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.
Kay Abude
Production Line (Mumbai)
2013
Installation and performance: bamboo, rope, sand bags, hessian sacks, fluorescent lights, tables, plastic chairs, plywood, clamps, timber, paint, MDF, cardboard, foil containers, Indian marble, ceramic tiles, textiles, pen markers, scissors, thread
6.3 x 1.5 x 2.7 metres
This project was developed for Powerplay, 2014 [en]counters in collaboration with Satellite Art Projects curated by Simon Maidment, and presented by ArtOxygen and Asia Art Projects in Mumbai, India, 11 – 20 January 2013.
Production Line (Mumbai), 2013 was presented in Mumbai for the fourth edition of [en]counters curated by Simon Maidment, Satellite Art Projects, Melbourne in collaboration with ArtOxygen and Asia Art Projects. The performance and installation was a restaging of an earlier work of the same name created by Abude in 2010. Four people dressed in uniforms worked on the production line ‘making money’ by cutting fabric the size of the 100 rupee bank note in a sequence of repetitive actions. Various types of fabric ranging from jute to silk were used to make currency and members of the public were encouraged to participate and become part of the labour process. All the materials used to construct the work were sourced from the city. The use of fabric in the installation and its chosen site along the sea front on the Carter Road Promenade referenced two historical economies of Mumbai – the textile and fishing industries.