Collective Imaginings for a better (art) world
My first newsletter, including my newly released podcast series and recommendations of articles I've been reading over the last year
Welcome to Art Thoughts for a Better World š±š
Hello internet people, it feels strange beginning a newsletter following on from my early y2k blogger years (of largely speaking into the great abyss without much response). Iām testing this out as a medium for communicating with friends, peers, and maybe some friendly strangers, to share what Iām currently making/organising in the arts and the things Iām reading/listening to/watching which are inspiring me. As I begin, Iām unclear of how well this will work, all I know is that the current format I use to share work ā Instagram ā has sat uncomfortably with me for some time. There is always a bind in having a public component to your work (in my case as an artist, curator and writer), while simultaneously managing mental illness which is exacerbated by public visibility. For a few years now, Instagram has begun to appear as a necessary evil. I oppose the ways it solidifies the anxiety-ridden, self-comparing, self-involved factions of society. Personally, whenever I spend time on the social media platform I leave with currents of anxiety pulsating the surface of my skin, and never with a feeling of positivity.
I regularly de-activate and re-activate my Instagram, with the longest break being the one I took in the summer of 2018. A summer spent in the chaotic haze of the world cup, the year England reached the semi-finals for the first time since 1990, and the whole of London seemed to erupt into a hedonistic, joyful daze of beer drinking, pizza eating and singing in the streets. For around 6 months I got rid of all my social media, and relied upon word-of-mouth to connect with friends and find things to do. I found that I suddenly had spontaneity back ā I was attending art shows without seeing every displayed artwork on Instagram beforehand ā and ironically I connected with some of the people Iād met online, IRL for the first time. I was blissfully happy and starkly aware of how my addiction to and reliance on an app I hated had tainted much of my late teens and early 20s. Still, having work to share always seems to bring me back around to Instagram, and I have no doubt in my mind that my account does generate new work for me (something I canāt be selective about, given that I still have an unpredictable freelance income).
Since 2018, the shape of Instagram as a commercial entity, geared around the marketing and sale of goods, has only intensified. In-built, tailored ads on your feed, āinfluencersā selling a lifestyle which tells you if you only buy one more pair of shoes or that new face cream youāll finally be happy, and now an algorithm which prioritises people who āuseā the app the way Facebook (who have owned the platform since 2012) intend. What this means is that the people who utilise the many different āengagementā functions, such as IGTV, reels and stories, are pushed up the timeline, and simultaneously BIPOC and LGBTQ+ users are often disproportianetly targetted with shadow bans which impact their user reach (read Paula Akpanās article on shadow bans here). It all feels pretty yuck by this point, and yet so many of us have built careers off the back of a platform which once gave us agency and control and the ability to communicate with people directly. So, while I search for an alternative, and attempt to distance myself from the platform I so loathe, substack was suggested to me as a possible way to keep people up-to-date through newsletters (thanks Catherine and Elsa!). Which is a long roundabout way of saying, welcome to Art Thoughts for a Better World š±š
What to expect from this newsletter
As you can probably already tell by this stage, I am a rambler at heart, and succinctness has never been my strong point. Even still, with the exception of this introduction, I will try to keep these newsletters short and sweet. Iām aware there is an overwhelming abundance of content to engage with online, and there often feels like an inherent pressure to keep up. In the hope of prioritising slowness, and encouraging you to come to this at your own pace, hereās what you can expect:
š« A newsletter in your inbox no more than once a month. They will likely be more sporadic, given that I am running on crip time, and my disability is in constant flux.
š« Each month will include a framed introduction around a different art related thematic, related to my research. Topics Iām likely to explore in the coming months will include the public persona of institutions, disabled access to art and public spaces, using an artist studio as a disabled artist, autoethnography and collectivising. My research interests are predominantly around race, disability and inclusion in the art sector and the failings of institutions / how to build resistance to them. I always tend to draw from personal experience so as to work against what Saidiya Hartman terms āthe violence of abstractionā and because many of these sociopolitical issues directly impact individual lives, so should be approached with a fundamental understanding of lived experience.
