“I feel I am valued in my society, that I can contribute valid ideas, that I have something to share”. Irish artists report the benefits of basic income
Photo by Khara Woods on Unsplash
It’s a policy we’ve long kept an eye on - a basic income that raises the floor of viability for sectors (or indeed the whole) of the population, and is a way of distributing wealth gained from automation.
Ireland took a distinctive step in 2022, when it announced a test-scheme for 2000 artists to get €325 a week, for a three year period. (Another 1000 artists without the money were to act as a control-group, monitored alongside the recipients.)
The then Tànaiste Leo Varadkar, said the scheme set "a floor" to protect against "erratic and volatile" income streams. “Our country is world-famous for its creative industries, so it’s vital that we provide the right environment to allow artists to develop, flourish and focus on their work," he said.
At the end of May this year, a survey has been produced assessing the impact of this artists’ basic inc0me. As the Irish Examiner reports:
This impact assessment survey found recipients of the payment spend on average almost eight hours more a week on their creative practice than the control group.
Recipients invested €550 more a month in their practice on the likes of equipment and materials, advertising and marketing, workspaces and work travel.
They were 15 percentage points less likely to have been unable to work in the arts compared to the control group, and 13 points less likely to name low pay as a reason for not being able to work in the arts.
They were 18.8 percentage points less likely to have difficulty making ends meet, and eight points less likely to have experienced anxiety recently.
The group in receipt of the basic income were more likely be able to sustain themselves through arts alone compared to the control group, and were also more likely to have completed new works in the previous six months.
The survey of participants in receipt of the weekly payment reported positive experiences among them since they started getting this income.
One participant said: “I have grown in ways I never expected. I view myself as an artist, and feel I am valued in my society, that I can contribute valid ideas, that I have something to share, that I am worthwhile.
Another said: “We are told again and again that pursuing the arts full-time is a bad idea: if you are not from a family or background where there are artists, it can feel like a very risky choice. The [basic income] still feels, every month when it lands, like a release from that risk.”
On the other hand, control group participants also reported their own experience. One said: “As a practising artist, I am just about able to survive, but it is a very hand-to-mouth existence.”
Ms Martin added: “While it is still relatively early in the research phase of the Basic Income for the Arts pilot scheme, it is clear that the support is having a positive impact.
“Artists in receipt of the support are typically able to devote more time to their art, have a boost to their wellbeing through greater life satisfaction and reduced anxiety, and are protected from the precariousness of incomes in the sector to a greater degree than those who are not receiving the support.”
Another Irish Examiner report in Jan 2024 profiles artists with the BI scheme:
Serge Vanden Berghe sits in his Cork city studio, surrounded by paints, brushes, many completed artworks and yet more half-finished. He opens his journal: in it, he records personal expenses, the hours he spends in his studio painting and sculpting, how he travels to work, even his well-being and state of mind. [This journaling is a condition of receiving the basic income.]
…More than a year into the BIA payments, Vanden Berghe is delighted with how it’s been going. “That guilt is gone, the guilt of winning the lottery while others didn’t,” Vanden Berghe says. “The other realisation is that it’s not really winning the lottery because it’s not that much money. The value of money has changed even in the past year. It helps, but it doesn’t solve all your financial problems.”
Vanden Berghe paints brightly coloured canvases often featuring geometric elements and has been a fixture in Outlaw Studios in the old Ford Factory in Cork city for many years. A solo exhibition of his last year, Sacred Earth and Other Stories, saw him focus on sculpture to produce a series of 3D pieces inspired by holy reliquaries of the Middle Ages.
For many years, Vanden Berghe, a father of two now-adult children, was forced to put his art second to earning a living, often working in the construction end of the creative industries: he has worked in theatrical set design and constructing parade floats amongst other things.
“Beforehand I was not really a full-time visual artist: I was part-time, which has consequences for the work,” he says. “With the basic income, I can concentrate full-time on my art.”
…Vanden Berghe, a lifelong social activist who considers himself an anarchist, agrees, and also sees the scheme as a model for a broader Universal Basic Income scheme for other sectors of society. Why should artists be eligible while other vulnerable groups such as carers face ongoing battles to justify their need to the Department of Social Protection?
“It should be open to everybody,” he says. “Workers who are in precarious work would be able to make sound decisions with a safety net. It will help people make the right decisions, try out new things, maybe start a small family business.”
To Vandenberghe, the reprieve from the poverty trap that BIA represents is part of an implicit social contract between himself and the community he makes art for. He feels an additional drive to make art, but has also been freer with volunteering his time for things he feels are of community benefit.
The plan now, he says, is to use the remaining two years of the scheme to consolidate his professional position.
“I think I’m more focused on my goals, which is to have a regular artist income of my own by the end of the three years. If I achieve that, the guilt will completely disappear. If I fail, the guilt will come back,” he says with a laugh.