La parola ai corpi

CALL FOR ARTISTS 2025 – WE DON’T DREAM OF LABOUR

 14th – 20th October 2025, Fabbrica del Vapore, Milano

Applications by Friday 4th July 2025 (16:00 pm CET)  >>  Download the pdf version and apply

«They say it is love. We say it is unwaged work.»

(Silvia Federici, Wages Against Housework, 1974) 

What gets shows made? Who can afford failure? Is artistic creation really that much different from other forms of physical labour?

The myth of “unconditional freedom” still informs many circus narratives across Europe. Contemporary circus is often told as a field of equal opportunity where people spontaneously engage with passion in a dream. In this myth, we are all one big family, friends from all walks of life having fun and pursuing a vocation. While circus can be fulfilling, what is often left out of the conversation are the material realities that allow it to happen as a primary career, like socioeconomic class, generational wealth, ability to engage in time-consuming unpaid labour and to financially cushion sometimes long periods without an income. We often fail to name, acknowledge and engage with the complexities of labour, and the power dynamics of funding and employment.

This romanticisation idealises sacrifice and turns invisible labour into value. Many professionals  find their artistic urgencies disconnected from their artistic practices, often experiencing a lot of solitude. More and more cultural workers struggle to make a living, and start to normalise burnout, and mental and emotional distress that are not – should not – be that common. 

This struggle, which is unfair for all, impacts people differently, and bears more on those who can’t say no to unpaid, poorly paid, and excessive labour, which reinforces the normalisation of exploitation and individual competition in the field. Failure, which in some artistic contexts can truly be a step for progress, for some people means the end of a career, or the irreparable loss of personal or family capital.  Italian journalist Alessandro Sahebi writes that «among all inequalities, class inequality is the least mentioned because it is the most widespread and pervasive.» (Questione di Classe, 2025, transl.). But the other way round can also be true: class inequality is the most widespread and pervasive because it is the least mentioned.

This edition of the research project LA PAROLA AI CORPI 2025 wants to investigate the themes of labour and class in the circus field. How does ‘class’ play out in our circus experiences and shape the way we consider, value and sell our work? What happens to circus when we understand it as labour in the age of late capitalism?

Starting from analysing how circus as a field operates in different countries, learning from frameworks and history of labour unions and worker rights’ movements, WE DON’T DREAM OF LABOUR | LA PAROLA AI CORPI 2025 shapes a collective thinking space that brings attention to the axis of class discourse in the circus, in its intersection with other forms of privileges.

How do we keep creating without sacrificing people on the way?