Patricia Hoffie’s Hi-Vis series began after a trip through several parts of regional Australia, including Townsville, northern New South Wales, Tasmania and the Flinders ranges. As the need for Australian spaces for living increases, the Hi-Vis workers have become part of how we think of place.
The ubiquitous fluorescent and reflective stripe uniforms emerged in Australia in the early nineties, introduced by management as a means of satisfying the growing demand for ensuring workplace health and safety, although many workers considered it as ‘the least effective but cheapest thing any employer can do to minimise risk’.
The rise of Hi-Vis abounds in ironies: the cheap costs of Hi-Vis workwear is only possible because of the low wages required to pay overseas workers to make garments that are dirt-cheap and readily available. Ironically, that imbalance of trade has in turn lead to the diminution of on-shore manufacturing. And in turn, the freeze of goods and services arriving from overseas caused by the COVID
