WORK FOR WORK

EUROPA
18.11.2009
Talk
·
Dear Europa,

Hope you're well. My name is Pedro and I'm a first year CA&D student at the RCA. We were just given our briefs and I've decided to do the 'Design Without Labels' elective, for which the theme is 'WEALTH'. Some of the things we discussed reminded me of your Work for Work project, and I thought it would be really nice for us to get involved. Maybe you could spare a few hours to tell us about Work for Work and setting up a studio post-RCA (or whatever else you think could be productive - all suggestions from your part are of course welcome) and we would be happy to return the favour by doing something else. If you're up for it, I can get in touch with everyone who's doing the elective - there's just under 20 of us I think, but I don't think everyone will want/be able to work for work. I guess that's it...if I was unclear about something or you have any questions, please just let me know!

look forward to hearing from you,

Pedro

This is a sketch of the debate that followed the talk, drawn by Yann.

PEDRO CID PROENÇA, AFONSO DUARTE, MAËL FOURNIE-COMTE AND SAMUEL BONNET
21.01.2010
Dealing
·
In collaboration with Ryan Gander we held a card tournament the the Lisson Gallery to mark the launch of our new (inverted) edition of our Parallel Cards. Pedro, Afonso, Mael and Samuel helped with dealing the cards on the night. Here they are.

They've also started a very interesting project that you can find here: Parallel School

While we were waiting for something that we needed their labour for Sophie, Pedro, Afonso and Maël sent us this voucher.

MATT BARTON
2009
Architectural Plans
·
Matt designed a single storey extension for a house in Amman, Jordan. The apartment was for Emad Sleiby's brother. These are his pictures of it being built.

EMAD SLEIBY
2009
Language Lessons
·
Emad gave Matt Arabic lessons in return. Here's a piece of writing that Matt has done in Arabic. It's called 'A problem of decent' transliterated as 'mushkilet il usl il irkey'.

EUROPA
20.9.2009
Postcard
·
Markus Bergström, Simon Jones and Joe Nunn asked us to help announce their studio under the name General Woodwork. This is the workshop that they share.

We designed this postcard for them. (They've since changed the name of the studio to Glass Hill making the card somewhat redundant.)

GLASS HILL
...
Stools
·
We've been promised that in return for the postcard design Glass Hill will spend the labour making stool for us. They'll look somewhat similar to this.

RUBEN BRUNELOT
3.2009
Lightbox
·
Alexandre asked his flatmate Ruben to build a light box.

ALEXANDRE VIAULT
Future
Wall drawing
·
Ruben's and Alexandre's flat was missing some decoration on the walls; and since an apartment is never big enough, they decided to extend the perspectives of one room, to create both a bigger space and a new room according to Ruben's point of view (he is taller than Alexandre). One point of view is from the kitchen (Ruben loves to cook) and the other one from Ruben's desk.

SARA KAAMAN
11.2.2009
Exhibition
·
Sara's classmates from Konstfack in Stockholm were coming to Amsterdam on a school trip. Since several of the large museums and galleries were temporarily closed during the time they were coming, Sara set up an exhibition at the Rietveld Academie for them. Using printed matter of all sorts collected during her 5 month stay in Amsterdam, it displayed different graphic designs as well as filtering some of her thoughts about their field of work through the material.

STUDENTS FROM KONSTFACK IN STOCKHOLM
14.2.2009
Surprise birthday party
·
Sara's class threw her a surprise birthday party/goodbye party in their hotel room, with food, cake and beautiful gifts such as three collectively drawn portraits of Sara, and a set of mini-zines.

RAMAYA TEGEGNE
3.2009
A publication about titles in art
·
Alusia asked Ramaya to help her finding titles for her work as an artist. Ramaya made a little publication that gives a quick historic overview of the different way artists dealt with giving titles to their work.

ALUSIA SLOWINSKI
7.2009
Release party for Abia magazine
·
Ramaya is making a pocket magazine called Abia. She asked Alusia to design the release party for the next issue.

