taking care of the pennies

For Pierre-Michel Menger, uncertainty is both ‘the seat of creative activity’ and that which ‘characterizes the gap between efforts invested and the goal to be reached’ (2014: 117, 118). The literature observes that uncertainty avoidance is included in the list of important contributors to business stability (Kaufman & Sternberg 2010), but also stifles innovation. The unknown collector of the ‘assets’ exhibited in this installation exemplifies, for me, all those creative workers who can gather considerable cultural and social capital, and contribute richly to the bottom line of their nations, but who live in precarity (Lahire 2010). The status of creative careers, and the ability of artists to make a living from their work, is an enduring problem in Australia and elsewhere, and for academics whose job it is to teach new artists, it is a continuing ethical and intellectual issue. This installation is a fragment of my ongoing research into the uncertainty of artistic careers and the precarity of our sector.