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Dear Crumb Listers You might be interested in looking at the UK Govt positions on unpaid internships below and a student-led national campaign INTERN AWARE. One of my curating students is closely involved in INTERN AWARE the national campaign for fair, paid internships. They believe that unpaid internships are exploitative and unfair and by asking people to work without pay, employers exclude those who cannot afford to work for free. They campaign against unpaid internships and make the case that asking people to work for free has corrosive effects on social mobility. There are also laws in place that protect interns and these are laid out in Gov.UK site and make interesting reading: Employment rights and pay for interns - GOV.UK https://www.gov.uk/employment-rights-for-interns I should add that Kingston University will not allow ads for unpaid or cost neutral internships and this policy has my support. Catherine Professor Catherine McDermott NTF MA Curating Contemporary Design Kingston University London ________________________________________ From: Curating digital art - www.crumbweb.org <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Andreas Broeckmann <[log in to unmask]> Sent: 27 August 2015 12:29 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [NEW-MEDIA-CURATING] Two internship opportunities - internship ethics / and ISEA fees hey julia, good morning! i understand your argument; can i ask two things which seem to follow on from your reasoning; i ask this without cynicism, really just trying to understand your thinking: - how/how much does your organisation pay interns? (or what would you say how much interns should be paid, ethically?) - because of the discrimination and social imbalance that unpaid internships create, would you say that, if they cannot be paid, then they should not be offered/advertised at all? and, in order to put a brake on the advantages of those who are wealthy anyway, do you think that even when potential interns offer to do the internship for free, they should not be allowed this? i think that one issue that has not been discussed in the thread is in how far internships are "work"; in my experience, in many cases, they are: the moment that the organisation begins to depend on this being done - whatever the intern does -, rather than just observe and practice, it is work; however, i have also been in situations where the effort of guiding the intern was equivalent to the benefit of the work they were doing, so in that case there was a quid-pro-quo... regards, -a Am 27.08.15 um 13:00 schrieb Julia Pelta Feldman: > Andreas, I certainly agree that unpaid internships can be valuable > experiences - indeed, they seem to have become a necessary step for entry > into the art world, making them *in*valuable. > > The problem is that this experience is only available to those who can > afford to work for free - as you yourself point out. And since it is > difficult to get serious paid work without unpaid internships on one's > resume, this system tends to create a class of art workers who are (to a > greater or lesser extent) independently wealthy. This is not only terribly > unfair, but also conducive to a kind of homogeneity that has negative > consequences for the whole system. (Don't we want to encourage a variety of > backgrounds and perspectives?) > > Simply put, when internships are not paid, then the hiring criterion is no > longer about merit but about money. That is why they are unethical. > > Best, J. > >