This is a scene from “Beat” Takeshi’s ultimate B-class gag flick “Getting Any?”

The protagonist gets mistaken for a Yakuza, and is forced to assassin the enemy boss.  He finds a salaryman about to commit suicide, and asks him to deliver a cake with a hidden bomb for the enemy boss.  Not knowing the cake has a bomb, the salaryman pretends to deliver the cake and brings it back to his house.  In his house awaits his poor family, who gets excited and starts dancing around the cake.  And then the bomb goes off.

Between the Recession and the Creatives

The up-and-coming controversial creators are the hardest hit amongst the creative industry during  the recession.  While more established artists also experience difficulty during hard times, it is probably not as bad as the live-or-die survival of the up-and-coming.  Even in the architecture world, there aren’t that many jobs even for graduates.  Various offices are laying off people to keep in business. The most common are the foreign staffs who are unsure about their visas.  They are the first to go since their future reliability is unsure.

Naturally, many undergrad students resort to staying in school by continuing onto grad programs.  I think its a crap reason.  Graduate schools costs money anyways, and interests stack up from loans. And I think it’s too wishy-washy to think that this recession would be over in one or two years, although Obama will assume presidency in January. After two years, its only interest and loan that has stacked up.

Damien Hurst held his auction in September bypassing his agent and enjoyed record sales.  But in mere three months later, he is unable to sell his work for even half the estimated cost showing the effects of the recession hitting the creative class inevitably.  Thinking on a bigger scale, recessions are inevitable due to the fluctuating ups and downs of the economic cycle.  Even if evaded this round, recession is a sure thing to strike again sometime in the future. If that’s the case, isn’t the only way to try and tame the recession?

Opportunities during the Recession

During recessions, companies distill their employees and projects down to the bare essential.  Excessive fat is shed off; in which case, the products designed, the buildings built, are also distilled down to the core necessities.  Although harsh and dangerous, isn’t this some kind of a good opportunity? Even if one fails, today’s economy enables people to survive doing non-design, menial labor.  Surviving this kind of a extreme situation can result in hefty gains later.

You can’t run from recession. If you think you can get a free cake by staying out of it somehow, it might end up exploding in your face.