Art's unexpected champion: Ireland
There's a country where creators are paid a basic income, "just because". Click for details if you don't believe me.
Hi! 👋
There's a country where creators are paid a basic income, "just because". Scroll down if you don't believe me.
Welcome (back)! 🤗
This is Petra from The Creators' Diary. If this is your first TC’D newsletter, welcome! We’re happy you’ve subscribed!
Share what you think about this issue or the questions you struggle with as a creator by simply replying to this email. A real human (Petra) reads it.
Story of the week 🗞️
Imagine a society where creative work is celebrated and where art is not only respected but the leaders of that society take actual, pragmatic steps to help artists thrive.
As it seems now, that is Ireland in 2025.
The Basic Income for the Arts pilot scheme ran for three years, has finished its course recently, and is now extended for another six months:
"In 2022, Ireland launched an ambitious pilot scheme to provide 2,000 artists and creative workers with a basic income of €325 per week for three years. The project aimed to address the long-standing systemic issues of income instability and precarity that have plagued the sector." /creativesunite.eu/
Artists and creative workers were selected in a randomized, anonymized process and came from various fields such as literature, music, dance, visual arts, and film.
- Creators felt less of that financial uncertainty that otherwise significantly influences their lives.
- Since they didn't have to be so anxious about making ends meet, they had more time for creative pursuits.
- That resulted in greater artist autonomy: "greater ability to plan and navigate their own creative paths".
- Participants reported greater self-efficacy, the feeling of being validated, empowered, and confident to "exert personal agency within their creative profession and their broader social relationships".
They could also improve in their fields, try new career opportunities, invest in upskilling and equipment, and could take better care of their mental and physical health.
Why am I baffled about the Basic Income for the Arts scheme? 👀
All the above results are wonderful, but a tiny corner of my mind is fearful that one needs not only a person in power to get a government committed to such a cause—in this case, Catherine Martin, former Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media—, but some freakin' powerful constellation.
Because, as you can see, nobody is talking about economic gains or the "ROI" or return on investment side of this scheme at all. Nobody is talking about how Ireland's GDPR will get a boost with such a program, and that when artists can truly make a living, people can buy art, and the money can circulate in as many creative fields as possible, and beyond.
I mean, we do know some statistics in general about the power of the creative economy. But the fact that this scheme was proposed, accepted, launched, finished, and is now extended purely because it helped creatives pull out of financial instability and improved their mental health, and not because somebody other than the artists directly made money in the process, is something that leaves me in awe.
Because that is something we refer to as "Yeah, sure, in an ideal world...", so it cannot be real, right?
But it is.
I'm super-duper happy about this program, and I'm 100% excited to see where else it goes in the next six months, and hoping that it will be picked up again in some way or form, but I keep asking myself giddily: Is this real?
With all the hardships of the world, as people struggle to make a living, both artists and those who would purchase from them, but are forced now to take such "luxurious" items off their shopping lists, and don't make me start on the whole AI thing, either; an initative like The Basic Income for the Arts is not just a breath of fresh air, but the oxygen itself that artists desperately need to fill their tanks.
What can I say? I keep my fingers crossed for humans to still have the sense and ability to put and keep good people in power where it matters and, yes, for the stars to align the right way so creators can comfortably make a living...
... Because it will be a universally accepted fact that their profession is simply one of many where one needs to make money, like a hairdresser or a PR manager has to, and in fact, allow me to say this, it will even be accepted that it might be considerably harder to make a living from it at times due to its unique nature.
And of course: well done, Ireland. 🍀
What do you think? Hit reply and let me know. 💬
Creator quote of the week 📌
Bestselling author Sarah Rees Brennan praised Ireland for its many initatives supporting the arts:
See you next week,
Petra
Petra Gönczi
