In this episode, I, Kamayani Sharma, am in conversation with Shukla Sawant and Annapurna Garimella, Founder Trustees of the Culture Workers Support Trust, an organisation set up in 2019 to and I’m quoting them directly “spread awareness among culture workers about their rights and responsibilities". We discuss the modes and methods by which labour in India's vast culture sector can start to organise and collectivise, how stakeholders across public and private sectors can come together for worker-oriented solutions to entrenched problems and how forms of workplace violence including gender & caste-based harassment (as that embodied by the #MeToo movement in the art world) cannot be delinked from broader issues of labour rights such as wage security and equitable contracts. We also discuss how in the network capital-dominated industries of the arts, legislative and judicial processes are necessary to enforce fair work conditions. Click here to access the Image+ Guide & view the material being discussed in the podcast: https://sites.google.com/view/artalaap-podcast-resources/episode-10. Credits:
Producer: Tunak Teas
Design & artwork: Mohini Mukherjee
Marketing: Dipalie Mehta
Images: Culture Workers Support Trust
Additional support: Kanishka Sharma, Amy Goldstone-Sharma, Raghav Sagar, Shalmoli Halder, Arunima Nair, Jayant Parashar
Audio courtesy: Vernouillet by Blue Dot Sessions [CC BY-NC 4.0]
References:
Christine Ithurbide, 'Beyond Bombay art district: Reorganization of art production into a polycentric territory at metropolitan scale', Belgeo [Online], 3 | 2014, 19 Dec. 2014.
- and Soraya Hamache, 'Art and Cinema Industries in India: Norms, Workers and Territories', Workshop at Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi, Centre d'études Inde et de l Asie du Sud, Newsletter No. 13 (Summer 2016), https://sites.google.com/site/ceiasnewsletter/-newsletters-20152016/newsletter-no-13---summer-2016/art-and-cinema-industries-in-india-norms-workers-and-territories.
- and Tejshree Savara, 'Legal Handbook for the Artist Community in India', UNESCO in partnership with New Delhi Office, Sept. 2020.
Kavita Singh, '2019 Arts & Museum Summit Keynote 3: Museums, New Locations, New Definitions', Asia Society Delhi, 12 Oct. 2019.
John Rawls, 'A Theory of Justice', The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, (1971) 1999. 'Google Spreadsheet Reveals How Much the Art World Earns', Frieze, 4 Jun. 2019.
'Journalist Priya Ramani not guilty in MJ Akbar defamation case, rules Delhi court', Scroll.in, 17 Feb 2021. Press Trust of India, 'Delhi Police interrupts India Art Fair after complaint of anti-CAA paintings; artwork was about India’s women, clarify participating artists', Firstpost, 3 Feb. 2020.
'Indian Journalists Union defends media's right to report on MeToo allegations', Internet Freedom Foundation, 23 Jan. 2020.
Ophelia Lai, Subodh Gupta Settles Defamation Case Over Instagram #MeToo Allegations, ArtAsiaPacific, 3 Mar. 2020.
Benita Fernando, 'What is ailing the ‘people’s biennale’?', Livemint, 29 Mar. 2020.