The Rise of the Amateur

I gave this talk on Monday at the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts in Brisbane as part of the Low-Fi Forum, organised by Arts Queensland. “Amateur” is an interesting word. It usually carries a derogatory sense, meaning unskilled, ignorant or second-rate. And it’s a word with economic baggage – an “amateur” is unpaid, whereas the “professional”, the term used as a distinction, is paid.