Position, influence & income

Sophie Hope and Owen Kelly talk to Su Jones about the reactions she has received to her paper Artists' lives: ecologies for resilience, and what she hopes happens next.

 
Meanwhile in an Abandoned Warehouse | Episode 82

January 2nd | 2026

PARTICIPANTS

Sophie Hope | Su Jones | Owen Kelly

COMMENTARY

Last summer Su Jones finished writing <strong>Artists' lives: ecologies for resilience</strong>, a report formed around case studies of 14 visual artists from three English regions. She had been working on it for the last two years.

In this episode Sophie Hope and Owen Kelly talk to Su Jones about the reactions she has received, and her feelings about them. She discusses the position of an independent researcher and the influence she has, or doesn’t have. She talks about the precarious position that visual artists occupy in a country in which increasing numbers of people occupy precarious positions.

Should artists receive a basic incomes, as they have in Irish experiments, or does that simply amount to special pleading? Would a better proposal involve everyone receiving a universal basic income which artists can use to enable them to practice as artists, golfers can use to practice golf, and chess players can use to practice chess?

REFERENCES

Su Jones: Artists’ Lives: ecologies for resistance, an overview

Su Jones’ writings at Arts Professional

Su Jones’ article at Arts Professional (paywall)

Su Jones’ article at Arts Monthly (paywall)

Ireland: basic income for artists