New on Outland: Survival System (on Artist Corporations)

Welcome to Soft Labor, the namesake publication of Soft Labor, a strategic consultancy for organizations, designers, and the culture industry led by Sarah Hromack-Chan. Soft Labor is a publication about creative labor—what it is, what it looks like, and how it has and will continue to change. Did someone forward you this publication? Subscribe, read our archive, or email us at info@softlabor.biz. 

Our latest column just published on Outland, the publication produced by Outland, a new, nonprofit organization dedicated to publishing and education in the field of art and technology. We've been invited to contribute a monthly column where we'll be writing about encounters between institutions and new media, and the shifting meaning of digital work. 

In today's column, "Survival System," we analyze Kickstarter and Metalabel co-founder Yancey Strickler's Artist Corporations (or A-Corps), a “new economic paradigm,” in Strickler’s words. This is one to watch, folks.

Here's the kickoff, below. Read the rest on Outland.

A recent New York Times headline asked “With Prices Soaring, Can New York Survive as Mecca for the Arts?” before detailing the post-pandemic exodus of New York’s art community. Hyperallergic reported on a recent survey by inveterate writer and arts consultant Paddy Johnson whose data shows that artists are plagued by debt regardless of their career stage. The situation is so bad that New York City’s incoming mayor, Zohran Mamdani, has appointed a rather formidable transition committee on arts and culture to take it on.

The time is ripe for a new form of intervention designed to support artists, arts workers, and others seeking to make their way in the world when the national political climate is outright hostile for the arts.

Enter Artist Corporations or A-Corps, an emerging initiative spearheaded by writer and entrepreneur Yancey Strickler. ...