Femicomix political statement 13.3. 2024 on working conditions of artists in Incomplete Together group exhibition at Gallery Neurotitan 10.-18.5. 2024 and Comics Invasion Berlin 11.-12.5. 2024

By Nina Mutik, Susi Nousiainen, Johanna Rojola and Shambhavi Singh. This curatorial group was formed by an open call in Femicomix Facebook group and Discord channel. 

There is no funding for this exhibition except partial recompensation for the travels. We have asked for further funding for total 6000 euros to cover the travel and lodging expenses as well as transporting the artworks and books. We will have results on these applications during March. (EDIT: we received additional 1200 € from FRAME Finland to be shared between all the finnish participants of the festival, 11 people.)

What we noticed is that It is easier to get funding for traveling and sending the art works than making the actual art work and the necessary supporting work to make the exhibition happen.

We would prefer to not work in these conditions. Artists and other cultural workers should be paid for their work. Next time we should say no to a project like this and only agree to a schedule that makes it possible to have enough time to at least apply for necessary funding. 

We would like to pay the exhibited artists an exhibition fee along the guidelines of Finnish Artists’ Association. This was not possible by any of the grants that were applicable in the time frame between the invitation to make the exhibition and the actual start of the work. This is unfortunate but we accepted it for this exhibition.

The reasons why the working group can afford to do this without pay vary. One of us is paid for their travel expenses; one has a monthly grant for another project; one is using their holiday; one is already in town funded by another project. 

By admitting to work without pay we enforce the idea that cultural work is not work. This eventually creates an environment where working in the culture field can only be afforded by people who already have an income or come from a wealthy background. This will further narrow the variety of the art and the stories we get to see. In this project Femicomix partially goes against their own values, knowingly and with transparency. 

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re: afterword by roju, 12.7. 2024

The aim of this statement was not to blame any actor in cultural field (we’re in this scarcity together!) but to make visible what kind of structures and distress about resources affect the ways we work and what we can do in comics and art field. This was written in scarcity of ressources: namely time and money, which, in capitalism, are pretty much the same thing as we all know.

There are of course other resources than money. Everyone has something to bring to the common table when we are producing knowledge and testing new horizontal practices together. It is valuable to have a possibility to try out ways of working together without competition, respecting the limits of one’s own resources and abilities. This way of working makes visible and challenges the hierarchical power structures and gate keeping in our field. But we still live in capitalist reality. It is important to acknowledge that.

In our forthcoming projects we will continue to address and try to solve these problems. There will also be a lot of projects that we can not do because of the lack of resources. Comics and art, right to be creative belongs to everyone and should be accessible also financially.