9th May- Mockup project proposal for continued HM non-consensual collaboration

9th May- Mockup Project proposal for continued HM non-consensual collaboration

Mockup Project Proposal

‘Each to their own’ Exhibition work (continued)

Name: Laura Potts

Project title: Airing the dirty Sheets

Is this the information you need?

Concepts/Aims: Due to my current work with government documents, I have been making strides in the direction of how these can be brought back into the public and domestic domain. Currently, these documents are readily available online as PDF format. However, many do not know they are there. Further, the documents have restrictions of who can download them as well as who can print them. The copyrite is tight yet the online view is unrestricted. I have been working with these documents in a number of ways, recently having them digitally printed onto material. I am specifically interested in bringing them into a very direct public domain to make commentary on their presence as well as their content. The overt economic and neoliberal commentary that runs throughout, specifically in regard to environmental documents, is shocking. Therefore, the aim of this work would to show people this information and encourage interaction. These documents might answer the questions so many ask on a daily basis. This work would be labelled a non-consensual collaboration with HM government. Reflecting the decisions and actions being taken on behalf of the general public that we also do not approve of, as they would not approve of this use of government documentation.

Process: This project would involve a single or multiple government documents being printed on a large scale and hung on a public ‘washing line’. Some still folded on the ground. The pages scaled up for the view to clearly read each page. Audience participation is encouraged as the viewer interacts with the sheets to hang them up, move them or sue them as blankets on the ground.

Possible sites: Public park/gardens, City centre/housing estates, Grounds of a gallery/Project space, Public library

Funding requirements: Each sheet (page) would cost approximately £30 to produce (digitally printed on sustainably sourced cotton twill(alternative fair trade material could be used if cheaper) Depending on amount of pages of document would depend on final cost, e.g 22 page document= £660 to produce. Public area would mean that funding for space was not applicable.

Ethical consideration: Reproduction of these documents via a non approved printing accency is not permitted by the government.

Supporting material: (Past work) Originally displayed at Firstsite Colchester

Step; your future

Step; walk. Over your future, your next identity.

The government’s actions and decisions impose on all of our identities. On your individual and our collective identity, as a country and a species. This work shows the Natural Capital committee’s Advice to Government on the 25 year environmental plan. This document outlines what the plan ‘should’ achieve. The overt economic commentary that runs throughout the document fails to stress the urgent nature of our current situation. It stresses that action should be taken soon or there will be detrimental consequences. 25 years is too long and the focus on ‘natural capital’ chains Mother Nature up as another thing to be commodified, utilised and sold. This series of work aims to highlight the irony in government documentation and the vested interest that runs throughout. The positing of the work, aims to embody the compliance in so many; to the system and the dying drive for action. However, there is still hope, in education and creative action.

Domestication of document (2018)