Kay Abude once said that "Doing what you love is a form of survival. And doing what makes you a living is a form of survival".

Hailing from Naarm/ Melbourne and born to a migrant family from the Philippines, Abude has had a long relationship with unpacking the strange conundrums in our relationship to labour, as well as labour’s relationship to art.

Abude, like many artists, has always had an insatiable need to create work, though has been acutely aware that there are not currently financial and cultural infrastructures/resources in place that will allow artists to do this full time. Addressing this, (DON’T) BE AN ARTIST is an evolving series that has encompassed labour intensive techniques such as film, performance, textiles, and screen printing. With a sardonic wit, Abude creates works with a production line like output that speak to the precarious nature of being an artist, and how the community perceives an artist’s value.

Passage is proud to present the latest iteration of the series, where Abude has created a ghostly fashion show in a retail space that cannot be entered. With garments removed from their bodies like workers can be removed from the joys and fruits of their labour, Abude blurs the distinction between art and commerce, between practical labour and joyful labour, between blue collar and white collar, between the idea of repetitive acts as being mundane or being meditative, between an object being made for its own sake or for its purpose to be sold commercially. In this show Abude has fashioned an alternative way of thinking.

"Doing what you love is a form of survival. And doing what makes you a living is a form of survival". When asked to choose between the two, that of being an artist or not, Abude refused to accept those are the only two options, so she simply took what she needed from both.