Artists are number one on the list of non-essential workers
Jun 23, 2020
David Williams
Dave Williams is an accomplished travel photographer, writer, and best-selling author from the UK. He is also a photography educator and published Aurora expert. Dave has traveled extensively in recent years, capturing stunning images from around the world in a modified van. His work has been featured in various publications and he has worked with notable brands such as Skoda, EE, Boeing, Huawei, Microsoft, BMW, Conde Nast, Electronic Arts, Discovery, BBC, The Guardian, ESPN, NBC, and many others.
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The Singapore Sunday Times conducted a survey to determine the jobs that people perceive to be essential. As an interesting side effect they got a list of non-essential jobs. Surprisingly(?), artists topped the list with 71% of non-essentialness. Heck, according to the article, artists are even less essential than telemarketers. Ironically, it was a graphic artist who created the infographic to represent the results. An insult to the artist, but funny nonetheless.
Obviously, social media was not happy. The backlash was so big, that The Sunday Times published a piece challenging their initial article.
Imagine living in lockdown without music or Netflix. The people behind these, and many other forms of entertainment, fall into the category of ‘art worker.’ Rishi Budhrani, a comedian from Singapore, dropped the mic in this debate:
But it didn’t stop there. The backlash from the article was severe enough to prompt another article. This time, the Sunday Times published a follow-up article to explain apologize for their methodology. They explain that they commissioned the survey early in the month when COVID19 exploded. Obviously, the spotlight turned on the role that essential workers play. That, and the discrepancy between their value and their salaries.
Here at DIYP we salute the front line workers who have kept us safe. These front line workers have no doubt relaxed with a form of art. We also take our berets off to those who have creatively kept us entertained and brought us together in this time of need. The arts, including photography, play an important part in our lives and our communities. We need doctors, but we also need artists.
Here is the full infographic, published by The Strait Times.
Who do you think is a non-essential worker?
[via straitstimes]
David Williams
Dave Williams is an accomplished travel photographer, writer, and best-selling author from the UK. He is also a photography educator and published Aurora expert. Dave has traveled extensively in recent years, capturing stunning images from around the world in a modified van. His work has been featured in various publications and he has worked with notable brands such as Skoda, EE, Boeing, Huawei, Microsoft, BMW, Conde Nast, Electronic Arts, Discovery, BBC, The Guardian, ESPN, NBC, and many others.
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13 responses to “Artists are number one on the list of non-essential workers”
I put human resource manager top of the list of non essential jobs
Try living in a space with no art, see how that works out for ya…
Casinos are non-essential because we dont need to lose even more money…
Politics…
I am in top 5 essentials.
What does this have to do with photography?
it has to do with artists
and it sheds some light onto the mentality of paying for photos with “exposure”…makes sense, since it’s widely regarded as the most non-essential occupation
Are you trying to suggest that photographers are not artists?
i would say that the jobs are not essential during the actual pandemic (or any other crisis) but being locked indoors without any tv shows or movies or music would increase the sales of ropes on amazon…
Yeah, right. Try surviving everyday life (not to mention quarantine) without any form of art.
On a personal note, as a photographer myself, I doubt I’d stay sane in some life situations I’ve had so far. So yeah, art IS essential. For both the artists and those who consume and/or enjoy their art.
Telemarketers.
Humans seems to be in a competition on how far they can get from who they really are. I am not going to say anything about this article, all I am going to do is to share a little story that happened to me. A few years ago I received a message on my social media form a teenager thanking me for a song that I wrote in 1992. In the message he told me that his parents did fall in love because his dad dedicated my song to his mom, So according to him he wouldn’t exist if my song wouldn’t… Think about all the people involved in the process between me writing the song and the conception of that boy’s life. We are all essential, there is no such a thing called Non essential people. If music wouldn’t exist for sure the person who wrote this article wouldn’t either. Willingly or not he is spreading a new way of fascism.
I am an artist, but I agree art is not-essential. why?, think about survival situation, are is not needed.