„Por qué motivo íbamos a querer hacer arte de nuestra experiencia. No somos importantes“

Es un comentario que escuchamos de determinadas personas. No habla tan solo de la naturaleza del trabajo y de la vida en comunidad en nuestra sociedad, sino que también apunta a como la gente se percibe así misma y que es lo que la cultura dominante ha hecho para generará esa percepción. Trabajamos con sindicatos y con comunidades como parte de un proceso colectivo más largo que quiere cambiar tales percepciones. Nuestras relaciones de trabajo están basadas en un proceso colaborativo mediado por el movimiento sindical o los grupos de comunidad.

Dada la presente división del trabajo

Given the present social divisions of labour, our work attempts to bridge two audiences. Working people and those in the arts. We feel that it is not only important to articulate the concerns and experience of working and community life, but that it should also be able to stand up to the sophistication of corporate culture and take into account the complexities of cultural representation.

Initially, we developed a staged fictional format in our images to protect people from being identified by management. However, we soon realized that it allows us to push both the content and form much further. More recently, however, we have also developed a process of visual workshops in which community members collaborate in developing the form of the work and act in the final images.

Working with the union movement and communities has other implications. It begins to address the division of labour between wage work and creative work by demystifying the construction of each and pointing to similar social/economic constraints. It also begins to articulate a cultural politic around the democratization of access to cultural resources.