Work Party for Cheats

Work Party for Cheats is a playful communal space for getting the stuff done that we just can’t get done. Each partygoer brings a task that has defeated them.

Over two hours we will endeavour to resolve as many unfinished tasks as we can, using all the skills and energy in the room to swap, steal and cheat our way out of our stuckness. Because doing other people’s work is easier than doing your own work, and collective satisfaction is better than individual smuggery.

To take part, please bring with you an unfinished or unresolved task, along with anything you think might be useful in resolving it. This could be something that you can’t do because you don’t have the skills or don’t have time, or something you are just avoiding because it’s boring or complicated. Feel free to bring something even if you think it’s impossible to be solved by collective cheating.

Photographer: Matt Ogston

Work Party for cheats is hosted by Art Business Ltd’s CEO, Rachael Clerke, assisted by alter- egos Rach (admin support), Ray (logistics) and Roy (unhelpful). It was created in response to overwhelm in the arts, grind culture and the endless to-do list. It’s also a practical response to vapid instagram infographics that tell us that it’s ok to stop, drop everything, go easy on yourself, whilst we live in a world where this is not an option for so many. Sometimes you need to (and even want to) get the things done.

In previous Work Parties, participants have done the following tasks for each other: proofread, written budgets, written to pen pals, finished a painting, made a birthday card, given feedback on a novel, toilet trained a puppy, researched impenetrable jargon, shortlisted applications, come up with fundraising ideas, fixed a website, learned about human skin cells, and much more.

“I want to come back and do it again and again and again” - participant feedback

Photographer: Matt Ogston

Art Business Ltd is an art business, project and performance by the Bristol-based artist [formerly known as Sole Trader] Rachael Clerke. It operates as a translucent container for the back-end of their artistic practice. Rachael makes artworks that sit somewhere on the edge of live art and community infrastructure; playful experiments about what real life might look like if we were less concerned with what real life ‘should’ look like.

These have included: a shop and festival venue for talking about the economy; a performance score for 3-5 year olds to take power over institutional art space; a piece of gig theatre about concrete architecture featuring a drag king punk band; a book of 151 ideas for overthrowing the government; quilts featuring data from the last three general elections; a DIY business selling shares in a communal bicycle; a podcast about private renting.

Rachael is part of Interval, a collective of artists sharing space and resources above St Nicholas market in Bristol.

Photographer: Ruby Turner

Host or Publisher Knowle West Media Centre