I am a culture worker — artist, curator, advisor, consultant, educator and more – with a >25-year international portfolio. I do extensive pro bono and voluntary work in the area of social justice. This is energy and expertise I actively make time to give. I have a paid, day job as a university academic. What I do take on is over and above my full menu. I do not work for free. Do not ever ask me to ask my minoritised peers, students and/or mentees to work for free either. My workload including my voluntary and pro bono work, which you can read up on here, here and here, with 15+ groups, means that I will reject most pro bono requests between 2024-2025. When I take on work as a freelancer, my professional rates apply, which vary according to a range of factors and contexts. At the minimal, my rates adhere to those set by the UK arts industry. I may work at lower rates, and/or pro bono if you are from a marginalised group /NPO engaged in labour through an intersectional prism that is actively decolonial, anti-racist and anti-white supremacist, and/or I like you/your work. The latter is subjective. Otherwise, the following apply. Read prior to contacting me.
BOOKING
You can book me for a range of one-off, short term and/or longer term engagements. Examples include and are not limited to:
- keynote lecture/ talk
- seminar/workshop/masterclass/CPD
- portfolio review/studio visit
- meeting/consultation/mentoring (any reading, research and/or writing time required — plus additional hours for access and/or support — will be in addition)
- commissions/exhibitions/interventions (rates vary if this is a new or existing work)
- general chat or Q&A (no preparation, no more than 60 minutes)
- panel response (no preparation, 20 minutes)
- ‘coffee’ or exploratory meeting (15 minutes and more)
- and more.
RATES + FINE PRINT
When I work as a freelance practitioner, my rates vary according to a range of factors and contexts (eg my workload, what the (t)ask is, what you/your organisation does/represent). At the minimal, my rates adhere to those set by the UK arts industry.
- Examples of industry rates may include the Artists Information A-N (2022 rates here, and 2016 exhibition guide here). My students and peers will be similarly be paid according to industry rates, and for those starting out, at least above the UK National Living Wage.
- My access is costed, not invisible, or miraculously absorbed.
- My online/offline rates differ. You will also factor in my travel time, travel costs, subsistence, accommodation, as well as preparation, communications to discuss the engagements, and so on.
- Since I over-think as a hyperactive busy-body with a mind running overdrive, and am almost space-blind and will get lost physically as a dyspraxic person, this will not come cheap. You have been warned.
- Late fees apply if payments are not received within one calender month of submission of invoice/claim.
- My rates will sky-rocket, or offered at discount, according to your EDI records (meaning action, not performative mission statements), and/or if you are from a minoritised / marginalised group engaged in labour through an intersectional prism that is actively decolonial, anti-racist and anti-white supremacist. Furthermore, by ‘E’ I am referring to ecstatic equity, not equality.
- Astronomical rates, late fees, the full works apply if your track record is stinkingly unethical, and/or if you clearly deserve/can afford it, and/or you clearly don’t deserve my work. Reduced rates available if you are a genuine ally. Pro bono and I’ll go in deep in and all the way if I love/respect what/how you do.
- Recordings are additional. Explicitly ask for consent for the documentation, retainment, redistribution and so on. Do not assume.
- ‘Exploratory chats‘ are 10-15 minutes, during when we discuss the details and parameters of how we can work together. You will pay for my double expresso with a splash of hot water too. Beyond 15 minutes, my consultancy rates apply.
- Payments will be at/above industry rates (such as UK’s A-N 2022, as someone with >25 years professional experience; and for designers, here is another guide). Cost in contribution required on the day, preparation prior and and following-ups after + access/disability.
- Rates are augmented if turnaround time is reduced.
- Payments not received within one month of date will incur late fees of 8% plus reasonable recovery.
