PRESENTERS:
UNITED VOICES of the WORLD DESIGN and CULTURAL WORKERS UNION
ARRAY COLLECTIVE
JULIET DAVIS-DUFAYARD
LENA ŠIMIĆ and TIM JEEVES
SOFIA NIAZI

A series of video presentations exploring various ways artists can make, and are making change. The presentations explore the following themes;

- Making change through unionisation
- Making change through institutions and archival spaces
- Making change through art practice and art work
- Making change through political representation
- Making change with and within communities

The presentations illustrate how artists are currently active in ways of making change, and were commissioned as provocations for a future round of public group discussions. If you'd like to join the discussion for a particular presentation, click HERE for details.

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THE PRESENTERS and THE PRESENTATIONS

UVW’s Designers + Cultural Workers is a cross-sector trade union organising isolated and groups of workers across the creative industries.
Many of us are precarious, overworked and underpaid. We are made to compete against each other for jobs with no disclosed salaries, bad management and terrible conditions. As UVW-DCW, we educate members about our rights at work, secure legal representation for workers, and organise and campaign to transform our industry in the interest of its workers.
We are taking action against exploitative practices, including:
- Unfair wages
- Salary cloaking
- Unpaid overtime
- Illegal unpaid internships
- Work-related stress and burnout
- Precarious freelance and temporary work
A broad, cross-sector definition of cultural work is necessary in order to resist exploitation. If you work as a designer, curator, film-maker, illustrator, writer, artworker, educator or any other creative worker; in a studio, gallery, museum, art school, theatre, fashion company or even from your bedroom; as an employee, agency worker, intern, student or self-employed; join our fight to build a more equitable culture from below!



To see the report of the follow-up group discussion in response to DCW's presentation, click HERE


Array are a collective of artists rooted in Belfast who create collaborative actions in response to sociopolitical issues affecting Northern Ireland. This diverse group of individual practice spans film, photography, installation, performance, craft and sound. They utilise their collectivity via a DIY sensibility, embracing humour and political insight in street interventions, public workshops & symposia. Array focus on dialogical projects with multiple communities and their activist non-hierarchical approach informs their performative interventions. Their recent work, “As Others See Us” (Jerwood Arts, London 2019) centred on three fictional characters drawn from the pre-christian folklore of ancient Ireland, cross-bred with contemporary anxieties such as LGBT rights, bodily autonomy and colonial tensions particular to the 6 counties in the North. The characters lead visitors through the installation which included a dedicated archive and resource space that reflected the relevant historic and contemporary activism.



To see the report of the follow-up group discussion in response to Array's presentation, click HERE


Juliet Davis Dufayardis a French artist, performer, and organiser based in Manchester. Using collaborative principles, my practice explores the lived experience of the everyday, using collective listening and doing to create sites for communality.
Current projects include "Let's Keep Growing" an award-winning, community-­led gardening project in Longsight (South East Manchester), facilitated with housing co-­op members and neighbours.
She has co-­funded or collaborated in the running of several DIY nomadic projects and art spaces including TOAST, and LEGROOM, a multidisciplinary platform exploring the potential of movement co-­directed with Amy Lawrence.



To see the report of the follow-up group discussion in response to Juliet's presentation, click HERE


Lena Šimić is a Reader in Drama at Edge Hill University. Originally from Dubrovnik, Croatia, Lena identifies herself as a mother of four boys, transnational performance practitioner, pedagogue and scholar. A co-organizer of the Institute for the Art and Practice of Dissent at Home, an art activist initiative in her family home in Liverpool, UK. Lena is currently researching contemporary performance and the maternal, mainstream politics and environmental performance.

Tim Jeeves is currently a Visiting Lecturer at Liverpool Hope University. He has been making performance work for the last 15 years, with a particular focus on how the narratives around disability and health are formed and shared, and between 2011 and 2016, directed the ACE supported Giving in to Gift festival, ‘an ongoing conversation around ideas of generosity and reciprocation’. He is currently contributing to a major research project, commissioned by the Live Art Development Agency and undertaken in close dialogue with Arts Council England, that examines the histories and futures of the Live Art sector.




To see the report of the follow-up group discussion in response to Lena and Tim's presentation, click HERE


Sofia Niazi is an artist and illustrator working and living between London and Birmingham. She completed an MA in illustration at Kingston University. As part of OOMK, she currently runs a community RISO print studio in Newham, Rabbits Road Press, with studio mates Rose Nordin and Heiba Lamara. She employs various digital, hand drawn and traditional craft techniques in her work and is currently exploring themes around housing and technology. Sofia has produced work for Migration Museum, Museum of London, Barbican and The Guardian, amongst others. She regularly leads workshops and delivers talks about her work in community, gallery and academic settings.




To see the report of the follow-up group discussion in response to Sofia's's presentation, click HERE