The art of the steal

Go on, admit it. You’ve stolen something from work. Perhaps it was just a pen, or maybe it was a colleague’s umbrella, or that sandwich in the fridge, or even the kitchen sink? Even if you haven’t, you’ve thought about what you could get away with. Artist Victoria Gill has. What people steal while working, and why – greed, opportunity, or plain necessity? – are the questions that led to her upcoming ‘Show of Stolen Goods’ at Filet Space, London.

A few weeks ago, she put out an open call asking anyone to submit an object that they’d stolen from a former workplace. The submitters could remain anonymous, but they had to tell where and when they stole the object. This Thursday and Friday, she’ll be exhibiting these ‘found objects’ within the gallery space. “I’m interested in how many odd jobs we have as artists and how a lot of us pretend to get by fine when we’re skint,” she tells me. “Imagine serving your guests at a dinner party with knives and forks you stole from a work shift. I’m interested in that.”

Gill is informed by her background and experience; she grew up in south Leeds and was the first of her family to go to university. After uni she “ticked all the right boxes”, interning and picking up odd jobs while trying to develop her art practice. While working at a “mainstream fashion mag” she was caught out taking the communal toiletries. She found it especially embarrassing, as she already felt that as a working-class northerner, she didn’t fit in. “That experience kind of stuck with me.” She says. “I hate to disappoint but I’m not a big stealer.” The inspiration for this show came from her time spent working in hospitality. “Those shifts in kitchens or hotels stick with you. Recently I was walking past an empty sink on the street and I thought, ‘haha, I wonder if anyone has ever stolen something as big as a sink from a shift?’ then I knew I had to do the show.”

Gill wants this to be an “honest show”. “What I do want to make clear is that this isn’t a judgement of the most shocking item a person has stolen. I think the mundane items can say the most,” says Gill, whose show includes a desk fan, boxes of gouache and a McDonald’s uniform. She found that a lot of the submissions came from people who have worked “rough jobs, odd jobs, in-between jobs, jobs where you duck or cringe when someone you know comes in and, worst of all, you have to serve them whilst they say ‘ohhh I didn’t know you worked here.’” However, she’s also found people with comfortable, established careers have submitted stolen objects. “Both speak to different things, but are equally interesting to me,” Gill says.

“I remember seeing someone I thought really had their life together plop their bag down and loads of herbal tea bags fell out, which I recognised from the cafeteria downstairs,” Gill says. “Life in London right now isn’t easy and, bloody hell, we know that. We really know that. This cost of living. Why does the tube now cost a tenner a day? But most importantly I think it speaks to our ability to survive and keep going with a little bit of humour.”