How can we work to overcome the systematic de-professionalisation of the arts and writing? I don’t know. Perversely, or selfishly, maybe we accept it? 

 

 – Sammi Gale

Sticky Teeth’s micro-interviews have less to chew off. Ft. words from creative professionals at the intersection of the arts and writing. 

 

Take a bite of Sammi Gale’s thoughts on problems with collective action, and the essentials of empathy and meaning within creative endeavours to (somehow, in some way) mitigate pervading issues in the arts sector. 

 

xx Tahney

Sammi Gale is a London-based writer and editor.

His poems and short stories have appeared in publications such as Datableed, Lighthouse and The Colorado Review. He’s the editor and curator at Plinth and also edits Grimshaw Foundation. Bylines include GQ, the i newspaper and Little White Lies. He makes poetry slash music tracks as Fffirst Time with producer Jack Bartrop.
Tahney: For you, what’s a major problem in the arts/writing?
Sammi Gale: The first thing that comes to mind is it’s hard not to agree with Tess’ points around writers and pay. But since the Tories would rather commit seppuku than allow anything like (as she sensibly suggests) universal basic income into these isles, I’m afraid I’m a little more cynical about how we might overcome it. 

We are suffering from a collective action problem: never mind a strike in Hollywood, all the writers, artists and creatives the world over would have to unionise. Trying to solve inequity by our own individual actions doesn’t have much purchase on Big Capital and can feel pretty exhausting. 

 

That said, I’ve been thinking about this recently and here’s where I’m at:

Empathy and capitalism are strange bedfellows. Perhaps it’s no wonder that writing and the arts, more widely, have been booted off the top bunk in the past few decades. I hope I don’t sound too telenovela by saying there could be a correlation between wages in the arts plummeting and reports of empathy erosion over the past few decades. Anyway, it’s pretty clear that if money is the metric, society really doesn’t care about writing. Caring is pretty low on the market’s list of priorities, too.  On the one hand, the capitalist can’t very well grease the wheels of production with pesky feelings, can she? On the other, it is precisely empathetic skills – lateral thinking, hot takes, communication, persuasion, negotiation, reducing lots of information down to its essence, seeing in new ways, and a hunger for a larger internal life – which will be absolutely essential if we have any hope of innovating our way out of this increasingly desperate state of planet-being-literally-on-fire. 
What are our options, then?
How can we work to overcome the systematic de-professionalisation of the arts and writing? I don’t know. Perversely, or selfishly, maybe we accept it?  I’m not saying our next job should be in cyber à la poor Fatima the ballerina. Rather, instead of straining and striving for a proper wage and comparing number of Twitter followers and bristling at whose got the giggiest gig in the gig economy, it’s easier on the soul to recognise that society’s stories about production, wealth and value are used to promote private wealth at the expense of the public good. Not only does realising this make it a lot easier to write, it makes the act of writing more exciting and subversive – if not doing it in exchange for fair remuneration, what other kinds of value might you do it for anyway?  If we could all be alive to this question and aim to make little meaningful encounters (it doesn’t have to be putting words into bettering patterns, there are plenty of activities that are creative, genuinely valuable and meaning-making), then that will have meant something, surely – perhaps only to you and a handful of others, but it sounds like a nice life’s project.
Some arts writing (and the like) you’re loving rn? 
Recently, I loved Emma Garland’s Moth Club lecture on Lana Del Ray as a ‘fun lovin’ genius.’ Gary Zhexi Zhang’s new book Catastrophe Time is just as staggering as Dead Cat Bounce, his oratorio in collaboration with the also insanely brilliant Waste Paper Opera, which it followed. Both take on the links between catastrophe, finance and reality-making and blew my little mind. I’ve got endless time for Emily Watkins and Eloise Hendy, art writers and journalists. Philippa Snow’s book on violence was sick – I could go on. Fine, Emma ClineBen LernerOttessa Moshfegh – I’m only human.
A quote from one of these?
Gosh, too many.
How about this one instead I heard last night — isn’t it lovely?
“There would be people walking in the garden – several pairs of people – their conversation their slow pacing – their glances as they pass one another – the pauses as flowers ‘come in’ as it were – as a bright dazzle, an exquisite haunting scent, a shape so formal and fine, so much a flower of the mind…A kind of, musically speaking – conversation set to flowers.” – Katherine Mansfield to Lady Ottoline Morrell (15 August 1917)
Give yourself a shout-out!  What’s been a fav project? And your most recent? 
I really enjoyed working on this feature for GQ about weaponised incompetence, it was so great working with the brilliant editor Sam Parker. Collaborating with Jack Bartrop on fffirst time keeps me out of (read: in) mischief. Recently, I guess this one on Surface and Depth in Barbenheimer for Plinth.

More of Sammi Gale here.

Interview by Tahney Fosdike

Hey! My name is Tahney. I design words that fill the space between you, your creative project, and your audience.

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