GULP!

We were asked to think about what happens next for artists and the arts. No one wants to go back to the way things were pre-COVID, and not just because we now can’t imagine living without Paul Mescal’s volcanic sexuality. In the future, we want more people to feel like art is a vital part of their lives, but we don’t want to inflict artists’ working conditions on them. Most people have been working overtime all the time for a long time. Most people don’t have any labour to spare for labours of ‘love’.

We had a show cancelled when social distancing came into effect. It was about needing to change but not knowing how. Fittingly enough, that’s where we are now. Too many gigs which MIGHT pay off, change everything for the better, make it all make sense at last, no gigs that definitely will.

When you’re being pulled in 8 directions, the one thing you can’t do is stay still. If you stay still, you get torn apart. So that’s what GULP is about. How we’re all freelancers, desperately flicking between tabs, invoicing the future, hoping it doesn’t burn us. (Again.)

Malaprop

Commissioned by Project Arts Centre as part of Future Forecast.