This will be my new officey home for the next couple of months. I figured that the next phase of my Environmental Audit might benefit if I could be a bit more ’embedded’ in the MCA itself. Two days ago I made this suggestion to Glenn the curator, who put Isabel onto the job, and presto, here I am, with my own Dilbert-style cubicle. I think of it as my ‘artist in residence within the office’. (A great precedent for this sort of thing is the 1960s-70s Artist Placement Group).
Everyone has been very accomodating and welcoming so far. Margaret from the Library popped over to say hello and offer her help with anything I need. I had a great chat with Gaby and with Krista from the marketing department, who are interested in cross-over publicity action with my project. And everywhere I go in the halls, there are little jokes and jollities – Seb, for example, keeps loudly accusing his fellow staff of incinerating tonnes of shredded photocopy paper out in the carpark (in spite of the fact that I’m ill-equipped to “bust” anybody for their un-ecological ways)
Here’s Pete down in the gallery, deconstructing a wall, “Reclaiming”, as he says, “every last screw”. (What about those bent ones, Pete?)
Jokes aside, it does seem like there’s “something in the air”. The fact that I’m here on site working on the project seems to have shifted the “office atmosphere” (I do believe there is such a thing).
I’m hoping that inhabiting the office will be a less formal way to get under the skin of the organisation. Chance meetings in the kitchen, waiting for the lift (many hours are passed in this endeavour) and en route to the photocopy machine: if you’re working in the office, here on Level 5, by all means bail me up and let me know what you reckon.
What does the MCA do well? What can it do better? Lowly serf or lofty overlord, I’m interested to hear from you. Maybe we can draw a few diagrams together…
It’s a great pleasure for me to think of you sitting at a desk in an office 9-5. Even with the inverted commas of a residency protecting you from being a real salaryman.
Well, not quite nine to five, as much as I like the Dolly Parton song. It’s nice to be in the office, although we really need a ping pong table to make it a proper creative workplace.