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Tao Wells - image from the website: http://www.enjoy.org.nz/node/682

For Immediate release:  14 October 2010

Unemployed Artist Tao Wells wants to know why New Zealanders make the decision to work more in order to consume more. “Surely,” says Wells, “an advanced society would see us work less, and enjoy the benefits of unemployed time. We need to work less, so we consume less.”

In the latest project from Wellington public art programme Letting Space, The Beneficiary’s Office, which opens on Friday October 15, Tao Wells advocates the opportunities and benefits of official unemployment.

Setting up office in vacant space on Level 3, 50 Manners Street, Wellington the public relations company, Wells Group will argue that the average unemployed person causes less harm to others and the planet than many employed people. “The average carbon footprint of the unemployed person is about half of that of those earning over $100,000,” says Wells.

Over the project’s duration Tao Wells’ company aims to enter into some creative debates with politicians, policy writers and variously employed citizens.

In addition Wells will be presenting as a performance accompaniment, the theatre show Inuit Time with actors and a script but no rehearsals. Inuit Time will run at Fred’s venue in Frederick St on Monday 18th October and Monday 25th (Labour Day) 7pm with a cover charge of $5.

It is no accident, says Wells, that on its debut, National Business Review theatre critic John Smythe called Inuit Time “An insult to the fundamentals of theatre”.

The last Letting Space art project was Kim Paton’s Free Store, in which unwanted or wasted food and grocery items were re-distributed through a retail store in Ghuznee St for two weeks in May. “While that project reconsidered whether free food was waste,” say Letting Space curators Mark Amery and Sophie Jerram, “this project asks questions of how we view free time.

“The Beneficiary’s Office aligns unemployment with unemployed space, and the potential creative uses of both. Current projections are for vacant office space in Wellington to continue to rise and to be a major issue in the city. This is an issue artists have a positive role to play in through their creative ideas.”

Letting Space, supported by Creative New Zealand, seeks to transform the relationship between artists, property developers and their city. It commissions temporary art works from leading New Zealand contemporary artists for commercial CBD spaces. This project is also being supported by property developers The Wellington Company.

For more information about the project and Letting Space please contact Sophie Jerram Ph. 0299349749 or Mark Amery 027 3566 128, or email [email protected].

Tags: Arts