Fatima's Next Job Should Not be In Cyber!
After an expensive education in ballet, another cataclysmic shift in the ever failing world economy sent the fictional character of Fatima towards a dispiriting life of drudgery, in a career that she did not train for and most likely did not want.
Fatima was the unwitting star of a poster campaign, exhorting those involved in the decadent hobbies that are the creative arts to re-train and get real jobs.
Original image: (L) Student Desire’e Kelley and Vibez in Motion dance studio owner Tasha Williams photographed by Krys Alex
The trouble with this scenario is that Fatima is not fictional at all, but a real person named Desire’e Kelley, an aspiring dancer from Atlanta, Georgia in the US. The image was appropriated in a campaign for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) without the consent of Kelley or the photographer, Krys Alex, who was unhappy to find the image being used in such a way.
There was a larger context around the DCMS’ campaign, in so much as it was urging people in many low paid jobs to quit and retrain, to get ahead of the curve when it comes to the next economic apocalypse.
Regardless of the intellectual property, copyright and appropriation aspect of social media content, the issue around this specific image of Fatima is staggeringly ironic in its ignorance. It wilfully ignores what it means to be creative and follow a path dedicated to refining skills and talents in service of creating a future worth having. It also ignores the work that has gone into the production of the advert itself.
In creating the Fatima advertisement the DCMS have - appropriated the image of a creative person, Kelley, and the photographer, Alex, presumably avoiding payment to either for their unwitting involvement in the project, whilst employing a team of creative individuals to carry out their bidding by subverting the unpaid artists work into becoming anti-creative propaganda.
So, art in service of economic propaganda is fine, but art for art’s sake is not?
The DCMS explain that it “was a partner campaign” by way of distancing themselves from the furore that it sparked. Yet the fact that the DCMS signed off the campaign is explicit approval for such wanton vandalism of the arts.
On the basis of this, thankfully mothballed campaign, I decided to visit the now archived ‘Discover Your Skills and Careers’ page on the government’s website. Here I was encouraged to answer a large number of psychological profile questions, on the basis it would guide me to the career that would be best for me. Having answered the questions, I was provided with a very lengthy list of potential careers, at the top of which was Emergency and Uniformed Services. I guess a computer cannot really understand my dislike of injury detail and dislike of authority that may prevent me from being a part of the police or ambulance services. Instead I looked to my second choice; teaching! Okay, again it never asked me whether or not I had Maths, an essential qualification for everything apparently. Well, the only letter that I have in terms of qualification for even GCSE Maths is a U, I guess that rules out choice number two for me as well.
Having doom scrolled seemingly for an age, I eventually, at the very bottom reached ‘Creative Roles’. Bingo I thought, at last it is suggesting that there is a place in society for me, even if it is at the very bottom of the pile. Upon further investigation, the breakdown of creativity amounts to such roles as ‘Copy Editor’ (someone who checks the work of creative people for mistakes) 35 - 40 hours a week and paid between £22,000 and £80,000, ‘Web Content Editor’ (someone who can create web layouts that the average person will not be able to use, a computer job rather than an art job) 35 - 40 hours a week and paid between £22,000 and £40,000, ‘Advertising Copywriter’ (someone who can create short slogans for selling stuff) 37 - 39 hours a week and paid £20-80,000, the list goes on: Art Editor, Commissioning Editor, Animator (the closest paid job to actual artist) etc . . .
Whilst not wishing to denigrate any of the aforementioned jobs, what is the missing link in all of this?
The job of an actual artist!
Here, the large salaries are commanded by those who take artists work and manipulate them for propaganda or tools for selling things. The artist does not feature at all in this thinking. Not only are the salaries high but also the hours are so short, 37-40 hours a week on average! Show me an artist who puts in that few hours and I will show you someone who is not an artist.
I look at the kind of hours that I, and all of the artists that I have worked with over the years have put into projects, and the idea of the lazy, feckless artist smoking weed, drinking too much and indulging in a generally louche lifestyle melts away for the romanticised fiction that it is.
Stone carving workshops with sculptors John Barber and Keith Ackerman (pictured with recently graduated artist Annabelle Richmond-Wright)
The DCMS message is be creative, we will use it but don’t expect paying for it. Artists will only be tolerated so long as it serves us.
Steal Like An Artist eh!
My message would be ‘ignore the noise’, if you have the facility to persist then do so and become the noise, don’t let the naysayers get a word in edge ways. If we all get work in cyber, then where do all the people trained for cyber go; nobody benefits.
2019 BA (Before Art)
In the words of Jim Morrison ‘The future’s uncertain, the end is always near’. With that in mind we must surely act as though every day may be the last and use it as a way to try and make a difference for those who come after us.
2023 AA (After Art) featuring the work of Keith Ackerman: Jacob’s Ladder 2019-22 (Tadcaster Limestone)
Bruce Davies | April 2024
Permission for use of the original image in this article was sought from, and granted by the artist. Unlike the UK Government who just assume that everything belongs to them anyway
Krys Alex is a photographer based in Atlanta, Georgia raised in Kingston, Jamaica. Her work uses tools of photojournalism, portraiture, and filmmaking to tell stories. Self-taught with a sincere passion for all things photographic- she teaches her subjects to show up in the lightness of their surroundings looking natural and authentic; amplifying the beauty that already exists. Her work makes little distinction between commissioned and personal stories, using both as an opportunity to capture raw emotion.
Website: https://www.krysalexphoto.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/krysalex/