Publications

New visual arts research

By: a-n

Responding to the gap in intelligence about artists and their practice, AIR: Artists’ Interaction and Representation has been conducting a series of research projects with the aim of informing cultural advocacy and policy-making.

In August, as part of gathering evidence to maintain future art and design courses and influence government job creation programmes, AIR members were asked to respond to a survey about employment status. The Artists' Employment Status survey forms part of AIR's research strand that seeks to inform arts, education and economic policies by providing pertinent evidence about visual artists that is otherwise not being collected or not known about. The survey results came very quickly tumbling in, showing AIR's ability to provide a fast route into consultations with artists and towards representing their situation to others. Whilst previous research by a-n, ACE and others over the last ten years suggested at least half of all practising visual and applied artists were self-employed, the new AIR survey reveals that it's substantially increased. 72% of artists are self-employed 25% are a mixture of self-employed and employed 2% are unemployed 1% is employed In terms of status by career stage: 88% of established artists are self-employed 73% of mid career artists are self-employed 67% of emerging artists are self-employed Significantly, the overall level of self-employment amongst...

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