167-182 (
ISBN 978-1-934105-31- 3)

Selected Talks, Conferences and Presentations

The Labour of the Multitude? The Political Economy of Social Creativity, conference presentation, University of Warsaw, October, 2011

Informality: A New Collectivity, Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam (SMBA), panel, August 2011

Moral Economies of Creative Labour, conference presentation, University of Leeds, July 2011

Who Are the Migrant Workers Today? (mapping precarious labour), presentation and workshop, Carrotworkers and Latin American Workers Association, IniVA, September 2011

Carrotworkers Collective Public Lecture, San Francisco Institute of the Arts, July 2011

Carrots, Promises and Organising Otherwise, Historical Materialism Conference, SOAS, London, November 2010

Cultures of Resistance: On the Commodification of Cultural Production, Department 21, Royal College of Art, July 2010

Mashing Up: Art and Labour: Loans & 
Internships 
Workshop

, CCA Glasgow, organised by Variant Magazine, November 2010

Art & Labour Summit: Cultural Workers, Artists, Students, and Interns Meet to Organise, Name Names, and Coordinate Demands, Cell Project Space, London, April 2010

Carrot Working: What work-based Education Prepares, invited speaker at ‘Art Schools: Inventions, Invective and Radical Possibilities’, UCL, London 2010

Creative Industries and Knowledge Factories: Analysis and Resistance, Warsaw Summit, Solec, Warsaw, October, 2010

Radical Education: Conference, organised by Radical Education Collective Ljubljana, Moderna Galerija / Museum of Modern Art, Ljubljana, November 2009

Selected Reviews

Maja and Reuben Fowkes, ‘#Occupy Art”, Art Monthly, No. 359, September, 2012 (including cover image)

Nina Power, ‘How to Find a Better Life?’ Review of Julieta Aranda et al. (eds.), Are You Working Too Much? Post-Fordism, Precarity, and the Labor of Art Sternberg Press, Review 31, November 2011

Angela McRobbie, ‘Re-Thinking Creative Economy as Radical Social Enterprise’, Variant 41, Spring 2011 [http://www.variant.org.uk/pdfs/issue41/amcrobbie41.pdf accessed November 2011]

Anthony Iles & Marina Vishmidt, ‘Make Whichever You Find Work’, Variant 41, Spring 2011 [http://www.variant.org.uk/41texts/variant41.html#L14 accessed November 2011]

Angela Nagle, ‘The Intern Boom Just Gets Boomier: Intern Nation: How to Earn Nothing and Learn Little in the Brave New Economy’ Irish Left Review, November 2011-11-13 [http://www.irishleftreview.org/2011/06/14/intern-boom-boomier-intern-nation-earn-learn-brave-economy/ accessed November 2011]

Gavin Grindon, ‘Valuable Tools: Review of Turbulence What Would it Mean to Win?’, Radical Philosophy 169, September. October 2011, p.62 [http://turbulence.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Radical-Philosophy-169-review.pdf, accessed November 2011]

Editors, ‘A Great New Guide by the Carrot Workers Collective’ SHIFT Magazine, November, 2011
[http://shiftmag.co.uk/?page_id=2 accessed November 2011]

Editors, ‘Carrots, Sticks and Stones’, Calverts Co-operative Online [http://www.calverts.coop/co-operative/carrots-and-sticks accessed November 2011]

Rowenna Davis, ‘House of Poshos’, The New Statesman, February 18th, 2010 [http://www.newstatesman.com/society/2010/02/minimum-wage-interns-mps accessed November 2011]

Links and Citations: False Economy; London Indymedia; Coalition of Resistance; Calverts; A-N, Artists Newsletter; Art Leaks; Greek Left Review; Libcom; Counterfire; Scoop.it

https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/4396