OSKAR SVENSSON
16.3.2009
Poster
·
Oskar made a poster for the writer/copy writer Anton Wigbrand, reintroducing forgotten punctuation characters that were intended to enrich written language but never gained broad recognition.

ANTON WIGBRAND
23.3.2009
Text
·
Anton wrote a text about the visual aspect of written language. It could be a starting point for further collaborations evolving the subject of language and the visual rendering of the written word.

MICHAEL N. EVENSEN
15.2.2009–15.3.2009
Acting and screen tests
·
Jørgen W. Bull was in the process of casting actors for his short film when first Michael proposed to help him in a graphical manner (typography, posters etc.). Jørgen requested that he was more interested in Michael helping him try to grasp what he wanted from an actor in his film. Michael helped him try out different aspects of the role, by performing various screen-tests and acting out different scenarios from the script. The finished result are two booklets, one containing the actual script (both in its original form, Norwegian, and also translated to English) and another booklet containing the dialogue we had regarding the different screen tests.

JØRGEN W. BULL
Future
Expertise in photography
·
In return Jørgen offered his expertise in photography and film and they agreed that he would return the favour once shooting was over. Michael then further suggested that he would like to use Jørgen's skills to take proper images of my previous and current printed matter to eventually update and sustain a future portfolio.

LINDA BEUMER
2.2009
Website
·
Linda was asked by Daniel Mullen, student at the fine arts department, to make a website for his artwork. He wanted a simple website with the possibility to print his work as a small catalogue.

3.2009
Postcards for stimulance
After finishing her education for being a chocolatier Gertie has plans for opening a chocolate shop, but came across a lot of obstacles. Linda made and sent her 10 postcards, 1 each day. The postcards contained options for possible locations of her shop and possible brand names.

2.2009
Sweater bed blanket
·
When Charlotte's boyfriend was going on an exchange course for 6 months she asked Linda to make something special to remind her of her boyfriend in return. It became a large bed spread made of his sweaters.

DANIEL MULLEN
2.2009
Painting
·
In return for the website Daniel made a painting for Linda.

NADINE WATSON
2.2009
Photographic archive
·
For Daniels website Linda needed good pictures of his artwork, Nadine had an afternoon photo session with Daniel to archive all his work.

KEVIN DE HAAS
19.2.2009
Photoshop course
·
In return for the photographic archive Nadine asked for a small Photoshop course to give some tricks on how to apply image treatment on her photo' s for her upcoming exhibition. Linda asked Kevin to do this because of his big knowledge of Photoshop.

GERTIE BEUMER
9.3.2009
Box of chocolate
·
Gertie made a box of chocolates for Kevin, because he gave the Photoshop course to Nadine.

CHARLOTTE JANSEN
21.2.2009
Artist biography
·
As a journalism student and a good writer Charlotte was asked to re-write the Biography of Daniel Mullen, so that could be used for his website and in his further career.

JOHANN TANGYONG
30.1.2009
Invitation
·
Johann worked to make invitations for an installation that was made for the Open Day at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie. Since the installation dealt with time, a decision was made to work directly in the room where the installation took place and an invitation was produced on the spot every 30 minutes during 8 hours duration of the project, which contains an image and a description of what was happening at that very moment. The invitations were then directly printed, copied, distributed and hung at a special place during the Open Day at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie.

JONATHAN SACHSE-MIKKELSEN AND ROBERT PETERSEN

···

MEREL SCHENK
2009
Book
·
Eke Evi is a DJ and plays in different clubs in Amsterdam. She just started a year ago, so she needed a cover for her mixtape. Because she mixes old records found at second hand stores with new house music, she wanted that to be shown on the cover. After a few talks Merel found out that it was more important for Eke to find out with what kind of material she is exactly working with, especially because she is new to the business. So Merel decided to make her a book with an image based analysis of her music material, which could later on be used as a 'kit' for covers or other promotional material.

EKE EVI
2009
Bike
·
Merel's bike broke in two parts and she needed a new one. Eke offered to find a new bike for her and spray painted it in a colour of Merel's choice.

JUSTIN APPERLEY
3.6.2008–19.2.2009
T-shirt
·
Justin was asked to help out the Canadian Indie-Rock band Ruby Coast by designing band T-shirts before their tour through the United States with Tokyo Police Club, Ra Ra Riot and Harlem Shakes. Unfortunately, all of the prototypes were turned down, so Justin went ahead with one design and silkscreened a 'limited edition' T-shirt series along with a book documenting the denial and consecutive letdowns.

RUBY COAST

···
QUOTE: January 28, 2009: 'Turns out that the guys weren't digging the style'

An agreement was previously arranged for Ruby Coast to mail various memories & objects from each concert in the States to Justin in Amsterdam. Unfortunately, nothing was sent, adding to the continuous set of denial.

LUCA MÜLLER
16.2.2009
Laptop table
·
Jonas needed a table to improve his position whilst working at the laptop. Result is a foldable table, practical for transport, made by Luca Müller.

16.2.2009
Gallery space
·
The film maker Valeria Stucki needed a space for the casting of her next movie, The retards. Sandino and Luca agreed to provide an empty room at the Neue Galerie for her to use during 2 days.

VALERIA STUCKI
21.02.2009
Event report
·
Valeria attended and documented an event to make it experiencable for an absent person (Jonas). In this case the state championship of air guitar in Fribourg, Switzerland. Result is a short movie, subtitled in english.

FRANZISKA SCHEIDEGGER
19.2.2009
Photographic archive
·
The Neue Galerie needed someone to take pictures of the artwork by Orlando Guier and archiving them for the website or future publications. The Photographer Franziska Scheidegger agreed to do so during one afternoon.

JONAS WANDELER
2.2009
Invitation card
·
Jonas was asked by Luca Müller and Sandino Scheidegger (the curators of the Neue Galerie) to make an invitation card and work listing for the exhibition of Orlando Guier (from Costa Rica). It is an abstracted type, separating the horizontals and verticals using masking tape.

2.2009
Movie poster
·
Jonas made a foldable movie poster/DVD cover for Die Zurückgebliebenen (The retards), the next movie by Valeria Stucki. The movie deals with atomic pollution of the ground around the village Kerzers, in a rural area of Switzerland. Silk screen templates made out of symmetrical papercuts, a traditional Swiss handcraft.

3.2009
Stationery
·
In return for the photographic archive Jonas made Franziska stationery, using coloured paper and a punched hole (inspired by the camera obscura) rather than a logo as an identity.

JASPER VAN DE KERKE
1.2.2009
Book
·
Jasper decided to do the project with his grandmother who had recently moved to an elderly home and could use some occupation and mind stimulation. She was struggling with Alzheimer's disease, so Jasper wanted to make something that was useful to her: a memory aid to remember the names of all the family members, which she had started to confuse. Jasper went to visit her and discussed the project and his ideas. They also talked about the pictures hanging on the wall. Jasper realised that older memories were stronger and that the more recent ones were fading. This is why he decided to represent all family members at a young age in a book.

AGATHA MARIA BONNET
The last 24 years
A wide range of gifts, attention and love
·
Her part of the project had been done over the last 24 years of Jasper's life, it was more about giving something back.

STUDENTS OF THE ESTONIAN ACADEMY OF ARTS
2.2009
Printed matter
·
Elisabeth was organizing a small bookshop with a friend in Tallinn and asked the students of the Estonian Academy of Arts graphic design department to make small editions of their best work to display and sell at the event.

ELISABETH KLEMENT
3.2009
One reader and seven sets of notebooks
·
In return for the Estonian students who are always curious to know what happens at the Rietveld Academy, Elisabeth compiled a reader containing five texts that were important for her work. This single copy of the reader was intended to be shared amongst them, and in addition each person received a set of five notebooks. They are paraphrased into questions and printed in white ink on the covers of the notebooks.

ISAAC
28.1.2009
Typography
·
Isaac, a young child, wrote the sentence 'Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine' in his own handwriting on a A3 sheet of paper.

HANNE LIPPARD
18.2.2009
Poetry
·
'I find the internet interesting, and so is the future' by Hanne Lippard.

JONAS SÆTERVIK
5.2.2009
Coloring book
·
Caught up in the idea of a non capitalistic system and trade of services Jonas Sætervik ended up doing several swaps of labour. 'Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine' is a quote taken from the bible implying that things should not be put in front of people who don't appreciate their value.

In exchange Jonas Sætervik made a 12 paged illustrated colouring book.

12.2.2009
T-shirt
·
Jonas made a t-shirt to trade words with Hanne Lippard. Silk screened, typography by Isaac.

ANNI JASMIN
17.1.2009
Theoretical texts
·
Brit often reads texts that refer to authors who refer to authors that she has heard of, but never read. She asked Anni (she studies cultural theories) to put together a beginner's package with theoretical/philosophical texts that she has gathered throughout her studies.

BRIT PAVELSON
3.4.2009
Imagery
·
Anni told Brit how much she appreciates her studies, but misses more creative activities. Brit decided to inspire her with visual material that cross her mind while reading one of the texts Anni sent. The images with Brit's remarks are inserted in the original text. In the end it is all bound into one book.

ANNA HENNERDAL
Spring 2009
Booklet
·
Anna created a guide to the city of Amsterdam for Lisa who had just recently moved here. Realising that in order to really know a city you have to get to know its background, Anna used an old book about the city, its history and people. She updated it by overprinting the existing imagery with photographs she took of the same places as they look today. It would give a more complete picture of the city.

LISA NYMAN
13.3.2009
Apartment
·
Lisa took on the task of finding a legal, affordable apartment for the two of them, and found one!

ANGELIQUE WILMS
2.2009
Wall decoration
·
Wouter moved into his apartment about a year ago and it still had a lot of empty walls which is why he asked Angelique to come up with a solution to fill it. Angelique painted the wall with magnetic paint and cut out magnetic shapes that work for composing letters and/or structures. The wall is interactive since Wouter or his guests can change it whenever they feel like it.

WOUTER LEDUC
2.2009
Move
·
Angelique was moving into a new apartment so Wouter helped her move all her stuff.

SIMON JONES
12.2007
Table
·
James has just moved into a new studio. He asked Simon to make him a desk to work at.

JAMES PAYNE

···
James made the first voucher we've seen that was not designed by us. When we saw it we were really pleased that a Work for Work agreement had been initiated and was evidently useful for others.

EUROPA

···

KNOWLEDGE BANK
1.2008
Teaching and publication
·
Matt and Frank teach architecture at London Met University. They approached us because they wanted to broaden their students understanding of graphic design and the importance it has when it comes to communicating their ideas and work. We worked with the students to produce this publication in an edition of 50.

DAVID HOCKNEY
5.2007
Talk
·
We had read that David Hockney regretted that he had not done much teaching, so we invited him to come and do a workshop in the Hockney Gallery at the RCA. We also wanted to show the Hockney paintings that the college owns in this space so that all the students can see them. At first he did not get back to us, but then he invited us to come and see his 'Big Trees by Warter' at the Royal Academy, and the reproduction in his studio.

EUROPA
6.2007
Talk
·
We showed David Hockney around our summer show and talked about our work.

BILL DRUMMOND
23.5.2007
The 17
·
With 13 other students we formed 'The 17', Bill Drummond's choir. The sounds and images of 'The 17' are not recorded. See the17.org for more information.

EUROPA
7.2007
Critique
·
Bill Drummond asked us to write a critique of his book '17', which he then included in the final copy.

JAMES GOGGIN
17.1.2007
Work in Progress Workshop 7
·
We started the day by watching DESIGN Q & A with Charles Eames and Madame L’Amic, this led to a discussion about working within graphic design. James based the rest of the workshop around the fact that it was the last in the series. In the afternoon we planned and started making a publication that documented the series of workshops.