- I do not need ’exposure’ or ‘experience’. Please, don’t play the ‘vocation’ or goodwill card with minoritised people. Publishers, universities and organisations asking for over-work or free work claiming that because ‘no one is making a profit’ and are being exploitative because you are profiting from your product/programme/event. Minoritised groups are often working at a high cost (including health-wise) and are often making losses, in order to sacrifice other activities to contribute to your ‘intellectual’ /’cultural’ ‘exchange’ or ‘community engagement’ or ‘outreach’ (sic). Also stop describing marginalised people as ’emerging’. I look young because I moisturise. Stop infantalising, demonising, criminalising, stigmatising, exoticising people different to you.
- Explicit and formal crediting for my contribution must be included. Pay in a timely fashion, or late payments will incur. Do not become and institution/individual that I blacklist – and there are several, including Russell Group organisations.
- I have written and spoken extensively, such as here and here, about the magic + disparity of power dynamics that can exist when creative and/or neurodivergent people work with members of other species. Also read peer-reviewed article ‘I’m not being paid for this conversation’: Uncovering the challenges of artist–academic collaborations in the neoliberal institution’ (Pfoser and Jong 2019) here, points of which can apply to other situations beyond academia where issues of exploitation, instrumentalisation, objectification, appropriation and more can occur.
CAPITALISING CAPITALISM (IT’S IN MY JEANS/GENES):
My tentacles are everywhere, and they mobilise everything and anything: my body, mind, the bodies and minds of other people, the city, images, moving images, words, concepts, other people’s concepts and more. Newer strands include power and money.
- I do not have a shop, but my earliest posts on my Instagram account here carries a few inventorised items.
- In addition, everything else you can see on this website, and elsewhere, can also be transacted. This includes: drawings, films, art objects (like my #MagicCarpet tapestry + 134 drawings by participants of activities), myself, my views, my thinking, my thinking time, my energy, and my travelling time.
(PRIVATE) EQUITY (DIFFERENT RULES FOR DIFFERENT HERDS):
Your money will go far.
- It will be redistributed to causes I care about. Examples include: Doctors of the World (monthly), Distributed AI Research (DAIR, founded by the exceptional Dr. Timnit Gebru), Royal National Lifeboat Institution (the ‘taxi service for illegal human trafficking gangs‘), White Helmets (Syria), friends’ gender confirmation surgeries, Artists for Palestine, United Nations Relief Work Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), United Palestinian Appeal, West End Refugees Services (Newcastle), Wikipedia, Guardian, Pankhurst Centre, MS Trust, Migrant Journal, Headway East London, peers’ participation in marathons.
- It will also support my voluntary/pro bono work, which you can read up on here, here and here.
- Justifications: I pay tax. Also, prior to getting the Indefinite Leave to Remain in 2020, I have paid the UK Home Office tens and thousands of pounds for ‘premium’ services, ‘special NHS charges’, unwanted flights and stopovers to fit ‘quirky’ [sic] rules, for the whole range of visas (Tier 1 Exceptional Talent [sic], Tier 4 student this, and that, and that, you name it, between 1994-2020 – thank you Theresa May and Priti Patel). While we are at it (I’m on a roll now so don’t stop me), let’s go back further: My father left school at 14 as he couldn’t count + had to hold 3 jobs + the family of five lived in a 1-bedroom flat in prosperous sunny tiger economic miracle island of Singapore + I started to make my own money since I began giving tuition and piano lessons at 17 + gatecrashed into ivory tower and art world of double kissing via three full scholarships from Shell (yes, that Shell) + Singapore government + Japan + University College London.
Top: I think I’ve left my toes at the shop – PhotoShop (Kai Syng Tan 2021, price of digital print, and pink body suit, and Octopussy, on enquiry). Below: Twitter screenshot of Hear Me Out, which is one of the charities I volunteer for. Here, staff, board, artists, clients and friends (including refugees and asylum seekers formerly locked in UK migrant detention centres) learn about anti-racism, anti-oppression and co-creation together, including via Hand-in-Hand, a workshop I created in 2016.