The 3rd Enemies of Good Art public meeting was held on 16th July 2010, on the mezzanine area of Tate Modern Turbine Hall. The meeting was chaired by writer and critic JJ Charlesworth.

AGENDA

1) Career: most artists are not thinking of having children in their 20s, but in their early 30s, when careers are ’emerging’ and women must consider their ‘biological clock’. Is there ever a ‘good time’ to have a child? What do artists need to get out of this quandary?

2) Childcare: how early is too early for childcare? what kind of care do we want for our children? Should childcare really cost the equivalent of one parent’s salary? And is that a price worth paying just to get back to work?

3) Trust: how do contemporary attitudes about relationships between adults, and between other adults and our children affect how we see the role of other grown-ups in bringing up our children?

4) Community: should artists organise their own spaces for the care of pre-school children? If our new government talks about a ‘big society’, should we think of organising our own provision, or do we continue to rely on the state to provide?

5) Solidarity: does the culture of competitiveness within the artworld work against forms of solidarity between artist-parents? do parents feel they only really have other parents to turn to? How do we alleviate the isolation mothers (mostly) experience in the first years of child-raising.