The Survival Compromise
The Survival Compromise is a project exploring the challenges faced by queer and female creatives—artists, musicians, writers—in a capitalist society marked by wealth disparity and systemic exploitation. As billionaires thrive, the rights and creative expressions of non-binary, transgender individuals, and women become increasingly vulnerable. This work highlights how these queer and female creatives cultivate resilience while grappling with the persistent threats to their bodily autonomy and the economic instability wrought by capitalism.
About
The project includes several components: a video, an interactive sculpture, a collaboration with Brooke Erin Goldstein to develop Anti-Capitalist educational materials, and a partnership with The Womxn Project for public engagement.
The Video
Videography by Anabel Vázquez Rodríguez
This is a segment of the longer (15-minute) video.
This video is part of a multimedia project in which J.R. Uretsky interviewed queer and female creatives about the compromises they’ve made to survive in a capitalist system. During the video, Uretsky performs audio excerpts from the interviews while wearing a puppet, which helps convey the vulnerability and resilience of the interviewees. The video features a style reminiscent of anonymous interviews, with subjects backlit and silhouetted. This approach enhances the abstract quality of the sculpture and intensifies the rawness of the shared experiences. The heightened anonymity underscores the risks of challenging capitalism.
The Puppet
This puppet is crafted primarily from tulle and draws its essence from the stories and experiences shared during in-depth interviews with queer and female creatives. Building on the visual language of anonymous interviews, its design is inspired by a silhouette—an abstract interpretation of the human form.
The Installation
Another project component is an interactive installation that prompts viewers to voice their compromises under capitalism while standing behind the mask from the video. Once in position, they will be prompted to speak into the mask about their own compromises within the capitalist framework. The sculpture features a voice-changing device and speaker that projects and modifies their voice. The sculpture resembles the anonymous interview set from the video and is intended to be displayed alongside it.
Collaborators
Partnering with The Womxn Project Education Fund allows J.R. Uretsky to expand their work from personal explorations to broader social change. Uretsky and the Womxn Project Education Fund, along with Brooke Erin Goldstein, facilitate educational programs and public installations that activate public spaces with stories of perseverance, highlighting how women and queer artists navigate, subvert, and survive under capitalism.
Brooke Erin Goldstein
Uretsky and local artist-curator Brooke Erin Goldstein create an interactive element for “The Survival Compromise,” inspired by Goldstein’s curriculum, “Anti-Capitalist Personal Finance for Artists.” Together, they design an educational take-away for viewers.
The Womxn Project Education Fund
The Womxn Project Education Fund works through 3 different pillars of activism to protect those whose reproductive rights are in danger, LGBTQIA+ discrimination, and those who may not be able to receive the care they desire due to governmental constraints. They build change through civic engagement, artivism, and state and local policy change, using both introverted and extroverted activism.
Supporters
This project was made possible in part through support from the Interlace Grant Fund, a regranting partner of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
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@interlacefund @dirtpalace @weddingcakehouse_residencies @warholfoundation
This activity is made possible in part by a grant from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, through an appropriation by the Rhode Island General Assembly and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.