Location: Cemeti – Institute for Art and Society
Date: December 7, 2017 – January 13, 2018
Hours: 10:00 – 17:00

Artist Job Fair

a project by Wok the Rock with Videshiiya & friends

Workshops, talks, presentations and exhibition

Opening: Thursday, December 7, 2017, 18.00-21.00

18.00 hrs: Introduction by Wok The Rock
19.00 hrs: Presentation by artist Maryanto about his residence at Rijksakademie Amsterdam
20.00 hrs: Speech by Brigitta Isabella (KUNCI Cultural Studies Centre) on The mobility of cosmopolitan vagabond artist and our strategy of culture

Expo: Tuesday-Saturday, 10.00-17.00

Workshops, Talks, Presentations

Artist Job Fair is a project by Wok The Rock, with spatial design by architect collective Videshiiya. For the duration of the project, the spaces of Cemeti Institute will be transformed into an expo, workstation and resource centre where visitors can access open calls for artist residencies, grants/funds and other opportunities for artists. Alongside will be a display of successful applications, proposals and a selection of works made by artists whilst participating in residency programmes. Artist Job Fair also offers a series of short courses to develop related skills through an intensive series of workshops, presentations, tutorials and portfolio reviews, lead by a pool of art practitioners from Yogyakarta.

The starting point for Artist Job Fair is the assumption that not every artist has access to grant, residency or funding opportunities: perhaps some don’t know opportunities like these exist, others may not have the confidence or the skills to take the chance. However, the project not only provides a useful service, but is meant as a critical reflection on the professionalization of art practice and the forms of employment that are prevalent in the art field. The project aims to address questions such as: “What resources are available to artists to make work and ends meet?”, “How can art galleries and institutions support artists’ subsistence?” and “What constitutes artistic success?”. For a detailed workshop schedule and more info on how to register, please check here.

Residency programs, artist exchanges and arts funding grants provide facilities for artists to develop their practice, offer space, time and support to produce new work, conduct research or exchange knowledge with different contexts. These programs often provide facilities such as funding for the production of works, daily living allowance, accommodation, studios, institutional networks as well as connections with other arts professionals. They provide an opportunity to produce works free from commercial demands unlike part-time work in other fields or selling art works.

Announcements for artist residency and funding opportunities are used by artists to look for opportunities to produce artworks and gain new socio-cultural experiences in a different city or country. The number of opportunities for artist’s mobility have grown as global art discourse increasingly looks to include a diversity of artists and practices from outside the Euro-American cannon. This is reflected in various websites such as TransArtist, Resartis, Wooloo or On The Move that provide a wealth of information on residency open calls and grants for artists to facilitate meetings between artists from all corners of the globe. These websites can be seen as platforms for artists to search for “job vacancies”, salaries coming in the form of artist fees, per diem and production budgets. This raises the question, do these opportunities engender opportunistic thinking, encouraging the understanding of art as a job, with financial gain as the ultimate goal?

This exhibition is the third of Cemeti’s Berbagi series of exhibitions, running until June 2018 and consisting of projects experimenting with different forms of collaborative practice. Berbagi marks the second draft of our current Maintenance Works programme (January 2017-June 2018).