Precarious work and precarious urban spaces: Divergent experiences of pandemic creativity

Abstract

How does the precarity of creative work iterate with the precarity of creative spaces? In answer, we examine Covid-19 pandemic experiences of workers across diverse creative sectors in Sydney, Australia, drawing upon qualitative mapping research. Our findings highlight divergent experiences of precarity before and during the pandemic: many suffered, others adapted, some even thrived, depending upon the nature of their work, access to socialisation and networking opportunities, plus whether livelihood precariousness was worsened and overlaid with additional geographic factors, including venue loss, tenure vulnerability, housing insecurity, and access to production spaces. Using conceptual insights from labour and feminist geography, we argue that for the creative sectors to flourish and support diverse, well-remunerated and satisfying work, there must also be discussions of the post-pandemic geography of creative work. Space and social relations within and beyond the work sphere are co-constitutive of precarity.