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Manual Labours, 'The Complaining Body' workshop

Date uploaded: July 10, 2015

In Certain Places will be holding a 2-hour creative workshop for workers who deal with complaints focusing on the experience of receiving, managing and administering of complaints. The workshop will take place on Tuesday the 28th of July from 12 to 2pm at the Media Factory, University of Central Lancashire.

Through a series of active and discussion based exercises, the workshop aims to explore the physical and emotional affects of dealing in complaints to explore the connection to changing work place expectations and understandings of the complaint.

Participants will generate a collective complaint letter, presented at the end of the workshop. This feeds into a two year artistic study with those working in complaints teams across the UK, identifying the shared challenges within this service industry and importantly ways to confront them. This expansive study gathers experiences of complaint working to inform new artworks, a publication and an art exhibition entitled The Complaining Body presented in Preston in Winter 2015.

Reasons to come to the workshops:

  • Time to reflect on your work and working environment
  • Chance to reflect on the physical and bodily affects of your work
  • The opportunity to share knowledge and experiences with co-workers
  • To deepen learning around contemporary work issues and different strategies
  • To contribute to the development of a significant research project that will have its presentation in Preston later this year.

The workshop is linked to a series of workshops held across the UK with those working in the world of complaints and feeds into a long-term art based research project called ‘Manual Labours’ led by Sophie Hope and Jenny Richards. Manual Labours explores the transformation of labour processes through an investigation into physical relationships to work in order to map complex and overlapping experiences of work/life entwinement.

To take part in the workshop, or for more information, please email Elaine Speight: [email protected]

The Complaining Body is developed in partnership with The Showroom, London; In Certain Places, Preston and Movement and Division of Labour, Worcester. Manual Labours is supported by Arts Council England, Grants for the Arts, The Elephant Trust and Birkbeck University Widening Participation.

Manual Labours with Ivor Southwood talking to station staff about what it feels like to receive complaints (April 2015)

Manual Labours with Ivor Southwood talking to station staff about what it feels like to receive complaints (April 2015)