Collective Bargaining Agency is a project by Gendai that aims to informally and anonymously utilize collective bargaining power to encourage sector transparency and demand more equitable standards for labour conditions in the arts. Through participatory workshops, we collectively critique contracts that are commonly encountered by contemporary art practitioners and brainstorm alternative clauses. It is accompanied by an online database that traces these conversations in order to equip more artists and arts workers to negotiate fairer conditions for their labour.
Throughout the Mainframe exhibition, we are opening up the database for online contributions. From January 8th to February 28th 2025, we invite you to submit a contract or a clause via this form or provide your thoughts on any existing contract in the database.
︎SUBMIT HERE
︎COMMENT HERE
Gendai
(Marsya Maharani and Petrina Ng)
is an art collective based in Tkaronto/Toronto exploring creative arts administration through collective research with BIPOC artists and arts workers. Using gossip as a methodology to trace the contours of institutional power, Gendai builds relationships with emerging and mid-career arts practitioners of colour to learn about current workplace dynamics in the sector and collectively envision alternative ways of working in the arts. By offering peer mentorship and access to Gendai’s platform, resources, and network, they invite collaborators to support each other in pursuing non-institutional futures and imagine “off-ramps” from the linear expressway of traditional, capitalist, and institutional career progression in the arts. Gendai has published their research in the Gossip issue of C Magazine, titled “We Should Talk: Obvious Truths About Working in the Arts.”
Gendai Collective and The New Gallery gratefully acknowledge the contributions of PAiR Mentor, Jessica Szeto.
Jessica Szeto (she/her) is a writer, designer, and software developer who was born in and is currently based in Mohkinstsis/Calgary. She has a BSc in Computer Science from the University of Calgary, where her specialization was in interaction design and information visualization. She is primarily interested in exploring the ways people interact with technology, science, and history.
Gendai Collective & The New Gallery acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.
