Threatened MFAT Staff to Receive a Helping Hand from Artists

Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade staff and other civil servants threatened by job losses are to receive a symbolic ‘helping hand’ by a performance art project next week in the streets of Wellington.

Productive Bodies is presented by Letting Space, which in 2010 curated the controversial Benenficiary’s Office by Tao Wells. In 2012, performance artist Mark Harvey's work Productive Bodies involves a group of unemployed, redundant civil servants and artists creating performances in the streets of Wellington between 1pm and 3pm this coming Monday to Friday. They will workshop their movements and plan the locations of their works each morning at City Gallery Wellington within the sculpture exhibition The Obstinate Object. Locations for the work will include the foyer of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and other government departments as well as other public spaces in the central business district.

"The work explores what it means to be productive in our society and how we value those not in full time salaried work," says artist Mark Harvey. "It does so by creating group movement with an absurd edge that aims to provide a form of public, civil service in the city. This service could be anything from shaking hands to assisting government employees move through their foyers from the lifts to the door.”

Mark Amery of Letting Space adds “The work also seeks to explore the access to the public ‘commons’. We see it as a form of social sculpture, involving real bodies rather than bronze."

Marilyn Waring and Susan Guthrie: economists’ view in panel discussion
The artwork forms part of the New Zealand International Festival of the Arts sculpture series The Active Eye. As part of the week's performances, a panel discussion will be held at the Festival Club at, 1pm 14 March with Mark Harvey. Being Productive features leading academic and former MP Marilyn Waring and Susan Guthrie, an economist with the Morgan Foundation. The free talk will consider what it means to be productive and contribute economically to society.
see http://festival.co.nz/visual-arts/art-talks-being-productive/

Tao returns
On the closing day of Productive Bodies, Tao Wells will perform a response to the work:
18 March Friday at 5pm at Enjoy Gallery in Cuba Street.

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