Name: Heart of Glass
Price range: $

The second in an ongoing series of sessions to open up spaces for conversation around self-care.

What’s particularly special about this event is that we’ve timed it to coincide with our Madlove Take Over, an arts festival for mental health taking place throughout November. The festival brings local, national and international artists and communities together to make exhibitions, films and new performances for a pop-up space in central St Helens – all aimed at supporting people’s mental health.

The session will be hosted in the Madlove Takeover Space, and will include a guided tour by one of our festival hosts.

Recent reports note the impact ‘low pay, a lack of work-life balance, limited opportunities for career development and the ongoing pressure to do more with less’ is having on the ‘cultural workforce’, especially artists and freelance workers. A situation that is leading to an ‘increasingly high’ risk of burnout.

The precarious nature of freelance work, a lack of on-going support and the emotional and physical toll of working with communities facing incredible hardship often compounds these effects on individual artists. Especially when collaborative and social arts practice is increasingly being asked to replace the social structure of our society.

Despite current conditions, there remains a notable lack of recognition of the importance of self-care practices inside and outside the workplace. According to Suzanne Alleyne, this is partly down to the attitude that ‘you are getting to do something you love, with the implication being: accept the negative stuff that comes with that. We know you have to work longer hours than your contract says and that you often get paid less than the corporate sector. And yet there is a prevailing ‘look what a nice time you’re having’ attitude…’

How, in difficult times for artists and communities, might we:

begin to work in solidarity across disciplines and sectors to achieve the kinds of conditions that make our work have real impact?
resist short-term funding, the cultural equivalent of zero hours contracts and insist arts and cultural organisations recognise the time it takes to build up trust and make meaningful and truly collaborative work?
find the right balance between empathy and self-care?

As cuts to funding begin to impact even more severely on communities and artists working with them, we invite you to join us for Open Space to explore notions of care.

The session is for anyone who is artistically engaged in social and collaborative arts practice; it will be facilitated by Chrissie Tiller (Creative Consultant and Practitioner) and Emma Fry (Criticality Producer, Heart of Glass), with a provocation by artist Sheila Ghelani.