Position Unpaid

Mission statement

Position Unpaid is a collaborative project between two artists: Natasha Vicars and Emma Leach. It is an investigation of internships in the arts; where an internship is typically an unpaid work placement in an arts organisation.

Our starting point on this project is our own experiences of working as interns, each in more than one art organisation, and from hearing the experiences of our peers. There are some symptoms we have noted that we think indicate an unhealthy situation in the art industry. Firstly, that the majority of roles advertised on the Arts Jobs mailing list (a vehicle provided by the Arts Council England) are in fact unpaid, and often appear to be core positions. This suggests that organisations are relying on unpaid workers. Secondly, the existence of positions such as – to give a recent example - a six month, full-time internship in the exhibitions team at commercial gallery Hauser&Wirth which was unpaid. We do not consider this reasonable, as we will go on to discuss.

But we also felt that internships can be genuinely beneficial to both parties, and we have both had positive experiences and gained paid work as a result. So with these thoughts in mind we decided to investigate: what internships are; what the issues are; and what are constructive approaches to address these issues.


First action:

Friends of the Divided Mind, Royal College of Art, 29 March 2009


We recruited five interns through the Arts Jobs mailing list, our only requirement being that they had worked somewhere as an intern before. The response to our advert was amazing – we were really shocked by the level and experience of people wanting to work for us for free, some with up to seven years experience in the arts and qualified to MA level. Working as our interns, their job was to draft a manifesto. We asked them, ‘If there were a Union for Arts Interns, what would it stand for?’ We facilitated the discussion, taking a back seat so that our interns could bring their own experiences in to tailor the manifesto to say what they wanted it to. The resulting discussion was very fruitful. As a group we came up with a statement that expressed a desire for change and made specific recommendations. We published this as a working document on this website and continue to be open to comment and feedback on the points made. We presented this document with one of our interns (elected as a representative of the group) at Friends of the Divided Mind.


The Manifesto:
Presented below or click here


Second action:

Labour Practices, Queen Mary University of London, 19 June 2009

We presented Position Unpaid as part of a panel discussion which responded to a paper about the use of labour in art and internships. It was written by Mary Paterson in conjunction with the Live Art Development Agency and was presented by Andrew Mitchelson.

Our response
The paper referred to internships as ‘the elephant in the room’ which we feel is appropriate. We see this as a situation that isn’t often talked about or queried. The people who do talk about it are the interns themselves, but often all that comes out of these discussions is a lot of grumbling. In Position Unpaid we want to turn this grumbling into positive action.

One thing we contest in the paper is the line that describes internships as ‘universally condemned’. We believe that while many organisations use interns responsibly, some are all too happy to take advantage of the huge, free workforce available. One thing we would like to do with Position Unpaid is to allow interns to make more informed choices about where they work, and to help organisations by providing specific feedback about what interns want.

The paper also raised questions of diversity in the arts, and we have also noted comments from the sector skills council’s Visual Arts Blueprint consultation document: that the current system of internships presents “insurmountable financial barriers” and helps keep the arts middle class. Our group suggested some basic changes to the status quo that, while not revolutionary, would make internships more accessible. These were that internships should not be more than two days a week, allowing the post-holder to remain eligible for Job Seekers Allowance benefits or alternatively to support themselves through paid work on the other days. And secondly, that it is unacceptable for an organisation not to pay basic travel and lunch expenses. These seem very basic requirements! But they are far from standard in this industry at the moment.

In the section of the paper that discusses internships it seemed like another voice came in, speaking from personal experience and making it clear what a burning issue this is for many people. We consider that it is still the case that the experience of a new graduate trying to get work in the arts - whether to support an art practice or as an aim in itself – can be profoundly dispiriting, not to say disempowering. People work unpaid with no clear progression into employment, aware that working in major art establishments the balance of power weighs heavily against the intern. We would like Position Unpaid to be an opportunity for an unrepresented group to work together, organise and make their voices heard.