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Life in Lockdown

Let’s clap for artists during The Great Lockdown. And then let’s pay them.

Ioannis Tsioulakis
Lecturer in Anthropology
16/04/2020

Every crisis, an opportunity. Isn’t that what they tell us? And you don’t have to look too hard these days. While some of us – admittedly the most privileged – are in ‘lockdown’, our online world has been enriched with free opportunities. For learning. For entertainment. For ‘culture’. For exercise. For mental health. For religiosity. For social connectivity.

(Only for those who can afford the time, of course, and not all of us can. I had to wait a week to find a chance to write these lines, and I’m crossing my fingers that I’ll finish them within the short window of my son’s naptime.)

But if all this content is ‘free’, who is producing it and why? At what cost? How do we thank and compensate them? Should we do some rounds of balcony/front-door applause for the anonymous musicians, writers, painters, animators, meme-creators, actors, directors, screen-writers – the list is endless – who are keeping us sane and entertained?

What has now been termed ‘The Great Lockdown’, is going to have unprecedented effects on the global economy, the IMF tells us. But not everyone will be affected equally, at least in the short term. I have spent the past 15 years doing research among Greek professional musicians, focusing on their strategies of economic survival and how divisions between work and play define their social lives and self-understanding. In those years, I interviewed and played music with them, during ‘good’ and ‘bad’ times. We saw the full clubs and peak record sales of the last years of ‘prosperity’ (2005-2009), and talked about the impact of recession and austerity since 2010. But, now they tell us, nothing will compare to what’s ahead of us.

Performing artists – as all precarious workers – will need support in the years to come, as we need theirs to get through every single day of this lockdown. This can only be achieved through Universal Basic Income (at least in the short term) and a radical redefinition of working and funding conditions for art and culture in the long term.

For a detailed review of these issues, and some proposals, see our co-written piece with Dr Ali FitzGibbon: http://qpol.qub.ac.uk/performing-artists-in-the-age-of-covid-19/

2 replies on “Let’s clap for artists during The Great Lockdown. And then let’s pay them.”

Ioannis, thanks for drawing the attention to the predicaments of musicians during the lockdown. As member of the Bangor Open House Festival Choir, who has been participating in a digital version of choir practice since the start of the lockdown, I would also like to emphasize the amazing improvisational skills of choir leaders, in our case Katie Richardson, who has continued to inspire us through weekly Zoom sessions. Providing a sense of normality in abnormal times, her resilience and belief in the power of music to create a ‘support network’ and ‘a sense of community’, has been inspirational (https://www.belfastlive.co.uk/whats-on/music-nightlife-news/meet-belfast-woman-helping-generations-13299199, last accessed 28/04/2020)

I agree wholeheartedly with Maruska’ s comments. I am also in a choir, the QUB Well-being Staff Choir, which meets virtually every Friday at 1pm and run by the inspirational Una McCann. Una has the ability not only to bring out the most beautiful sounds of chorus but to bring joy and humour to the most mundane of days. Everyone looks forward to her sessions and feels so much better after it, as mentioned in the comments following her sessions on WhatsApp. Ioannis, your blog is indeed spot on! Lets honour these hidden hero’s in our community.

https://youtu.be/sBgx_zLv-3s

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