Book launch—Permanent Recession: a Handbook on Art, Labour and Circumstance

Join us for the launch of Permanent Recession: a Handbook on Art, Labour and Circumstance, a new enquiry into the capitals and currencies of experimental, radical and artist-run initiatives in Australia. Excavating a shared history of independent practice stretching back to the 1980s, this publication situates new research within a rich continuum of debate about the Australian artmaking context. We are delighted that publication editor Channon Goodwin will be in attendance to give a brief introduction to this important research project and the All Conference network.

Permanent Recession: a Handbook on Art, Labour and Circumstance is an enquiry into the capitals and currencies of experimental, radical and artist-run initiatives in Australia. Published by Onomatopee Projects, and commissioned by the All Conference network, this expanded study reveals and interrogates the economic and cultural particularities of these creative organisations and the political territory in which they operate.

Excavating a shared history of independent practice stretching back to the 1980s, this publication situates new research within a rich continuum of debate about the Australian artmaking context. The intention is to produce cultural and metric evidence of the value of the small-scale and artist-run sector, distinct from the larger pool of small-to-medium organisations and to assess the true impact of this stratum. Permanent Recession is collective resources, providing strategies essential for the future integrity of the sector, and of the Australian arts ecology more broadly.

This publication combines new qualitative and quantitative research around the small-scale and artist-run sector in Australia, contextualised within a catalogue of re-published texts going back to the early 1980s, so as to situate new research within a rich continuum of thought and debate about the Australian artmaking context. Part research, part advocacy document, part literature review, part reader, Permanent Recession is a living contribution to current thought. As a handbook, it is a compilation of useful information in a compact and handy form. It should be used!

The publication features new and republished texts by Peter Anderson, Andrew Brooks, Andy Butler, David Corbet, Léuli Eshrāghi, Ben Eltham, Catherine Ryan, Colleen Chen, Tristen Harwood, Mark Jackson, Georgie Meagher, Macushla Robinson, Anne Marsh, Jacqueline Millner, Kate MacNeill, Bernice Murphy, Margo Neale, Spiros Panigirakis, Francis Russell, Kate Scardifield, Philipa Veitch, Amelia Wallin, and Tian Zhang; and transcribed discussions with Esther Anatolitis, Hana Pera Aoake, Marnie Badham, Clare Cooper, Sarah Gory, Lucie McIntosh, Lisa Radford, Pip Shea, Talia Smith, Pip Wallis, Katie Winten, and Tian Zhang. Edited by All Conference co-convener, Channon Goodwin.

As included co-authors Ben Eltham and Catherine Ryan state, artist-run spaces “...embody a nuanced and highly resourceful response to the economic challenges faced by working artists and small-scale cultural practice. They have repeatedly demonstrated highly successful adaptations to the constantly evolving artistic environment while maintaining a shared commitment to artistic autonomy, small-scale economic independence, diverse practice and a nimble and flexible operational doctrine. ARIs are some of the great unheralded success stories of Australian culture.”

Edited by Channon Goodwin and copy edited by Sarah Gory of un Projects. Proofing by Mark Gomes. Design by Paul Mylecharane, Kim Mumm Hansen at Public Office. Printed by Unicum, Netherlands. Published by Onomatopee, Eindhoven.

448-pages softcover
108 x 176 mm
ISBN: 978-94-93148-07-9

About All Conference

All Conference is an organising network established in 2016 and comprised of fifteen Artist-Run, experimental and cross-disciplinary arts organisations from around Australia. The network is the result of a national collectivising impulse by a dynamic group of organisations focused on the production and presentation of new contemporary art. The group’s current members are BLINDSIDE, Boxcopy, Bus Projects, c3 Contemporary Art Space, Cool Change Contemporary, Constance ARI, FELTspace, Firstdraft, KINGS Artist-Run, Liquid Architecture, Outer Space, Runway Journal, SEVENTH Gallery, Trocadero Artspace, un Projects, Watch This Space, and West Space. Working together, this alliance forms a platform for research, publishing and knowledge-sharing. All Conference champions the important role that artist-centric organisations play in sustaining the Australian arts ecosystem and in imagining alternative futures. All Conference is co-convened by Channon Goodwin (Bus Projects), Georgia Hobbs and Claudia Roosen (Firstdraft).