The city runneth over - with redundancy

The city runneth over - with redundancy

For immediate release February 14th 2011

"There continues to be the assumption that the only way work can be visible or valuable is if you treat it as if it were a market commodity or a market service and you attribute a value to it." Marilyn Waring

Redundant civil servants, artists and those simply between jobs are being invited by public art programme Letting Space to attend gatherings over the next two Wednesday evenings in Wellington to help create a work to be performed in the streets of Wellington during the upcoming New Zealand International Festival of the Arts.

Productive Bodies Information Evenings and workshops
6pm, Wednesday 22 and 29 February
Toi Poneke Arts Hub, 61-69 Abel Smith Street, Wellington

Productive Bodies is a work by choreographer and performance artist Mark Harvey. Rather than work with trained dancers, Harvey has made a call out for participants who have had ‘experience with redundancy or unemployment', something he notes artists generally have no lack of experience of.

Everyone is welcome to participate, says Harvey, and “we are particularly interested in working with people who have been laid off from the Government sector, or people who work in the arts, and people who feel vulnerable in their employment in the current economic and political climate.” Thousands of public servants have lost their jobs in the last 3 years, especially in Wellington.

The work will be fun and physical and take place in the streets of Wellington from March 12-16th. An information evening for interested bodies is held on Feb 22nd and 29th at Toi Poneke, Abel Smith St Wellington.

In association with Productive Bodies, Mark Harvey will take part in a panel discussion alongside Professor of Public Policy and economist Marilyn Waring, and Morgan Foundation Economist, Susan Guthrie, at the NZ Festival tent, on March 14th at 1pm.

People willing to participate in the performance over a week 12-16 March should contact Elyse at productivebodies@gmail.com
Productive Bodies is being produced in association with City Gallery and The Active City sculpture programme with received funding from Creative NZ and Wellington City Council

ENDS

Mark Harvey is a lecturer in Creative Arts and Industries at The University of Auckland but like most artists has been on the unemployment benefit for periods of his life. He has worked extensively in New Zealand and internationally creating performance projects that test the boundary between dance and performance art. Harvey’s performance practices are conceptually driven and test out notions of endurance with constructions of idiocy, seriousness and deadpan humour, and draw from his visual arts and contemporary dance influences (he trained in contemporary dance).

LETTING SPACE seeks to transform the relationship between artists, the public and their environments to enable social change. Over 2010 and 2011 we worked with artists to create a major series of projects in vacant commercial sites in Wellington and Auckland, and a series of fora brokering relationships between artists and property owners, with funding support from Creative New Zealand, Wellington City Council and Auckland Arts Festival.