Output details

'We Call This Work', Large ceramic installation commissioned for the Busan Biennale, South Korea, 2012

This artwork was commissioned and funded by the Busan Biennale. It builds on my research into the status of material and making and its relation with immaterial labour and employed a range of research methods including direct work with a group of volunteers based in Busan. These volunteers, who were part of a larger group collectively called the ‘Learning Council’, included local citizens and artists. They worked with me through online and in-person discussion forums following an initial lecture outlining the research themes and objectives.

A key focus of my research is the body’s presence or absence in contemporary workplace processes, particularly those in the service industry where the body appears to be largely absent. I explore notions of labour through my approach to processes and materials, where making methods are critically investigated through research into their historical, social and political status.

Having first explored with local participants the personal physical investment associated with service, I facilitated a workshop where participants remembered and enacted daily activities at their workplace. These movements were transcribed into a rehearsed choreography focusing on the different traces movements would leave on a soft surface.

Korea has a long tradition of ceramics and, following my research into local manufacture and materials, I chose to work with unfired ceramic tiles as a precarious ‘stage’ for this ritualised performance. The soft clay tiles, ‘recorded’ the participants' movements and once fired and glazed milky green, typical of the area, the bruised, distorted and in places cracked tiles revealed that the movements had left more than surface impressions on the clay’s physical properties. The ceramic objects referenced modernist sculptural forms, introducing another aspect to the manufacture, juxtaposed with the apparent dysfunction of the tiles.