Putting forward an argument about the precarious nature of being an artist is tricky because when we think of artists and creativity, the mental picture is usually: glamour, fame, accolades, and, dare I say, wealth?

The international lockdowns during COVID revealed two glaring truths to me, how essential art is to humanity and how economically precarious the position of the artist is in society. For many of us isolated during lockdown, art provided beauty and sanity, offering solace amid death, disease, and despair. Yet, most of those artists lacked financial safety nets despite being the ones who helped society endure.

In 2019, veteran South African multidisciplinary artist and anti-apartheid cultural icon, Lefifi Tladi was faced with a life and death decision to remain in his beloved South Africa or move back to Sweden after being diagnosed with chronic kidney disease. The reality is his life is now dependent on weekly dialysis treatments until he is lucky enough to get a kidney transplant. It was a no-brainer to move to Sweden where he has citizenship from his time as a political exile in the 1980s.

He is an anomaly an African artist with the right kind of citizenship in the first world to secure him the life-saving medical treatment; something that could have cost him on average $9,000 per year in private healthcare in South Africa. The less spoken about his options in public healthcare. the better.

‘By investing in initiatives that provide artists with the resources and opportunities needed to thrive, philanthropists can help artists reclaim their agency and reignite their meaningful involvement in social justice’

‘Let’s just say, I’d be dead if I stayed in South Africa because I would have needed $36,000 to stay alive by now. I’m lucky that I’m a citizen of another country whose social compact is completely different to that of my birth country. It values its artists and you see it in how I’m afforded dignity here,’ he says via a Zoom conversation between myself in South Africa and him in Sweden.

‘I think that unfortunately philanthropists have not been made aware of the real role of the artist in society, and it’s their duty in fact to support artist-led initiatives because we are the servicemen and women of our people’s sanity. It’s imperative that the sanity-makers of society are added to international funding priorities by people with means because we can’t leave it up to these dishonest and opportunistic governments,’ asserts the elder statesman of letters, sound and pictures.

Artists have played a vital role in society, serving as visionaries, storytellers, and conscience-keepers. As a conscience-keeper during our country’s darkest period, Lefifi Tladi’s work chronicling the human indignity of apartheid saw him and many fellow cultural workers transform into more than just artists. They used their work to add a human face, vocabulary, and soundtrack to a human rights crisis of epic proportions.

How has society regressed to the point where artists living outside the margins of privilege, and social clout and mobility are often overlooked in favour of influencers.

Perhaps understanding the legal framework of being in the creative sector can help us co-innovate solutions and lend compassion for those who then see the rat-race of social media influencer clout as the only lifeline. In South Africa, artists are not recognized as workers in terms of labour law which means that they are systematically denied access to fundamental protections and social benefits.

Working in the creative industries presents a unique challenge due to the ambiguity surrounding the classification of artists as workers. Unlike traditional employment where job specifications, remuneration, and benefits are clearly defined, artists often navigate a complex landscape without standard protections.

My work on the capacity building project, The Artist’s Helpdesk has made it very apparent that we’re losing out on a very important skills set in social justice campaigning: the unbridled passion of artistic expression. Nowadays, campaigns are subcontracted to hashtag machines relying on impersonal analytics and algorithms to inform campaigns that require deep compassion and a real understanding of the vastness of the human condition –  and it shows in the general aloofness of society and fad nature of ‘activism’. It is not by mistake that this is happening.  Our sanity-keepers are struggling to eat and stay alive.

Cause-based organizations often serve as intermediaries between funders and individual artists, often then subcontracting artists to bring their brand of magic and humanity to the cause of the day –  be it human trafficking, gender-based violence or climate change issues. Often, these applicant organizations play a crucial role in managing the administrative and financial aspects of projects, which can be helpful, leaving the artist to be in the business of creative production to address the social ill of the day.

However, these relationships with intermediaries are often unbalanced with artists benefiting very little financially and with the bulk of said budgets going to the applicant organization despite the artist having given the project the soul through their creativity and delivering boast-worthy  impact to the funding body. How can this be addressed?

It is my hope that philanthropists look into supporting capacity-building projects for artists to empower them and ensure they are an integral part of social justice campaigning. By investing in initiatives that provide artists with the resources and opportunities needed to thrive, philanthropists can help artists reclaim their agency and reignite their meaningful involvement in social justice. I have seen firsthand that when artists feel equipped and supported, they are more likely to revert to their default setting of using their unique voices to drive change.

As part of their commitment to supporting vulnerable populations, philanthropists are well-placed to play a role in recognizing creative workers as a vulnerable demographic in society. Similar to their focus on women, youth and other marginalized groups, philanthropists can consider adding basic requirements for applicant organizations to employ or contract full-time artists and creatives as part of their monitoring and evaluation requirements. This approach could help alleviate the vulnerability of creative workers, who often face precarious work conditions, limited access to benefits, and uncertain job security – a depressing reality for those that put blood, sweat and tears to keeping the world sane and beautiful.

Kgauhelo Dube is the founder and chief strategist at The Artist’s Helpdesk, a South Africa-based artist empowerment and capacity-building project.