Art & Labour Project
Your Mother Gallery

“Time as currency; Labour as art. Together everyone is an artist, and the work belongs to everybody”-The Artists Company. We asked the questions “Can artworks can be co-owned? Do we need to stamp all over it with our names? Who decides when the work is completed?” This is a participatory art project where artworks were made through a series of discussions and collaborative art-making sessions within the studio-gallery over 4 weekends. Cement was used as symbolic material in this show as it suggests labour and the idea of accumulative work. As the works developed over time, we gradually incorporated other materials and began to create works that spoke more of the community than ourselves (organising artists). All works were then exhibited in the form of digital prints and the contributors were all presented as artists for the show. Their artistic efforts were recorded on timestamps using a punch clock as they became conscious of the time, effort and intangible value of their involvement, as they clocked in and out and worked with their fellow artists. The show ended with an unusual auction performance by artist Jeremy Hiah. The amount of money acquired through the auction was then split amongst all the participants of the show, according to the hours they recorded on the timestamps. Below shows works by 120 artists made within 714.6 hours.