Creative Labor, Creative Conditions is a national campaign led by the Doris Duke Foundation bringing together coordinated activations across the U.S. to center artists in a national conversation about the future of artistic labor. This series explores the activations and the various answers to the question: What are the conditions artists need in order to thrive?
Nataki Garrett reflects on the May Day activation that kicked off the Doris Duke Foundation’s Creative Labor, Creative Conditions campaign. She shares how the day highlighted the essential labor of artists and poses the question: what do artists need in order to do that essential labor?
Technological innovation is outpacing labor protections, and theatre is not immune to this phenomenon. Kate Brennan, Rachel Anderson-Rabern, and David Lee White discuss what’s at stake when we decenter humans—especially playwrights—to embrace large language models (LLMs) and other artificial intelligence (AI).
In Florida, state and local arts funding has become the site of an ideological battle. Zachary Rivera discusses the impact of these funding cuts—and the work of Floridian theatremakers who know that art is precious enough to fight for.
To celebrate the launch of I Don’t Know How They Do It!, column curator Anne G. Morgan and HowlRound co-director Ramona Rose King sit down to discuss the column’s origins, their own parenting journeys, and ways our field can better support artist caregivers.
I Don’t Know How They Do It! lifts the curtain on the often invisible caregiving labor that many artists do to support their families and their artistic practices. Each month, we publish a week in the life of a theatre professional with caregiving responsibilities. In the variety of caregiving and artistic perspectives captured—from young children to elderly parents, from tech week to school vacation week—I Don’t Know How They Do It! makes visible the range and experience of the caregiving artists working in theatre today. We hope to foster solidarity among artist caregivers, inspire advocacy toward a field where all artist caregivers are embraced in their fullness, and celebrate the hard work that makes the rest of us say “I don’t know how they do it!"
Over the last 10 years, artEquity has cultivated spaces for connecting, building deeper racial analysis, and supporting BIPOC leaders—especially Black leaders—in shaping a more just and sustainable field.
Series
Safe Havens Freedom Talks
Conversations about threats towards artistic freedom, free press and intangible heritage
Guests in the Freedom Talks series are highly knowledgeable and prolific actors in the global Arts Rights Justice sector, fighting for artistic freedom.
