While the art market confirms his status as a safe-haven assets provider for the financial elite, the current pandemic has highlighted the fragility and precarity of art workers around the world, a condition common to a growing portion of humanity. In this situation a UBI (Universal Basic Income) would then represent a solution and indeed an urgent measure to implement. But UBI is not “only” a response to poverty, it is a necessary condition in order to rethink our extractivist ecological model, to correct many race and gender asymmetries and, last but not least, to change the art world’s present neoliberal structure. UBI must be seen as a tool to open up new subjective spaces, alternative to the dominating entrepreneurial individualism and focused instead on commons and care. 

If artists are already creating new collective economy models and alter-institutions, these small scale experiments will be much more valuable when connected with those growing social movements around the world fighting for a Universal Basic Income.

Marco Baravallle (S.a.L.E. Docks – ITA) http://www.saledocks.org/ Marco is a member of S.a.L.E. Doks, a self-managed art space in Venice. His intervention will focus on the importance of UBI and dis-identification in the organization of art and culture living labor.

Emanuele Braga (Macao – ITA) Emanuele is an activist and artist, member of Macao, center for art and research in Milano (IT). His intervention will describe the self organized Basic Income redistribution within the community of Macao in the last 5 years. http://www.macaomilano.org/IMG/pdf/3_-_commoncoin_basic_income.pdf?1498/0c7e90052d75f199cb712e014f1f8100f3113c3e

Gabriella Riccio (L’Asilo – ITA) is an artist, activist and researcher, member of L’Asilo, art & culture common in Naples IT. L’Asilo elaborated on UBI within the framework of The commons as ecosystems for culture on EU scale.

Marina Donatone (Campo Innocente – ITA) Campo Innocente https://ilcampoinnocente.blogspot.com is an Italian network of performing artists and cultural workers. They recently spoke against corporatism and the drive towards an utter fragmentation into hyper specific professional figures. Instead they see UBI as the unifying goal for all the art and culture workers,

Andrea Fumagalli (Commonfare and BIN – ITA). Andrea is a professor and UBI activist. His intervention will focus on the differences between some of the existing European income tools and the UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME. Also he will focus on the potential of bottom up welfare organisation.

Anna Cerdà i Callís (Murga Cooperative – Barcelona).  Anna is part of a cooperative that launched a manifesto/petition stating the importance of UBI for everybody, art and cultural workers included. Gent que treballa en cultura, per una renda bàsica universal i incondicional

Salvo Torre (POE, Politics, Ontology, Ecology – ITA) Salvo is a researcher in political ecology. His speech will address the ecological implications of UBI.

Wouter Hillart STATE OF THE ARTS (BE): http://state-of-the-arts.net/ State of the Arts (SOTA) is an open platform to reimagine the conditions that shape the art world today, working on art labor and organization will report their recent discussion based on UBI. 

Anna Rispoli and Christophe Meierhans (Common Wallet- BE) Common Wallet is a community based practice in Brussels created by artists. They are socializing their personal income basing the access to liquidity on mutual aid principles.