Introduction: There are plenty of studies highlighting the consequences of gig-work, for instance among self employed taxi-drivers and food-couriers, competing to find an income on digital platforms. However, we lack studies on gig-workers in cultural industries, doing gigs requiring qualifications and several years at university. As they constitute a group of gig-workers that conceptualize their labor as something more than simply a means to provide them with an income, emphasis often lay on their individual ability to deliver high quality. Still, they must be fit to navigate fragile careers, characterized by insecure job opportunities, fluctuating incomes and masses of unpaid work that do not offer enough sickness benefits or pensions. While struggling to meet demands on their ability to deliver more than just paid work, this puts them in a vulnerable position, threatening conditions for a sustainable work life.

Purpose: This study set out to investigate this group of gig-workers in cultural industries, guided by a strong individualistic understanding of work, where each one’s capability is set to explain achievements and failures. The study addresses recent policy initiatives that point to cooperative initiatives as measures enabling gig-worker to address the downsides of a highly individualized and competitive labor-market of gigs. In focus is how gig-workers in the domain of cultural industries initiate cooperative measures to domesticate this type of uncertain labor market and enhance sustainability, when they still are bound to compete to get the gigs they need to earn their income.

Methods: The empirical material in this study comprise semi-structured interviews. Policy documents of relevance have also been collected.

Results: Findings in the study shows how freelancing artists organize to address this type of highly insecure work condition. The analysis engages with how they do to set up ensembles, projects, or groups, constituting‘ communities’ that facilitate social support and collaboration they believe would make it easier for them to tackle insecurity at work. In this investigation of dispersed freelancers that set up cooperatives to gain the support from each other the analysis identifies different types of strategies, conceptualized as ways to domesticate the flipsides of a rather self-realizing, meritocratic, and individualistic work life.

Conclusion: While findings in the study suggest that these cooperatives facilitate work, the results imply that the gig-workers must continue to endure a vulnerable position on the labor market.