14 Jun 2010

SUPERFLEX at National Sculpture Factory

SUPERFLEX - TODAY WE DON'T USE THE WORD 'RECESSION'

For the Cork Midsummer Festival 2010, Superflex have made a new artwork TODAY WE DON'T USE THE WORD 'RECESSION' that invites citizens of Cork city to participate. Superflex worked with the Lord mayor Cllr. Dara Murphy to bring a proposal to Cork City Council to eliminate the use of the word 'recession' throughout the city for one full day. Out of these negotiations Lord Mayor Cllr. Dara Murphy has written a formal Decree on behalf of the people of Cork advocating that for one day, June 17th 2010, that they should refrain from using the word 'recession'.

Ireland is entering into a new era since the predicable but untimely death of the Celtic Tiger economy, once lauded as the fastest growing economy in the world. This Celtic-Tiger economy driven by loose bank regulation, nonpolicy lead political governance and a reliance on speculative property development led house prices in Ireland to rise by almost 520% between 1994 and 2006. Now the Irish GDP is shrinking faster than in any other advanced economy. The average Irish family has lost up to half its financial assets and unemployment is rising faster than anywhere else in Europe. As an Irish economic commentator was recently quoted as saying , we have moved from the poster child of the globalised free-market to one of the great European basket cases. It is into these extraordinary times that Superflex have developed this project.

SUPERFLEX is a Danish art collective, founded in 1993 whose interventionist practice deals with economic markets, power structures, self-organisation and environmentalism. They understand their artistic practice as a set of tools, or as an invitation to positive action and participation rather than in terms of discrete works of art. Viewers often become co-producers, shifting the focus away from objects to relationships where the artworks that can be redefined and modified by users. More recently Superflex have been working with legal contracts, challenging public and private copyright laws which led to complex legal negotiations. By investigating the function of a contract, Superflex have created new works which are statements and proposals and can be understood as political acts re-defining particular contexts and situations.


DECREE
TODAY WE DON'T USE THE WORD 'RECESSION'

Through the power of positive thought and collective action, Lord Mayor Cllr. Dara Murphy decrees that for one day, to lift ourselves out of the doom and gloom the citizens of Cork should refrain from using the word

'Recession'

The citizens of Cork are invited to join with the Lord Mayor in the collective ambition to help drive Cork out of recession and into recovery from this day forward. To kickstart this recovery the lord mayor requests

On Thursday 17th June, 2010,

that the people of Cork shall in all public utterances, statements and communications, replace the word 'recession' with alternative words or phrases. Citizens are asked to create their own new alternatives, thus contributing to re-imagining the future of the City of Cork.

And so recommend to the people of Cork under the Common Seal of the Lord Mayor.

For further details see : www.superflexcork.wordpress.com