The third CLCF theme “Conditions for Change: Policies and Practices for Sustainable Working Conditions” focuses on sustainable working conditions and how cultural production and distribution technologies, policies and practices influence how workers live, operate, and produce within creative industries and broader society alike.

Creating conditions for change in this context means mobilizing a critical perspective that recognizes how workers in this sector have faced precarious work conditions for many decades, with unstable contracts, low wages, flexible arrangements and lack of social protections and that policies are needed to address this issue, considering both the historical and the current transformations related to AI.

In this thematic area, working with community partners such as Mass Culture, Work In Culture, Scarbrite, The Shine Network, and Ontario Creates, the CLCF network will conduct workshops and interviews, and convene workers to identify wise and compassionate practices working towards building inclusion in the field. We will investigate how the well established economic instability of creative working conditions are exacerbated by but also show potential for change through community-engaged research addressing the relationship and impacts of urgent social issues such as climate change mitigation, food precarity, or affordable housing.

Under this theme (and theme 2: creativity; theme 1: contexts and constraints), ME Luka has already undertaken the first of three visits to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland to better understand how artists, community supporters, and board members feel that AI is impacting their operations. During the first residency in Nova Scotia, Luka reached out to artists and administrators at community-based open studio Wonder’neath Arts Society, the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, creative hub CultureLink, Zuppa Theatre, and Narratives in Space + Time Society. Read more about this project here.