EIGHT TO FIVE, 2015
Performance, City Intervention, Montreal, QC, Canada, 2015
In summer 2015 I executed a number of city interventions in the commercial districts of Montreal (Old port, Square Victoria, Place d’Armes). Inspired by my experience of working full time at the office of a large corporation, the performance engages with regular office workers during their lunch hour on a busy week-day afternoon. In the project I dressed in a professional office outfit (white shirt and black skirt) walked around the city with a sign and a paper cup asking the office workers and passersby to spare some change. The signs I carried with me were inspired by (but not identical to) anti-capitalist slogans of French revolution of 1968 that emphasised the importance of freedom in everyday life (“I gave up my eight to five job to live for pleasure, not pain. Abolish alienating work.”) The money I collected during the performance was later given to homeless on the streets of Montreal. ( Photo: Svetla Atanasova)