With Our £2000 Artist Fee We Are Going to COP15

Letter to the vacuum cleaner for What Dif erence Does it Make roundtable discussion on th 27 March 2010 at Stanley Picker Gallery, part of Louder than Bombs: Art, Action and Activism series of residencies and events

(READ OUT LOUD PLEASE – pausing between lines)

James, Hello. How are you? Are there many people there, Listening? What we have to say is for you Really Not for anyone else. But If People are there then we don’t really mind them listening…

We went to COP 15, slow travelled there and back in December – if train and boat can be included in the practice of slow travel. We used the money that we got from the Arnolf ni to buy tickets and spend on food and other costs. It was a £2000 pound artist fee for our participation in PLATFORM’s C Words: Carbon Climate Capital Culture. Since we promised that we’d spend the money on going to COP15 then we thought we’d better make sure we kept that promise.

T e money came, like lots of ‘art’ money does, through the taxpayer, siphoned of through the treasury to the ministry for arts culture and sport to the arts council. T en the Arnolf ni applied to the Arts Council in order to, amongst other things, secure fees for commissioned artists participating on C Words.

We’re not trying to be clever by not appearing in person, but travelling down to the big shitty (that’s what we like to call London) would not help us in our battles to defossilize our economies. We’d quite like to be there with you, the other speakers and the audience (if any turned up) but we felt that sending a package was more appropriate. And also, Sid has chickenpox and Gabriel’s in Wales, on a school trip. In a way we feel that we are probably more ‘present’ in this form that if we had turned up. It’s funny how presence and absence mess each other up sometimes, but let’s focus on the package. T e package is what’s left from our COP15 trip. 52

Please lift the package high above your head (but not directly over your head, arms a little bit in front). You may need someone to hold this piece of paper while you do this so you can read from it. Ask someone from the audience (if there is anyone there) to hold the paper up in front of your face so you can continue to read as you hold the package high in the air.

Do that now. Go on ask someone. Maybe Olivia could do it, but we’ll leave that up to you.

We know how these artist events go, sometimes you fall out with the curator and feel awkward asking them for assistance after you’ve been swearing at them in the morning.

OK. So.

Please tip the contents of the package onto the f oor in front of you.

Sorry we forgot to say that you should go and stand in an empty space.

If you have emptied all of the stuf over some chairs or on a table or something then that’ll just have to do, but ideally we were thinking about an empty f oor.

Nevermind.

Now you have an installation of rubbish. COP15 rubbish. We hope this f ts with the Stanley Picker Gallery aesthetic, not only that, we heard that outsourcing labour – that’s you doing our work for us, James - was ‘in’.

T ere is a used cup, a empty wrapper, a serviette.

James, please name a few more items.

T ere is a comprehensive list of our expenditure for COP15 somewhere in the pile of rubbish. T is outlines how we spent our £2000 artist fee and what rubbish we accumulated as a result of it.

So, this is it, a collection of much of the rubbish that we accumulated on our trip to COP15.

T e f ve of us, without brilliant pre-planning admittedly, found ourselves hungry and thirsty at exactly the wrong times in exactly the wrong places.

Packaging. Packaging. Packaging.

T e smell of diesel in all of it.

T ere’s just one more thing to do before we end.

James, we know you like to clean up after capitalism, we know where your name comes from, the vacuum cleaner, but this time you can clean up and earn a wage.

Out of the £2000 artist fee that we dedicated to the COP15 trip we have £198.11 left.

If you rummage around in the rubbish you will f nd it, in a small white envelope.

T is envelope is lodged inside Little One’s Eco Disposable Nappies plastic bag.

T ere should be about £190 there. Count it out.

We deducted from £198.11 postage and packaging for this rubbish to get to you at the Stanley Picker gallery. T is is for you to use however you see f t. Primarily it is to pay for you to clean up our rubbish after us. But we have no criteria for how you use this money.

Pay your friend’s rent with it or buy yourself a new cardigan or go the pub with the audience afterwards (if any turned up).

Whatever you decide to do we genuinely feel that the best last resting place of the taxpayer funded £2000 artist fee is up your sucker.

Love

T e Institute for the Art and Practice of Dissent at Home.

EXPENDITURE £2000 RUBBISH Harwich - Esbjerg Ferry Return £332.10 £1667.90 A4 receipt Ticket Liverpool - Harwich Train Return £142.80 £1525.10 tickets Ticket 3 croissants Delicie de France @ £4.05 £1521.05 Delicie de France bag + napkins Euston 3 baguettes 2 waters @ Upper Crust£13.97 £1507.08 Upper Crust bags + napkins + 2 bottles of Buxton water Harwich International Terminal Cafe£8.65 £1498.43 3 Ribena juices, straws, plastic, 3 Walkers crisps, 2 polystyrene cups with lids Ferry Food: Dinner and Breakfast £100.80 £1397.63 some food waste + napkins Ulla Present: L’Oreal and Glenlivet £53.15 £1344.48 packaging for makeup and whiskey - to be dealt with by Ulla 3 bottles of wine and bottle opener £43.35 £1301.13 3 bottles, packaging for wine opener, 2 plastic bags from Duty Free Shop

Virgin Mobile Top Up for L&G £20.00 £1281.13

Extra in £ on Carmel’s dog & wine £4.65 £1276.48 M&S Food @ Euston for train £20.90 £1255.58 3 drinks carton, 1 water bottle, 4 journey banana skins + packaging around them, 5 packs of crisps, 3 plastic boxes for ham… Wizz Kidz donation @ Euston £1.00 £1254.58 … 1 plastic box for cheese, 3 plastic small wraps for cheese, chocolate chip cookies wrap, chocolate raisins bag, 2 plastic bags

Two Virgin train teas £3.20 £1251.38 packaging from two teas, 2 cups, 2 paper bags

Taxi home £5 £1246.38 3 LFC scarfs - present for Ulla and £17.97 £1228.41 kidz postage includng envelope £5.59 £1222.82 Cash Book £0.65 £1222.17

Esbjerg - Copenhagen Train DKK 608 train tickets 4 hot dogs and waters DKK 124 hot dog tissue/bags 4 plastic bottles, 1 given back to the shop for DKK 1 chocolates DKK 51 chocolate wrappers crisps and teas on train DKK 72 crisps packets, 2 teacups, 2 bags of tea, more napkins which are used as tissues bus tickets in Copenhagen DKK 42 bus tickets 2 pints and 3 juices near Ulla’s DKK 140 3 bottles from juice but café will deal with it 8 beers and 5 juices from shop DKK 195 8 cans of beer + 5 bottles of juice- will be recycled, says Ulla

3 sweatshirts Climate Justice DKK 600 pastries near Christiania DKK 106 2 bags+ napkins from pastries Nemoland café food, juices and teas DKK 100 2 plastic cups + 2 wooden sticks bus tickets in Copenhagen DKK 42 bus tickets butchers - mince beef for Shep Pie DKK 62 packaging from food shopping, from meat, carrots… corner shop veg + stuf for Shep Pie DKK 176 ... tomatoes, peas, potatoes, peppers, cheese

corner shop veg + stuf for Shep Pie DKK 151

wine and cheese DKK 200 1 wine box metro ticket for 10 rides DKK 130 1 metro ticket for 10 rides pizzeria near Reclaim Power march DKK 255 6 plastic cups, 2 pizza boxes, 1 plastic bag, 1 bottle of lemonade, napkins

given to Ulla for hot chocolate DKK 100 butchers - leg of lamb, Louise dinnerDKK 237 meat packaging - some paper rosemary DKK 40 potatoes and parsnip DKK 30 veg packaging given to Ulla for beef soup-dinner DKK 500 club ice skating DKK 115 muf ns, cof ees, hot juices DKK 155 stuf around muf n, juice bottles that café deals with 4 falafels + lemonades DKK 200 foil in which falafels were wrapped, one plastic bag, lots of napkins, 4 cans wine and beer DKK 250 cans of beer - not sure how many, lots; box of wine

Copenhagen - Esbjerg train DKK 775 bowling next to Klima Forum DKK 175 sandwiches at Klima Forum DKK 100 4 sandwich wrappers teas and juices at Klima Forum DKK 55 3 plastic cups, 2 teabags, 2 paper cups, 1 wooden stick cakes at Klima Forum DKK 60 2 paper plates, 4 serviettes for cakes bread at Netto DKK 33 2 bags of bread packaging, also eggs cartoon

tooth fairy DKK 50

food for train journey DKK 227 5 banana skins, 1 plastic bag, packages from 4 sandwiches, 4 plastic bottles from apple juices one cup of tea on train DKK 18 1 paper cup toilet on Esbjerg train station DKK 2 Carmel’s present: beer, sausage, DKK 300 1 plastic bag chocolate hearts at Esbjerg market Carmel’s present: dog + wine on ferryDKK 450 3 bottles of wine dinner on ferry DKK 796 minimal food waste, 2 toothpicks breakfast on ferry DKK 327 some blue napkins

DKK 8049 £ 974.06 £248.11

Art not Oil Diaries £50.00 £198.11 £198.11 is the left over money that we are sending to vacuum cleaner in Stanley Picker gallery in a package. We will deduct p&p expenses. recipts in general 26 nappies out of which 14 were soiled 45 wipes, two of which were randomly used, one was blooded 1 nappy bag 8 cosmetic pads Klima forum magazine packaging from Ali Kazam and 2 Jack the Pirate costumes