“Union” explored ideas of physical and emotional labor, collaboration, and value. The project consisted of five parts and encompassed print, live performance, and performance-for-camera.

The central materials of the work were the bodies of the artists and coal. As a material, coal has been used—literally and figuratively—to both build and destroy systems of power and wealth, communities, and bodies. Coal is bound with contradictions. As a carbon entity, it can be ignited to generate heat and electrical power, sustaining and enriching life, while simultaneously contributing to the irrevocable chaos of climate change. It is alchemical—it can be transformed into gold. It is mined and used to line the pockets of industrialists and governments, while becoming an emblem of working class failure. Thriving towns and physical communities were constructed around the industries which mined and processed coal, only to be decimated by their collapse. Bodies, built and fed on mining, slowly asphyxiated on its wages of dust. Drawing on these ideas and concerns, and their own family histories as coal miners and industrial workers, Richard Hancock and Traci Kelly undertook a labor of images—a series of physical and emotional tasks mined from a poetic exploration of the body and a cellular reaction to all that burns.

“Part II: Affective Labour” was a durational, three-day, live performance that began with the bodies of Richard Hancock and Traci Kelly lying prone on the floor, one buried within 1000kg of coal. As a metronome kept time, the audience shifted the coal, piece by piece, from one body to the other. Their labor was complicit in the emancipation of one body, at the cost of the other; a testament to all that has been rescued and all that has been sealed and lost.

“Part III: A Labour of Images” was a series of choreographed actions and tasks enacted over three repeated cycles—mirroring the days, afters, and nights shifts of coal workers. The performance dealt with the materialities of coal, its derivative forms, damaged bodies, and hard labour.

“Part IV: The Gilded Cage” began as Traci Kelly held the weight of Richard Hancock across her back. At the point of failure, a third performer began the task of completely sealing the entwined bodies in gold leaf. Recording the passing from one form to another, this piece marked a reminder of what is surrendered in order to thrive.