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Paper short abstract:

This paper examines how UK artists gather momentum towards keeping on being an artist when they are marginalised and exploited. These artists' perseverance reveals "dominated affect": the momentum generated by the changing dynamics between individuals' will and the political domination over it.

Paper long abstract:

While UK-based visual and performing artists' precarious situations are well documented, their perseverance remains less explored. For example, these artists not only reconfigure their ways of being dominated by classism, racism and capitalism but also adapt themselves to this domination. This poses a challenge to the predominant affect theory that sidelines the issue of domination. At the same time, examining this fact will add a dynamic perspective to the body of literature that analyses the symbiotic relationship between affect and domination. Also, while the political consciousness of the dominated is well researched, the affect of the dominated has not been fully studied. In this paper, I will ethnographically examine how UK artists gather momentum towards keeping on being an artist when they are marginalised and exploited. Building on my ethnographic materials, I argue that UK artists' perseverance reveals "dominated affect": the momentum generated by the changing dynamics between individuals' will and the political domination over it. This momentum allows individuals to endure the domination and maintains this domination simultaneously. "Dominated affect" aims to provide an explanation of perseverance that captures the subtle influence of domination on people's will better than terms such as "resilience" and "resistance".