Poor Artists

At a moment in which working as a professional artist is an unattainable luxury, The White Pube explore why so many artists try anyway, in spite of the capitalist system that has turned art into artworks, art schools into art universities, the art world into the creative industry, and creative expression into cut-throat competition, Poor Artists follows the fictional aspiring artist Quest Talukdar as she navigates the promises and pitfalls of the creative industry, where she must decide whether she cares more about success or staying true to herself.

Featuring dialogue from anonymised interviews with real people who have all had to ask themselves the same question – including a Turner Prize winner or two, a recluse, a Venice Biennale fraudster, a communist messiah, a ghost and a knight – The White Pube use imaginative scenes to convey the vertiginous reality of being an artist like never before.