CREATIVE TIME: Ellen Chmakov

On October 12, the Arts Research Center at UC Berkeley and the Curatorial Practice at the California College of the Arts are partnering to host a live-streaming of the Creative Time Summit, an annual conference in New York that brings together cultural producers--including artists, critics, writers, and curators--to discuss how their work engages pressing issues affecting our world. To jump-start the conversation in advance of the event, attendees have been asked to submit a paragraph on a keyword associated with one of the summit themes: Inequities, Occupations, Making, or Tactics. This posting is by Ellen Chmakov, American Cyberculture student at UC Berkeley.

Keyword: Occupations

When it comes to Occupation topic there are many questions come to my mind. How one becomes interested in what one does throughout one’s life? Why one chooses a particular occupation in one’s life? Does occupation driven by one’s personality? Was a person “forced” to take a particular occupation due to helping his/her family financially (or with daily tasks) or he/she just expresses what he/she enjoys and good at?  Before attempt to answer these questions, it’s right to notice that occupations and professions are very similar in nature, yet slightly different.

One difference when a person has a profession he/she is getting paid and when a person has occupation(s) than there is most likely there is no monetary exchange is involved. For instance, a person loves to cook but his/her profession, which has nothing to do with cooking, is an engineer. In my opinion, occupation is something that a person enjoys to spend his/her time to express their inner feelings, something a person good at.

On the hand, most of occupations can state many characteristics about one’s personality. If he/she likes gardening, classic music – a calm, balanced person; if someone likes intense music, drives loud motorcycle – then a person may be hard to get along with. However, when a person tries to “divide” people by their occupation(s) it may become misleading because one’s personality can be predicted but it is not 100% proof, since not all occupations have the same indication to decode each personality.