dreamWorkers
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RehabCare Bruach, Cork
Site-specific installation, colour digital photography and text
2009

dreamWorkers project investigates the subject of work occupation within the context of a disability social and healthcare institution. A central question investigates the potential and possibility to create ones own vision and dream occupation.

The project began shortly after the closure of the last Sheltered Workshops in December 2008, an occupational service in RehabCare centers in Ireland and Europe. Based in The Guesthouse, the project took the form of a research group with service users from RehabCare Bruach in Cork. Using a research-based process, current affairs themes around the labour market, access to employment for people with disabilities and media representation were investigated.

An exhibit manifestation of the project was a site-specific photography and text installation in RehabCare Bruach resource centre. The installation functioned to open a new space within the institution to imagine oneself and others differently. On one wall, a series of portraits of service users and staff in RehabCare holding a handwritten sign proclaiming their dream occupation. The usage of the 'handwritten sign' references Gillian Wearing's work Signs that Say What You Want Them To Say and Not Signs that Say What Someone Else Wants You To Say. In this context the sign is used as a strategy to address institutional identities of individuals differentiated by the roles of service providers and service users. On the adjacent wall, the complete text of the International Standard Classification of Occupations. The ISCO text functions as a point of reference of occupational classification. It stands as a counterpoint to re-imagine and recreate oneself outside of an institutionalised identity and classified role.

For information on a previous project based around Sheltered Workshops in RehabCare visit Training to be a Service User made in 2003-04.

In association with RehabCare Bruach and The Guesthouse, Cork.
Project funded by the Arts Council Artist in the Community Scheme, managed by CREATE.


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