Projects
RISING, AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, COVA, WEST SPACE and TRADES HALL
EASY RIDERS
Gig workers of the world, unite!
EASY RIDERS is a site-responsive performance exploring work, precarity and the physical body in the digital age. Developed through a unique collaboration between artists and on-demand workers of the platform or ‘gig’ economy, EASY RIDERS considers how Silicon Valley’s technology and platform capitalism shape our bodies, behaviours, perceptions of time and our imaginaries. Inhabiting Trades Hall, EASY RIDERS honours the experiences and physicality of contemporary on-demand workers within the historical ‘beating heart’ of the labour movement and the eight-hour work day in Australia. EASY RIDERS asks: whose time = whose money? How much of our daily lives should be outsourced to others? At our most ‘efficient’, are we Übermenschen or über-assholes? Through movement, voice and collective action between ‘independent contractors’ of the gig economy and artists—come and witness a shift like no other unfold. The future of work is already here.
A digital version of the Easy Riders program is available here.
CREDITS
Eugenia Lim – lead artist
Lara Thoms – co-creator
Mish Grigor – co-creator
Corin Ileto – composer and sound designer
Amrita Hepi – choreographic consultant
Cher Tan – worker–performer and writing consultant
Wasay – worker–performer
Mirza Baig – worker–performer
Jessica Wen – worker–performer
Vivian Nguyen – worker-performer
Katie Sfetkidis – lighting designer and technical manager
Imogen Walsh – set designer
Gemma Baxter – costume designer
Cassandra Fumi – production and stage manager
Rebecca McCauley – graphic designer and program administrator
Alexandra George – producer, film adaptation
Ching Ching Ho – assistant stage manager and interpreter
Olivia McKenna – AV technician and operator
Rachel Lee – lighting associate
Rosie Fisher – producer
Bryony Jackson – photographer
Takeshi Kondo – video documentation
Commissioned by RISING. Supported by Victorian Trades Hall. The work has been made possible by the Restart Investment to Sustain and Expand (RISE) Fund – an Australian Government initiative; the Australia Council for the Arts, its funding and advisory body, The City of Melbourne through its Triennial Grants program 2018-2020, Creative Victoria through its Organisation Investment Program. APHIDS would also like to acknowledge the generous funding and support from partners; RISING Festival, the Centre of Visual Art, The University of Melbourne, the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, West Space, Trades Hall and MPavilion.
3 August
Main image Eugene Hyland / Bryony Jackson
All other images Bryony Jackson