Category
Film, Installation, performance
About This Project

This performance and accompanying film was made as part of a project called “Making Use”, between the Van Abbe Museum and The Dutch Art Institute. For “Making Use” the museum reversed the roles and asked the Masters students to “use” the museum as the site for a new work, drawing on elements of the institution to inform their practice. Stewart decided to approach this invitation as performance whereby he would become an intern in the museum security. Each day he would come to the museum, with his suit and his lunch box, ready to learn. The result was a three screen installation where Stewart is being interviewed and reveals all the import elements of a mostly overlooked part of the museum. The entire performance was attempted in Dutch,  which at the time this work was made was quite a challenge. Standing shoulder to shoulder with many other security guards who’s mother tong was also not Dutch. The security staff had never had an intern which produced a challenge for the institution to make and find use of the artists presence. After the period of the internship Stewart decided to screen the film using a similar presentation to that of the control room he had worked in  aesthetics of the control room. The intension of the work was to create a disturbance in the hierarchy of the museum. Where people work and fulfil different roes often with little or no understanding. Stewart also wanted to highlight the increase of internships as a method for exploiting young starters in roles of work as unpaid workers.