The Fiverr Project 1 -Chapter 1

Beth Barlow Fiverr work in progress created by Refugeek

Kevin, a fellow  actors in the play I've just been in told me about the online site Fiverr. It is a place where you can buy specific skills, (mainly creative) online for $5 a piece. You commission a person to do a specific task like write the words "Bum Head" in bubble writing or work a sketch up into a different format.

My first reaction, which is probably a conditioned response, was to ask why people would do these things for $5, was it exploiting them?

We chatted about the different values of $5 in different countries and what it might buy in India compared to here. Also the fact that people use it as a way to get further more lucrative work.

I was intrigued. I wanted to explore the process for a few reasons. Firstly I'm really interested in global trade compared to local. Its a dilemma I wrestle with. On one hand I believe that supporting little business just down the road feeds back into the local economy and makes it stronger. On the other I try to support fair trade and give to charities oversees.  I still haven't decided if its better to trade globally or go back to a more community based way of getting the things we need.

The second reason was to understand how this kind of site can create or destroy every day connections. When I was in school I was part of a scheme where you got a pen pal from another country. For a few letters it was very exciting to be talking to somebody sitting under a different piece of sky. We were living then in a world which was a lot more insular. The internet was still a thing of the future and all our knowledge of the wider world came from TV, books or magazines.  We probably spent more time talking to and doing things with a close set of friends. We bought things we needed from the local shops or went into town on a shopping spree. Sites like Fiverr open up our world and possibilities and I was interested to see what effect that might have on our interactions.

So a few kind creative folks have agreed to take the $50 I gave them, abide by a short set of rules and set off on a brief journey. The artists brief was to choose a shelved idea and try and get it done using Fiverr. The deadline is short. The finished work will be displayed as part of the "Connections"  Liverpool Internationals exhibition at Artwork, Northwich. The exhibition will include artists thoughts along the way, examples of what they managed to procure and my musings after completing Chapter 1 of the project. There may well be a Chapter 2 where we try to apply the online systems to a real life scenario to see what happens. If you want to be kept up to date on how you could get involved in Chapter 2 e mail me at bethbarlow@bethbarlow.com

Credits: Contributing artists, Simon Kennedy, Carys Anne Hughes, Beth Barlow.
Fiverr Artists: Names to follow
You can look at and download the rules and artists pro forma we are using here 


Fiver Chapter 1 at home in Artwork, Northwich in 2014