Winter Warm-Up

WINTER WARM-UP Events at the Institute

		A total of 13 people joined in Pack-It-Up 08. £133.96 was spent on 27 hours of labour. Adults were paid minimum working rate of £5.52 per hour. Children were only given pocket money (in agreement with their parents/guardians – £1 per hour, with the maximum of £2). Average working shift was 2 hours, with only one person working for only 1 hour and one person persuaded us to work for 7 hours. One person worked 1 hour overtime, and was paid ‘double-time’ for it.Pack-It-Up 08 took place during the last two weekends in January 2008.Each packer and labourer received a form to record their labour.
The Institute Warming, the Institute’s first house party took place on Sunday 2nd March. 17 people attended. £173.22 was spent on extra cutlery, food and drinks. We served a Croatian speciality from Vegetina kuhinja Primosten Chicken dish and some crveni toc pasta for the vegetarians. Red wine and Cains’ Best Bitter – official slosh for Liverpool 08 Capitalism of Culture. All guests were given a tour of the house and introduced to the Institute and its residencies and activities.The Institute got new filing cabinets, books shelves and a carpet – all provided by Freecycle – a web based community that encourages free exchange of unwanted goods. Thank you Becky and Sheila.
Lena and Sid, 7 months already, did a performance Sid Jonah Anderson by Lena Simic in Carlisle on the 14th March as a part of MAP LIVE. This live art event staged the daily labour of mothering and critiqued the impossible expectations placed on the Mother. Whilst The Institute puts the critical within the home this performance takes the home out into the critical.

With the aim of putting capitalism back into culture we sent an email to Banksy with a request to increase the value of our council house property and do some good old fashioned regeneration work here at Bright Street in Everton. We suggested some Capitalism of Culture graffiti. We hope to see his very expensive artwork in our alleyway soon. We thought this might be a timely reminder that culturally led regeneration (aka Capital of Culture) is a dirty trick to bump up the prices of private property. We offered him the minimum wage £5.52 an hour. We’ll keep you posted on developments.

Website is up and running. Thank you to The Very Cooperative
£310 spent.

So far in the early days of February:
44 emails with messages of support and well wishes have been received.
1 gift accepted.
2 text messages.
2 post cards from UK and 2 letters from USA arrived. 1 post card on its way (all the way from New Zealand). Some might be lost at 19 Livingston Court, our previous address. The Institute for the Art and Practice of Dissent at Home now operates from 7 Bright Street in Everton, L6 1DL.