collected during the Symposium Curating through Conflict with Care 2023 in Berlin.

• Do artists have agency? Can they give or share agency?

• What would a freelance artist agency look like?

• What structures do we need to build to take meaningful risks in the Art World? 

• What is the relationship between the vision for what we want and the time we have to do it? 

• How can we organize our time: suspend time, occupy time when thinking about strike and unionization?

• Why have no unions recruited us?

• Where are the spaces that we need to speak freely?

• What is mentorship?

• Does less work mean more sustainability (for our own mental health, for planetary systemic health)?

• How do we deal with the temporality of projects? 

• How do we deal with the waste of art-world temporality (the material waste of temporary exhibitions and art handling: the paint, plaster, chemicals)?

• How to take care of the continuity of any “social event”?

• Where are the artist’s lawyers?

• What are the limits of trigger warnings? 

• What do we expect of the curator’s offer/invitation?

• What is “equity” in the art world?

• How do we stop the cannibalizing of “equity” and “transparency” language that is meant to take away our negotiation power and to foreclose discussion?  

• What are the negotiable conditions of a contract? What is not?

• How do we build a stronger “worker” identity? 

• How do we protect our energy for our artwork?

• What kind of work can we delegate to support systems?

• What are the questions we have to ask ourselves for honest check-ins to avoid burn-out, loss of integrity, shame? 

WISHLIST

• Paid mentorship programs 

• Artists’ agencies / agents 

• Artists’ unions 

• Guidelines that public money be bound to fulfill union working conditions, 

• Institutional working conditions and employment should be regularly audited, evaluated by unions 

• Budgets for wellness and therapy when working with traumatic topics 

• A map of art grants, residencies, fellowship-resources to break from pay-check to pay-check survival mode

• A taxes workshop for artists

• Childcare for working artists