The Do Nothing Club (Alessio Mazzaro & Fiona Winning)

Imagine doing nothing as a challenge to capitalism. Doing nothing as a heroic act of transgression. When is the moment to do something, to rise up, and when should we do nothing? To do nothing is provocative and raises ethical issues: how does one justify doing nothing when the economic model and education system demand hyper-productivity and multi-tasking, encouraging unsustainable levels of production.

Alessio Mazzaro and Fiona Winning developed The Do Nothing Club in August 2016 for the Supernormal Festival in Oxfordshire, and has since been presented at Spike Island in Bristol, and at StudioRCA in London. It is designed as a transient space for doing nothing. Mazzaro and Winning are now looking to the next phase of the project, and invite anyone with an interest in doing nothing to a Study Room Gathering on the project and its themes.

How do we perform doing nothing? How can we create the conditions for others to do nothing? Is doing nothing a personal or a collective experience? Do we need permission?  The Do Nothing Club is a constructed situation and transient space where we do time differently.

Starting from the political and performative implications of the project, this Study Room Gathering asks how we might document a practice that takes care of people, how we might keep the club alive after each performance, and how we might form a community of people who wish to do nothing. How do we develop these ideas in a sustainable way?

Learn more about the Do Nothing Club.