Founded in Amsterdam in 1993 The Ministry of Public Works is a collaborative enterprise dedicated to 'facilitate and promote art and visions of a more equitable and alluring society' .1 Currently its personnel consist of artist Gary Carsley, designer Grahame Rowe, and curator Rafael van Uslar. Although based in the Netherlands the Ministry is dedicated to cross cultural interventions including those for the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Arts Festival: Edifying Sappho and Socrates-An Exhibition for an International Gay and Lesbian Monument (1998) , and Casuarina Hunting Lodge (1999).
Cross cultural flexibility and mobility are key features in recent Ministry projects, especially in the Architectural Ready to Wear. For ease of travelling the work arrives in a suitpack and zips together in a trice. 'Ready to travel, ready to zip, Ready to Where'! The slogan is perfect not only for a piece of cultural baggage designed to compliment the most cosmopolitan traveller, but also wise to certain fundamental requirements of the Age: 'In a time where the influence of multinational companies overwhelms the authority of national governments, flexibility and mobility become key terms for the acculturation of the day-Ready to Wear is the ideal companion in this episode of cultural evolution. The next historical reference point is just a zip away, the modern traveller's 'Baulust' gratified, shows the individual as an emancipated participant in charge of his own creativity'.2
An energetic amalgamation of camp and artworld savvy, Ministry projects invite viewers to performancebased opportunities, erecting and deflating the edifices of interpretation. Ghosting the more tangible architecture of Ministry endeavours are Beuys, Fluxus, utopian social protocols for the new society, and the contemporary jetset traveller- arriving somewhat later than the... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline