"From art into life and life into art, I seek to explore the peripheries of both worlds. Using a mixture of video, performance, text and events, I am interested in questioning our perception of the role of the artist. I am interested in everything that is not art; but I do not seek to abolish art or quit my role. I make objects and carry out actions to be shown and framed as art, but part of my practice involves operating in a stealth mode where I am involved in non-art activities yet am thinking about them as art. My day jobs have increasingly become a focus for my practice and I have relished jobs that are as far away from art as possible, seeing these as a kind of release or therapy after a six-year period of art school education. Fishmonger, door-to-door salesman, pharmacy assistant and call-centre operator are just some of the roles I have explored. I am now at the point where I have begun to prove that my employment can be my practice. The incredible potential of applying this strategy to the whole of society is what feeds my fantasies. The issues of who should have access to art and whether art still holds its privileged status continue to provide me with an arena within which to play as an artist. The rest of the world gives me a space in which to play as a non-artist."

Sam Curtis

Harrods Fish Counter, 2008, 5 mn 24

"Whilst studying for my MFA at Goldsmiths College in London, I took a job as a fishmonger in Harrods department store as way to earn my living and pay for my materials. Over the two years I spent working there I learnt a range of skills from my colleagues including the art of fish display. This work documents how creative processes and autonomy can exist within retail employment."

Sam Curtis

IKEA, 2008, 3 mn 17

"In a large IKEA store we follow the experiences of either an employee with delusions of being an artist or an artist-inresidence whose status is unknown and who is being treated as a member of staff. Can artistic practice continue within an unrelated day job? What happens when the two merge? With so many art graduates unable to find a job in anything artrelated, more must turn to alternative sub-careers in order to fund their practice."

Sam Curtis