1st May Friday 2-4pm
They Are Here: May Day Reading Group
I’ll Bring You Flowers
“Everyone needs to eat and occasionally present flowers. For both you need money. I don’t have money because I don’t have a job. Help me find a job and you’ll be presented flowers.”
The preceding quote is a translation from a classified advert in the Russian language newspaper Angliya which is printed in England.
Charmed by the poetry of the ad, collective practice They Are Here have since met its author, Dainis, and his wife, Iveta, a Latvian couple currently based in East London. In committing to searching for work on their behalf, They Are Here have instigated a micro-narrative that opens a discourse concerning work-driven migration within the EU, the role of language in relation to access to public resources and the politics of acts of generosity and philanthropy, especially in relation to how these acts are communicated, documented or publicly shared.
http://www.theyarehere.net/project/ill-bring-you-flowers-2012---ongoing/
This event will take place symbolically on May Day. Over the coming month leading up to 1 May, we will be reading excerpts from a series of selected texts that will form the basis for discussion on the day and on-going reflection around the project.
Texts:
Judy Wajcman, Pressed for Time: The Acceleration of Life in Digital Capitalism
Herman Melville, Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street (1853)
Contact: Lily Hall
lily.hall@network.rca.ac.uk
theyarehere@live.co.uk