How do artists at risk of poverty navigate economic and professional insecurity?
Abstract
This paper explores how art students and young artists who are ‘at risk of poverty’ proceed during their careers to avoid economic precarity and insecurity. Many young artists experience economic hardship and insecurity the initial professional years after graduation. However, many artists achieve sustainable living conditions and some professional stability after some years. In this paper, we have studied the adaptations and strategies that several Norwegian artists have employed, or might employ, to avoid precarity and insecurity throughout their careers. We base our analysis mainly on two empirical sources: (1) a quantitative study of Norwegian artists’ income and living conditions (Kleppe & Askvik, 2022), and (2) a qualitative study of Norwegian art students/artists that we interviewed both in 1999 and 2019 (Mangset et al., 2022). We also supplement our analysis with findings from two studies of Norwegian artists’ income and living conditions, that we have conducted previously (Heian et al., 2008 and Heian et al., 2015). Finally, we identify eleven different strategies that artists, who are ‘at risk of poverty’, employ – or might employ – to avoid precarity and minimise professional insecurity.