EUROPA

···

RYAN GANDER
16.1.2007
Work in Progress Workshop 6
·
Ryan got us to write each others obituaries. It is easier to use humour, flattery, or have an idea about why someone might fake their own death than actually commit to a more honest description of what someone might achieve in their lives. Later we tackled the task of imagining games that could be played with the double-sided cards until our heads hurt.

EUROPA
26.1.2007–8.3.2007
Parallel cards
·
Ryan Gander asked us to design a pack of double fronted playing cards. They were to be made for his solo exhibition ‘Short cut through the trees’ at the MUMOK in Vienna.

PATRICK LACEY & BENJAMIN REICHEN, ÅBÄKE
15.1.2007
Work in Progress Workshop 5
·
We see Kajsa and Maki on a regular basis at the RCA but we rarely meet the other half of Åbäke, so we decided to invite Benjamin and Patrick to do a workshop. With them we offered free guiding to the visitors of our Work in Progress exibition. The number of visitors was not great on that day so we decided to make a small A-Z guide to the exhibition. We printed and distributed it in the show for the rest of the week.

EUROPA
27.4.2007 & 9.5.2007
Typeface and table
·
We digitised a typeface drawn by Lyndhurst and Saint Gabriels' primary schools children as part of a Åbäke workshop. The workshop was part of the Dyslexia programme at the Serpentine gallery. We also made a coffee table book which was both a book and a table. It commemorated the 40th anniversary of the annual O2 magazine and was composed of all 40 issues.

FINN WILLIAMS
14.1.2007
Work in Progress Workshop 4
·
Finn set up a ‘Workout Workshop’ for making scale models of monumental architecture. We listened to 90s dance music as we worked. Every three songs we would move from one material to another, leaving the model we had been working on behind and picking up where someone else had left off. We found that scale, narrative, individuality and being placed on a plinth, can all add to an object’s monumentality. Sometimes no matter how hard you try it is impossible to create a monument and at other times monuments seem to occur almost unintentionally.

EUROPA
10.5.2007
Unmortgage Centre sign
·
Finn got us to design a sign for his fictional unmortgage/bingo company.

8.8.2007
Place faking leaflet
·
Finn William’s work is about faking history and creating fictional heritages for new developments. He asked us to design a publication for his exhibition at the New London Architecture, and we created this leaflet that pretends to be part of a bigger history or context by pretending to be a section of a larger book, starting on page 97. We designed this along with exhibition graphics in the front window and interior space.

ALEXANDRE BETTLER
13.1.2007
Work in Progress Workshop 3
·
We made special rolls that we placed in pairs in the oven so that they would grow into each other as they cooked. They were each to be shared between two people by breaking them back into two pieces. We made paper in a similar fashion. By keeping two different colours of paper pulp separate until they were on the screen, we made a larger sheet of paper that was half pink and half grey. Towards the end of the day we tried to make friends in the gallery by offering the few visitors the freshly baked bread.

EUROPA
24.1.2007
Removals
·
We helped Alex move a proofing press into his studio.

MARTINO GAMPER
11.1.2007
Work in Progress Workshop 2
·
The food in our college canteen is not great so Martino spent the morning with us looking at alternative places to eat in the local area. We turned the information we collected into a ‘Menu of Menus’, to be distributed to fellow students in the canteen. After we chose a recipe from the ‘Cookbook for the Working Classes’ and we prepared it live for the hungry people at the opening.

EUROPA
2.3.2007
Allotment poster
·
Poster for an experimental restaurant that evolved its menu and interior design in 3 stages. Our design for a promotional poster was overprinted and updated in 3 stages to reflect this. The restaurant was run by Martino Gamper and students on the Design Products MA at the RCA.

MARKUS BERGSTRÖM & KARIN PETERSON
8.1.2007
Work in Progress Workshop 1
·
We intentionally invited Markus to do the first workshop. He is good at building rough yet sensitive products, often in wood. We needed temporary furniture for the rest of the workshops and thought he would be the right man for the job. Karin helped us make fashionable aprons and keep up the spirit in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

EUROPA
19.9.2007
Workwear Label
·
Karin and Markus asked us to design a label for their gradual workwear project. This was part of the exhibition 'Gradual' in which they set up a little station for publically developing workwear.

