Bodies of Work – A Symposium
Waterside Workers Hall, Port Adelaide, Yartapuulti, 1 – 3 November 2023. Presented by Vitalstatistix and Reset Arts and Culture, SA.
Have art and cultural sectors lost their connections to the rights, welfare and aspirations of working people and communities? What can legacies from past alliances and struggles teach us about current campaigns to combat precarity and poverty amongst cultural workers.
What do the histories of union-led initiatives such as ‘art and working life’ offer us for the future? What can we learn from overseas experiments on basic income or co-operatives? Does the new National Cultural Policy give us hope?
NAVA joins three days of talks and discussion, activist training and art, which will explore these big questions, in the latest edition of Vitals’ ongoing Bodies of Work initiative in collaboration with policy provocateurs, Reset Arts and Culture.
Creative team: Curated by Emma Webb, Justin O’Connor and Tully Barnett
Light refreshments will be offered for morning and afternoon tea, please note that as this is a free event lunch is not provided.
1 – 3 November 2023
10am til 7.30pm daily
Waterside Workers Hall
11 Nile St
Port Adelaide, Yartapuulti
Kaurna Yerta
Free
Three-day program
DAY ONE – Wednesday 1 November
Art, communities and activism
10am
Welcome to Country and introduction to Bodies of Work, Vitalstatistix, and Reset Arts and Culture
10:30am
Keynote: Crying Through Our Singing – A Union Hall, Communal Luxury and Cultural Activism
A love letter to and potted history of the Waterside Workers Hall, the power of singing, women and wharfies, and the time for communal luxury, mutual aid and collectivism.
Speaker: Emma Webb, Artistic Director, Vitalstatistix
11:30am
Panel: Art and Working Life – Legacies and Futures
A wide-ranging discussion of the histories and futures of artists working with unions (including the famous ‘Art and Working Life’ initiative of the 80s) and the place of art and culture in everyday life and progressive change.
Speakers include:
>Ali Gumillya Baker, Unbound Collective, artist and scholar
>Catherine Story, artist and ACTU educator
>Kathie Muir, researcher and arts worker
>Ian Milliss, artist and activist
12:30pm
Lunch – please note that as this is a free event lunch is not provided
1:30pm
Workshop: Activism and policy toolboxes
A provocative toolbox of campaign activities and strategies, how the policy process really works and hints for campaign planning.
Speaker: Greg Ogle, Senior Policy Officer, South Australian Council of Social Services
3:30pm
Break
3:45pm
Panel: Campaigns, alliances and civil society
An inspiring discussion of current campaigning work, building alliances for improving civil society, and what cultural organising can look like today.
Speakers include:
>Abbey Kendall, Director, Working Women’s Centre
>Aira Firdaus, union and community organiser
>Ben Eltham, arts commentator and NTEU activist
>Dale Beasley, Secretary, SA Unions
>Jessica Alice, Chair, Arts Industry Council of South Australia
>Pas Forgione, activist, Anti-Poverty Network of South Australia
5:30pm
Arts Industry Council of South Australia event
Jessica Alice, Chair, AICSA in conversation with South Australian Minister for the Arts, the Hon. Andrea Michaels MP, about the SA Government’s new taskforce into sustainable careers for artists and arts workers. Inc drinks, snacks and networking.
7:30pm
Close
DAY TWO – Thursday 2 November
Basic income, dignified work, real rights
10am
Coffee and updates
10:30am
Keynote: A Basic Income for Artists – The Irish Experience
An exclusive-in-Australia presentation about the successful campaign for a basic income for artists pilot in Ireland and lessons arising from its current implementation.
International guest speakers: >Angela Dorgan, CEO of First Music Contact and former Chair of National Campaign for the Arts who championed the Basic Income for Artists pilot in Ireland >Sharon Barry, Director, Culture Ireland
12:30pm
Lunch – please note that as this is a free event lunch is not provided.
1:30pm
Panel: Winning cultural labour and income rights in the Australia
A deep dive into how the arts and cultural sectors can ‘dare to struggle, dare to win’ and what we should be fighting for in our unions, workplaces, the public policy space and for government action.
Speakers include:
>Ben Eltham, arts commentator and NTEU activist
>David Pledger, artist and activist
>Ian Milliss, artist and activist
>Jennifer Mills, writer and MEAA activist
>Penelope Benton, Executive Director, NAVA
>Sam Whiting, scholar and activist
3:30pm
Break
4pm
Drinks and snacks
plus
Special in-conversation to be announced!
6pm
Performance lecture
A Perfect Day by Catherine Ryan
A guided listening tour through ‘pop song schedules’ – songs in which the singer lists everything they do in a day. This darkly funny and smart performance work explores how the pressure to be productive determines the rhythm of our existence under contemporary capitalism, through subversive pop song samples and numerous low-brow musical interludes.
7:30pm
Close
DAY THREE – Friday 3 November
Culture as Foundational
10am
Coffee and updates
10:30pm
Panel: New thinking about culture and social foundations
A globally informed panel looking at the wide range of new ideas and empirical work which is changing thinking about culture and public policy. A touchstone here is the work around culture and the social foundations undertaken by the Reset Arts and Culture Collective and their collaborators overseas.
Speakers include:
>Abigail Gilmore, University of Manchester
>Ben Eltham, Monash University
>Justin O’Connor, University of South Australia
>Tully Barnett, Flinders University
12:30pm
Lunch – please note that as this is a free event lunch is not provided.
1:30pm
Participatory session: A New Cultural Policy – Culture, democracy and change
A participatory process for bringing together the themes of the three days, planning our campaign priorities and considering how to elevate progressive change both inside and outside the framework of ‘Revive: A Place for Every Story, A Story for Every Place’, the current five-year national cultural policy.
4:30pm
Drinks and networking
6pm
Performance lecture
A Perfect Day by Catherine Ryan
A guided listening tour through ‘pop song schedules’ – songs in which the singer lists everything they do in a day. This darkly funny and smart performance work explores how the pressure to be productive determines the rhythm of our existence under contemporary capitalism, through subversive pop song samples and numerous low-brow musical interludes.
7:30pm
Werk – DJs Ben Eltham and Catherine Ryan
10:30pm
Close
Accessibility
Waterside Workers Hall is an accessible venue. If you have any enquiries, please get in touch via phone 08 8447 6211 or email operations@vitalstatistix.com.au.
Supporters
Bodies of Work – A Symposium is supported by Vitalstatistix, Reset Arts and Culture, University of South Australia SA/CP3, Flinders University/Assemblage, Arts South Australia and the City of Port Adelaide Enfield
Image credit
Emma Beech. Photo by Heath Britton, courtesy of Vitals.
ID: A photo of a person standing at a podium in front of a stage. They are leaning into a microphone, have short light brown hair and their fist is raised above their head. On the podium is an open laptop.
NAVA acknowledges and pays respects to the Kaurna peoples as the Traditional Custodians of the lands upon which this event will be held, and extend respect to their Ancestors and Elders. Sovereignty was never ceded.
