Words and music are projected onto the shell of a cinema complex, a hospitality experiment and a remodeled industrial zone.
A local arts festival hosts an audience. Participation is sought.
Perform.
Observe.
Sing. Sit it out.
Site 1. Lentil As Anything - A ‘pay-as-you-feel’ restaurant employing and training recently arrived asylum seekers and marginalized unemployed.
Site 2. Cotton Mills Precinct - Comprising of manufacturing factories and warehouses renovated for ‘creative-class’ style commercial and residential spaces.
Site 3. Sunshine Marketplace - An entertainment and shopping center situated at the old Sunshine Harvester agricultural complex, the site of Australia’s first legal case towards establishing the minimum wage.
A song menu offers selections from artists like Cindy Lauper rallying ‘when the working day is done’ to a band calling itself ‘Men At Work’.
Labour consists of a series of public karaoke events featuring as part of Big West Festival, a community based contemporary arts festival serving Melbourne’s west. In November 2013 three evenings across three locations offered guests and onlookers the opportunity to perform songs relating to work.
The project was funded through Arts Victoria.
Photography by Catherine Evans.