ABOUT
The principle of Work for Work is that person A works for person B for an agreed amount of time, and in doing so they agree that person B will repay person A with their time. This exchange of labour allows each party to experience how the other works first hand, giving both a strong understanding of the other’s practice. We are keen to build relationships where we can continue to explore this method for working and exchanging with people, and would encourage others to do the same.

This website documents Work for Work exchanges that have taken place not only between us and a second party but also exchanges that have taken place between two parties independent to us. It's not that an exchange of favours constitutes something new, no doubt we have all exchanged favours with other people, however we have found that the up front nature of the Work for Work agreement is a way of formalising this exchange economy, making it clearer for both sides.

If you would like to send us documentation of a Work for Work exchanges we would be happy to add them to the site. We are also keen to add images of any Work for Work vouchers that people make for each other. If you would like to propose an idea for Work for Work with us, please send an e-mail to:

work@workforwork.org

WORKSHOPS
The Work for Work project began when we organised a series of workshops during our Work in Progress Show at the Royal College of Art in January 2007. We asked the participants to run one day workshops in the exhibition space.

A PROJECT BY:
Mia Frostner
Robert Sollis
Paul Tisdell
Rasmus Troelsen
(
=Europa
)

GERRIT RIETVELD AND WORK FOR WORK
In January 2009 Julia Born set her students at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie the task of instigating a Work for Work exchange. The graphic designers had four weeks to complete the contract. The results are documented with the other exchanges above.

The framework of Work for Work seems to pose useful questions to students at this level. It asks them to take a decision on who they are interested in working for and how to translate their knowledge and approach to create something useful for this person. It requires a curiousity for working with people, encouraging the student to look beyond the frame of their educational institution. The project opens a dialogue about what they want to get from an exchange and what they can offer in return, both in terms of the product and the exerience. We welcome any other tutors to use the Work for Work framework. Please let us know if you do.

MISCELLANEOUS 1
Stravinsky was living in America and having work done on his home. The carpenter that was working for him asked not to be paid with money but to be paid in the form of a musical composition. Stravinsky agreed to his request and the lullaby that is playing was the result.

Igor Stravinsky — Lullaby for 2 recorders (1951) Performed by Amy Whittlesea and Olwen Fisher

MISCELLANEOUS 2
Josiah Warren opened the Cincinnati Time Store in 1827. Customers to the store could exchange work using labour notes like the one seen below. The store was open for three years when Warren left to set up communities based on his principles of labour exchange. Josiah Warren explains his ideas in his book Equitable Commerce.

MISCELLANEOUS 3 (A VALUE DISTORTION)
Apparently, while dining in a cafe, Pablo Picasso offered to pay his bill by doodling on a napkin. When the owner complained that the Spanish master had not signed his sketch, Picasso responded that he only wanted to pay for his meal, not buy the whole restaurant.

MISCELLANEOUS 4
We were invited to talk about Work for Work at the Architecture Association. They have posted a recording of the debate here. It was especially good to talk about Work for Work following a presentation by Sara De Bondt on a book swap fair that she had organised called Barterama. The Work for Work bit starts half way in.

MISCELLANEOUS 5
To read more about exchange we can not recommend any book more highly than Volume One of Capital by Karl Marx. The book is a critical analysis of capitalism. This first volume was originally published in 1867.

To accompany Capital there is a good series of supporting lectures by David Harvey, they can be viewed online and are called Reading Capital. In these lectures David Harvey unpicks some of the important concepts and draws useful connections to how we've seen capitalism play out over the last century.

MISCELLANEOUS 6
Here is a project that has recently been set up locally to us called The Timber Wharf Time Bank. They have created a credit system to enable people to exchange their time and skills. The Timber Wharf Time Bank is focused on strengthening relationships in the local community.