Wasted Labour (2015)
video installation, audio, looping

*** Winner of the Main Prize at the Nottingham Castle Open 2015 ***
Judges: Deb Covell, Rob Dingle, Kerry Harker, and Poppy Woodeson (formerly known as Ben Woodeson)

Wasted Labour examines systems designed to optimise productivity and physical labour of the body. Created in collaboration with artist Dr Martin Lewis, in-residence at Summer Lodge, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK.

Here, the artists use rowing machines as a tool for performing choreographed movements for legs and feet. Their movements are accompanied by a hypnotic soundtrack of the rowing machine moving back and forth, evoking a nostalgic sense of industrial machinery and factory work.

Part of an ongoing series of works in which Ballard & Lewis explore the use of apparatus, designed for leisure and fitness, to reflect upon physical labour and its relationship to the body.