Lauren Wetmore <████████████████████████████████ >
To: Verso books editor < ████████████████████████████ >
Cc: Josh Schwebel <privatejosh@gmail.com>
Dear
I'm writing with great admiration for your work, to propose a co-publication and/or distribution collaboration with Verso Books on the upcoming publication of The Employee, which includes unpublished essays by Marina Vishmidt, Dana Kopel and other writers I believe are of interest to your audience. I have included a full blurb for the book below.
To place practicalities up front, the production of The Employee is fully financed through grants and all the content is in place: essays are edited, images rights are secured, and we are currently in the design phase. We are confirmed for publication with Art Metropole, who are open to co-publication/distribution, in early 2025. We would be thrilled to collaborate with Verso Books to reach a wider audience and are open to any way of working that might suit your editorial and publishing process.
The Employee is a publication of critical texts and first-person testimonials by artists and cultural workers reflecting infrastructures of public funding as they relate to non-profit cultural economies. Contributor Dana Kopel describes the project as "a lens into the crumbling infrastructure of the regional gallery system and labour in the arts more broadly; it prompts consideration of the often-detrimental ways that contemporary art production relies on both corporate and corporatizing state funding models that exist primarily to serve the expansion and entrenchment of capital. In doing so, the work implicitly also poses the question: What can we, as art workers, do about it?”
The Employee is edited by myself and Joshua Schwebel and includes contributions by Mariane Bourcheix-Laporte, Teresa Carlesimo, Bopha Chhay, Dana Kopel, Michelle Lacombe, Denise Ryner, Camille-Zoé Valcourt-Synnott and Marina Vishmidt. It is designed by House9 Design.
I've attached a pitch deck so that you can get an idea of the design and content. You can also listen to an interview between myself and my co-editor Joshua Schwebel recently featured on Momus: The Podcast.
It would be an honor to work with you Sebastian. I look forward to hearing your thoughts. Feel free to write me here or to call me at 0032 489 42 9679 (I'm based in Brussels).
With all my enthusiasm and very best wishes,
Lauren Wetmore