š« Part one will be updates of things I am working on, artworks Iām making, collective organising Iām contributing to etc.
š« Part two will be a focused round-up of things Iāve been engaging with (e.g. for January, Iāve compiled a list of articles Iāve been reading and returning to over the last year, next month you can expect my favourite podcast episodes)
January updates
Writing
I had the pleasure of writing an essay to accompany HOMEās innagural exhibition of works by Ronan Mckenzie and Joy Yamusangie āWATA, Further Explorationsā. My piece On the Blue in WATA focuses on the artistsā preoccupation with the colour blue.
My latest review for Frieze is on Olu Ogunnaikeās continually-evolving installation at Cell Project Space, āLondon Plainā, which will hopefully re-open once restrictions have lessened in London.
Collective Imaginings podcast
In the Autumn of 2019 I planted the seeds of a podcast series, with the intention of speaking to cultural workers about their strategies for surviving in the arts. I was particularly interested in speaking to people who had experienced specific barriers to working in the institutional landscape, and were devising ways to resist the harmful and hegemonic practices within the sector. Over a year later, I am releasing Collective Imaginings into the world. The series has evolved and changed as a result of multiple contexts including but not limited to COVID-19 and the BLM uprisings, as well as through the dialogues themselves. I realised, after speaking to the five guests on the series, that surviving has never ā and will never ā be enough. Instead, across three episodes we collectively think through imaginings for a better (art) world.
Episode One is out now, where I speak to Rachel Noel and Lucy Lopez about everything from creating communities, to informal meeting spaces, art-world-burnout and carving out space for ourselves and one another.
My favourite moment from the episode is when Lucy and Rachel spoke about gathering an āalternative art worldā, with the people you actively wish to be in dialogue with, and as Lucy says, ācircumventing the thing that is burning you out.ā
My slow list of recommendations š
I find engaging with reading, listening and watching around art quite challenging at the best of times. If Iām not researching, youāre more likely to find me watching trashy TV than staying up-to-date with the latest art-world-goings-on online. As such, my list of recommendations will rarely be recent. Instead, it is a reflection of things I have come to late, returned to again and again, or that have stuck in mind across an extended period of time.
In line with trying to resist the fast-paced, capitalist productivity which keeps us whirring at 100 miles per hour, Iād encourage you to come to these lists slowly, carefully, in your own time and at your own pace.
Things Iāve enjoyed reading over the last year
š« Sophie Hoyleās brilliant text for Festival Gelatina exploring disability in relation to COVID-19.
š« Harry Josephine Gilesā reflection on the closure of art venues as a result of the pandemic, āI Woke Up and the Arts Was Goneā.
š« The White Pubeās no-holds-barred text on institutions and anti-blackness āFUCK THE POLICE, FUCK THE STATE, FUCK THE TATE: RIOTS AND REFORMSā
š« Jemma Desaiās generative research This Work Isnāt For Us, which was my guiding light in 2020, thinking around the failures of diversity policy, institutional harm, and processes of complaint.
š« Johanna Hedvaās text for Get Well Soon! reflecting on care, sickness and interdependency in pandemic times.
& currently sitting in my to-read-pile
š« Harun Morrisonās timely and monumental Interviews with Critical Workers (2020), a collection of eleven interviews with āa cross section of individuals working within the UK public sector during the COVID-19 pandemicā. Co-edited with curator Lily Hall, designed by Rose Nordin, and featuring beautiful illustrations from Sherwin Tija.
š« Novuyo Moyoās recent article āSocial work: the art world onlineā published on e-flux, exploring the influence of social media on the art world, with specific reference to the June 2020 BLM uprisings.
See you next timeā¦
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Jamila Prowse seeks to interrogate and dismantle the colonialist, racist and ableist structuring of the art sector through art making, writing, and collective organising. Her practice is engaged in collaborating with art workers, as an antithetical method to the alienation of being a BIPOC working within, alongside and adjacent to white institutional settings. To find out more about Jamilaās work visit her website.