Kay Abude is an artist based in Melbourne, Australia. She has an expanded sculptural practice working in large-scale installation, photography, performance, video and silk screen printing. Abude’s work is about work itself: the value of it, the effort, the inequality and insecurity of it, especially for artists. Her recent commissions include BE CREATIVE REMAIN RESILIENT, Mural Commission, The Showroom, London, United Kingdom, 2023-24; Smoko Room, Paul Selzer Prize, Fiona and Sidney Myer Gallery, Southbank, 2023; (DON’T) BE AN ARTIST, Flash Forward – Creative Laneways Project, The Hotel Windsor, Melbourne, 2021; NEVER WORK/ STOP WORKING, NGV Triennial EXTRA, NGV International, Melbourne, 2021; and WORK WORTH DOING, La Trobe Art Institute, Bendigo, Victoria, 2020-21. Abude was a studio artist at Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne from 2019 to 2022.
Production Line
Kay Abude
2010
Installation and performance
Exhibited as part of the 2010 Masters Exhibition at the Victorian College of the Arts and Music, The University of Melbourne
This artwork formed part of Kay Abude’s Masters project and was a nostalgic representation of work as life.
Production Line simulated a set of factory conditions for a performative installation brought into existence in the most basic of structures. A mechanised work process was employed for the manufacture of blank currency cut from white A4 paper the size of the Australian one-hundred dollar note. A sequence of processes were established consisting of four simple tasks that were performed by Kay Abude at each of the four station points along the line. The installation revealed the labour in art practice and exhibited the labour time through a labour process as the artwork itself. Abude was a uniformed worker who sat on a chair operating on a dolly track, continuously rolling right to left, trapped in an endless line of production and slowly amassed a worthless fortune of blank currency. Production Line presented a veneer of control and imparted feelings of order, precision and efficiency for an earnestly absurd activity that was humorously futile.
 |  |  |  |
|---|