Issue 24: Dispassions: Class Struggle in Arts & Culture

Aug. 1, 2025

This issue of Notes from Below is on worker organising in arts and culture. Whether we call it the ‘creative economy’ or the ‘culture industry’, a vast array of jobs underpin today’s systems of cultural production.

In this issue, workers in Britain, France and Canada reflect on the current state of organising in the crisis-wracked sector. In struggling against the threat of redundancies and cost-cutting, and fighting in solidarity with Palestine in their workplaces, we see that new forms of organising are emerging to combat the inertia of old structures.

We hear about work and organising in theatres, galleries, museums and game design studios, and learn about how mass campaigns are being orchestrated across disparate ‘creative’ jobs to build a collective sense of power.