Being in Each Other's Business
Imagining Alternative Arts Marketplace explores new economic models for artists beyond traditional funding. Through fairytales, collaboration, and experimental markets, six artists reimagine value, sustainability, and artistic autonomy in a shifting creative economy.
Introduction to Goblin Market—a research-driven prototyping and pilot exploring economic alternatives in the arts
Luisa Ji | Feb 12, 2025 | Dispatch #1
In a completely sincere way, this project was conceptualized as an effort to connect arts and cultural producers through a place-to-place network to facilitate cooperation and collaboration across Canada—about bioregional arts practices, ecologically sustainable crafts (digital and material), and transdisciplinary knowledge-sharing. It draws inspiration from models with proven impact, such as Atelier LUMA in Arles, France and the global Fibreshed movement stewarding sustainable craft textiles. These approaches benefit material producers, artisans, and craftspeople while enabling artists to access unique knowledge and production networks that contribute to new aesthetic values.
The hypothesis is that by keeping financial resources within the arts production cycle, a better-connected creative infrastructure may emerge across Canada—supporting knowledge creation and the fabrication of artistic artifacts. However, current options are limited. Many artists and creatives opt for international manufacturing from exhibition piece fabrication to merchandise production due to cost, accessibility, and quality. Some artists practice in rural Canada to prioritize direct engagement with the mediums they work with, often natural materials pertaining to unique geography and bioregion. It is also not rare for Canadian artists to relocate to cities outside Canada with more robust creative infrastructure to sustain their practice, leading to better financial outcomes. A sole focus on sustainable production is no longer sufficient when these factors tie directly to access to resources, funding, and basic livelihood. While the project’s original intent ostensibly supports Canadian arts, crafts, and bioregional production, it risks idealizing local manufacturing in ways that overlook present-day economic realities. In early 2025, exclusionary and nationalistic narratives continue to unravel within shifting Canada-US relations. Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s endorsement of the “Canada is Not for Sale” slogan and the surge in “Buy Canadian” sentiment reflect a broader trend.
However, the more pressing issue remains survival. The decline in public funding for arts and culture in Canada and globally, particularly reductions from arts councils, has placed increasing pressure on artists to attain financial stability through limited and highly competitive funding initiatives. This scenario often forces artists to compromise their artistic integrity and values—commodifying what is already precarious. The dependence on institutional support in cultural production and the financialization of the arts limits creative autonomy, as individuals and organizations hesitate to challenge those who provide them their livelihood. Many in the arts and cultural sector also feel discomfort surrounding money while simultaneously steering clear of direct and deep engagement with various financial instruments and market structures. Whether this discomfort arises from emotional, ethical, and moral responses, or a lack of knowledge, such avoidance severely restricts artists’ ability to be resilient when market dynamics shift. Artists and creatives are generally more vulnerable to financial instability than professionals in numerous other fields, yet solutions remain scarce. The increased proliferation of AI in the creative industries further underscores the precarity of artistic labour. For the first time, a vast number of artists and cultural workers in previously sought-after jobs are confronted with the reality that their creative work is replaceable by machine automation, and the income generated from it is diminishing as technology becomes more sophisticated and available at a fraction of paying someone an hourly wage or salary. The attempt to justify that human uniqueness holds value through meticulous aesthetic contemplation and detached reflection in artistic practice risks fostering nostalgia (I, too, fell into the trap of romanticizing a pastoral version of the arts ecosystem in the initial outline of this project) for a world that has since changed quite profoundly.
“Irrationally gambling with sh*tcoins” to many people is the only way to achieve financial upward mobility, remarked by artist, internet culture writer and podcast host Joshua Citarella of Doomscroll in a conversation with American artist Trevor Paglen, as a follow-up on the observation of a sharp decline of worldbuilding led by artists of our contemporary in compared to prior decades. In this absence, corporate and political powers increasingly fill this space. The direction of what’s unfolding in the world becomes easily changed, often abruptly, based on one person’s irrational decision. In this situation, how do we respond?
Winning at sh*tcoins relying on luck, brute force, deception, or other means is irrelevant: you've got to respect the hustle. However, it is an unlikely rescue for the vast majority of people, or perhaps worse, it represents a fixation on the possibility of a rescue where you are the only survivor.
“What would be a foolish thing to do after a shipwreck?”
This question emerged after reflecting on UKAI Projects’ Carnival of Shipwreck provocations.
“What would be an irrational thing to do after a shipwreck?”
As for our post-shipwreck irrational choices: a few of us wanted to sing, dance, and do tarot readings; others included stashed ramen packets, soft plushies, favourite emotional support mugs, and beautiful clothes for joy. None of us rushed to return on that same ship, or sitting idle for rescue.
The tension arising from the current social, political, environmental, and financial challenges faced by artists and cultural producers presents an opportunity to experiment with how art can be made, experienced, shared, and sustained in beautiful and unsettling ways. It calls for artists to engage directly with the systems—specifically to this project, how we resource and produce art when prior financial resources in the sector no longer stand—and to emerge with new ways of living among the monsters we fear.
Six artists have been selected through an open-call process based on their "willingness to be in each other’s business." We came together around the aesthetics of fairytales, particularly stories of shapeshifting and transformation, to envision marketplace formats that integrate digitally mediated narratives, spatial interventions, and ephemeral artistic practices. As we conclude our first week, the following themes have emerged as focal points for prototyping an alternative arts marketplace:
- Rigging Systems for Dignity: Restructuring economic interactions to centre cooperation and shared responsibility to care for each other.
- The Economics of Lingering: Valuing time spent in shared spaces as an essential form of exchange.
- Game Mechanics of Value and Worth: Designing interactions that occupy the form of the marketplace while reassigning new values.
- The Offloading of Misery: Exploring interventions that redistribute the cost of convenience and comfort.
- Value Grows with Relationships: Exploring how sustained engagement and trust shape the worth of creative work.
- The Traveling Merchant with Stories to Tell: Emphasizing storytelling as a means to generate value beyond economic transactions.
To close off this week’s dispatch, in no particular order, the brilliant and incredible artists involved are:
Project Organizers
Luisa Ji, producer, program designer
Jerrold McGrath, business strategy consultant