Robyn Walton

I Lean You My Support

Java Bentley / Kirsty McNeil / Robyn Walton

RM Gallery, July 24 - August 10, 2019

The daily commute to the ‘9 to 5’ is a ceaseless operation that afflicts many. In every business environment, employees are set daily tasks to be completed, resulting in efficient organisation. 

I Lean You My Support, by artists’ Java Bentley, Kirsty McNeil and Robyn Walton, considers work to be synonymous with job and occupation, they respond to the networks we join and the outcomes we make in these networks. Can we relate the collaborative artistic labour functions to the more structured environments of the office? The efforts of achieving goals and fair teamwork within a business are comparative modes used by the artists in this exhibition by creating and communicating as a collective. 

The quality of being a team player is sought after when it comes to bringing together people under one business unit. Of course acting upon this quality is nothing new and not limited to business. It is cheered for on the sports field, encouraged in the classroom. In the everyday we as social creatures encounter and explore necessary communication. A mentality of kinship is key to work operations for productivity to be met. At the same time, the feeling of support is crucially important and cannot be overlooked. So what does it mean to work together and get the job done? It is the combined efforts of the cohort. The exhibition frames the sculptural forms in the space. Objects obstruct the floor and bring us into the artists conversation, placement lets the viewer consider relationships and what they say to each other. Problem-solving is another key quality that pairs itself to team work as not everything can (or should) be completed alone - sometimes it takes a different pair of eyes to see a solution. An opportunity for dialogue, a fair space to share ideas is the desired work place. 

There is always a lot to do when it comes to working towards an outcome. A weekly routine can have us repeating the same small tasks over and over. New information, unforeseen circumstances, juggling multiple tasks at once causing you to check your work email at home. Caught in the trap of business hours divided by required meetings. It can make one consider is it really necessary for everything to be so connected to a time stamp? We are distracted so often by external life such as the checking of your social media, office banter, IT conundrums, required contractual breaks, closing time. Is there a balance to this? Or are we just caught in an inevitable action of recompleting the same task, just a different day? There should be a fairness that all tasks ahead of an individual (group of employees) can be met. 

To complete with satisfaction. It is one thing for something to finish, with a bang and suddenly the final hour hits and an email must be sent. Time is an overbearing constant with the modern world, actionable processes should always be considered against the functioning reality of the workforce. The conceptualised ideal employee for management must negotiate the space between the imagined and written employee criteria to the human worker that is offering their time. The machine carries the current state of the world in its data holding, sharing capacities. 

But how do we finish? Is the strike of the clock really enough for us to get up and walk away at the end of the day. Together. 

- Brook Konia