‘You Secretly Believe…’Cultural Work, Internships and Precarity Monday June 2nd 2009 7-9pmLARC 62 Fieldgate St., Whitechapel, E1 1ES London

This session, hosted by members of the Carrot Workers Collective will begin with some fables and anecdotes from the world of interning in Europe’s Cultural sector. In bringing together these accounts, we aim to begin an analysis of the circuits of anger, resignation and moral compensation that often characterise the experience of free labour. The session aims to not only find ways of understanding these predicaments, but also to identify the ways in which these circuits can be interrupted, and might operate otherwise.

We ask that people attending read the following texts/ excerpts before Monday (if possible!)

Reading: Angela McRobbie, ‘The Los Angelisation of London: Three short-waves of young people’s micro-economies of culture and creativity in the UK’ http://eipcp.net/transversal/0207/mcrobbie/en

And have a look at the following websites: http://www.wageforwork.com/wage.html (Working Artists and the Greater Economy, New York)

and…

Ephemera: Theory and Politics in Organisation, Vol. 7, No. 1 (Feb 07), special issue on ‘Immaterial and Affective Labour: Explored’ edited by: Emma Dowling, Rodrigo Nunes and Ben Trott. See: http://www.ephemeraweb.org/journal/7-1/7-1index.htm