Oct 6, 2025 4 min read

Vol. 1, No. 12: Feeling Conned

Dear Soft Labor, While a graduate student at a prominent research university, I had the opportunity to work with a cultural critic and activist whose work I greatly admired and even cited within my own thesis project.…

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Sep 29, 2025 4 min read

The Soft Labor Questionnaire: Damien Davis

Today's respondent is Newark-based artist, writer, and educator Damien Davis, whose work explores cultural representation and the recontextualization of symbols through digital and analog processes.…

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Sep 22, 2025 4 min read

Vol. 1, No. 11: Cult of Creativity

Dear Soft Labor, I’m a middle manager in what I’ll obliquely call a “cultural institution”—one characteristically rife with bureaucratic red tape, political infighting, and lack of process.…

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Sep 15, 2025 3 min read

The Soft Labor Questionnaire: Jarrett Fuller

Today's respondent is designer, writer, editor, educator, and podcaster Jarrett Fuller. Jarrett is Director of undergraduate program in Graphic and Experience Design at North Carolina State University.…

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Sep 8, 2025 4 min read

The Soft Labor Questionnaire: Jen Liu

Today's respondent is Jen Liu. Jen Liu is a New York based artist working in video, painting, sculpture and performance, on topics of Asian diasporic women, material flows in the global economy, and reviving archival artifacts.…

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Sep 2, 2025 5 min read

Vol. 1, No. 10: Imposter Syndrome

Dear Soft Labor, I’m a writer who uses a pen name—a best-selling writer, in fact—and even better, I write young adult fiction that teeters on the edge of fantasy.…

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Aug 25, 2025 5 min read

Vol. 1, No. 9: Back to School Special

Dear Soft Labor, I’m an untenured film professor at a large west coast university with a particularly pernicious colleague. He openly harasses faculty and students right up to the very edge of what he can get away with, then continues a furtive campaign after that.…

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Aug 11, 2025 3 min read

The Soft Labor Questionnaire: Haris Fazlani

Today's respondent is Haris Fazlani, a creative director and co-founder of WØRKS, a NYC-based studio working at the intersection of strategy, creative direction, and design.…

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Jul 28, 2025 2 min read

The Soft Labor Questionnaire: Julia Dault

Today's respondent is Julia Dault. Julia Dault is an artist whose paintings and sculptures have been featured in the New Museum’s triennial and the Marrakesh and Gwangju Biennales, with group shows at institutions including MOCA Toronto, MCA Chicago, and the Pérez Art Museum Miami.…

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Jul 21, 2025 5 min read

Vol. 1, No. 8: Feeling Drained

Dear Soft Labor, About a year ago, I suffered a major health crisis that left me physically functional but emotionally, financially, and worst of all, creatively drained.…

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Jul 14, 2025 5 min read

The Soft Labor Questionnaire: Roddy Schrock

Today's respondent is Roddy Schrock. Roddy Schrock is founder and lead homeopath at Ultradilute.…

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Jul 7, 2025 3 min read

The Soft Labor Questionnaire: Rob Giampetro

The Soft Labor Questionnaire, is simply that: A brief series of questions we’ve asked comrades in the field to answer about their own working experiences. Today’s respondent is writer, creative director, and current Head of Creative at Notion, Rob Giampetro, who is based in New York.…

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Jun 30, 2025 4 min read

Vol. 1, No. 7: Post-Career?

Dear Soft Labor, I enjoyed a significant run of art world success earlier in my career—degrees from major schools; gallery representation and strong sales; copious amounts of press—but the action has started to taper off as I’ve approached middle age.…

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Jun 23, 2025 4 min read

Introducing The Soft Labor Questionnaire: Hilary Eden

We’re introducing a new feature, The Soft Labor Questionnaire, which is simply that: A brief series of questions we’ve asked comrades in the field to answer about their own working experiences.…

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Jun 16, 2025 5 min read

Vol. 1, No. 6: A Nepo Baby (and a reader's response to AI)

Dear Soft Labor, I work as a partner in a major architecture firm, a job I ultimately got through nepotism as my father is the firm’s (well-known) founder. I’m writing mostly out of guilt.…

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